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Scott Mescudi, known as rapper Kid Cudi, who had a brief relationship with singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura in 2011, is slated to testify on Thursday in the the federal racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Combs, 55, faces charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He was arrested in September, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
On Thursday morning, lawyers for Combs and the government debated about what Mescudi could testify about, including his dog’s behavior after a 2011 break-in at his home.
Mescudi is expected to testify about how his home was burglarized and his car was set on fire around the time Combs learned he was dating Ventura.
The judge joked about whether Mescudi would testify on what his dog “thought”, prompting the prosecutor to clarify that Mescudi isn’t a “dog psychic” but will testify that the dog became more scared after the burglary incident.
Combs’s attorney argued that too much testimony suggesting the dog was traumatized could prejudice the jury.
The judge will allow testimony about the dog’s behavior in the immediate time period after the break-in.
Before Mescudi took the stand on Thursday, George Kaplan, a former assistant to Combs, resumed his testimony that began on Wednesday afternoon.
Kaplan testified about a 2015 incident during which he witnessed Combs being violent with Ventura. Combs’s security was present but did not intervene, he said, before describing another instance in which Ventura had visible injuries at Combs’s home.
Kaplan left Combs’s company in December 2015 as he was “not comfortable or aligned with the physical behavior that had been going on”. He added that he didn’t want to be part of “fixing those types of things”.
Besides Combs’s alleged violent behavior toward Ventura, Kaplan also testified that he once saw Combs “throw a number of decorative or real green apples at another girlfriend”, also in 2015, at Combs’s Miami Beach home.
“She was trying to shield herself with her arms,” Kaplan said, describing the woman’s reaction to Combs.
Last week, Ventura testified over the course of four days about the years of physical and emotional abuse she endured by Combs during their 11-year on-again, off-again relationship.
Ventura mentioned her short-lived relationship with Mescudi in December 2011, which she said occurred during a break in her and Combs’s relationship.
She said she used a burner phone to communicate with Mescudi, fearing Combs would find out.
“I thought it would be way too dangerous to tell him about that,” she told the jury last week.
Ventura said Combs found out about the brief relationship near the end of 2011 during a so-called “freak-off”. Combs saw an email on her phone between her and Mescudi’s assistant about bringing a toiletry bag to Mescudi’s house.
Ventura said that Combs became enraged, lunged at her with a wine bottle opener and later threatened to release explicit videos of her and harm both her and Mescudi, and told her that Mescudi’s car would be “blown up”.
Ventura said that she ended her relationship with Mescudi soon after, citing safety concerns.
“Too much danger, too much uncertainty of what could happen if we continued to see each other,” she said.
Ventura told the court that the next time she saw Mescudi was at a meeting at Soho House, where she, Combs and Mescudi met to discuss the relationship.
At the meeting, Mescudi allegedly asked Combs, “What about my vehicle?” to which Ventura said Combs replied: “What vehicle?”
“And that was the end of the meeting,” Ventura said.
The alleged threat of blowing up Mescudi’s car was first detailed in Ventura’s 2023 civil lawsuit against Combs, which was settled in one day.
The lawsuit alleged that Combs threatened to “blow up” Mescudi’s car after learning about the relationship, and that around that time, Mescudi’s car “exploded in his driveway”.
The lawsuit suggests that Combs was responsible for blowing up Mescudi’s car, and stated that the incident left Ventura feeling “terrified” as she “began to fully comprehend what Mr Combs was both willing and able to do to those he believed had slighted him”.
Mescudi, through a spokeswoman, confirmed Ventura’s account in the lawsuit, and said that his car did explode in a brief statement to the New York Times in 2023.
A Los Angeles fire department report confirmed that Mescudi’s Porsche was set on fire by an “incendiary device” on 9 January 2012, Rolling Stone previously reported. The cause of the fire was listed as “intentional”.
A 2024 memo from federal prosecutors investigating Combs alleges that Combs’s “co-conspirators” set fire to an unnamed individual’s convertible in 2012 by “slicing open the car’s convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside”.
Prosecutors said that police and fire officials concluded that the car fire was intentionally set. Witnesses claimed that Combs later bragged about his role in the incident.
Combs, through his lawyers, has denied any involvement in the car fire.
