Capricorn Clark, a former assistant to music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, said Combs was on a mission of revenge in December 2011 after learning rapper Kid Cudi was also dating his girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie.
Combs, armed with a gun, commanded Clark to go with him to Cudi’s Hollywood Hills estate, Clark testified this week during Combs’ sex trafficking trial.
“‘Get dressed,’” Combs allegedly told Clark after beating on the door of her home. “‘We’re going to kill this n—–.’”
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After Combs and a member of his security team broke into Cudi’s home, she said, they saw he wasn’t there, setting off a violent chain of events that she would tell a Bad Boy Records executive about three months later.
“I told him that Puff kidnapped me with a gun,” Clark said, referring to one of Combs’ previous stage names.
Clark’s stunning testimony in the third week of Combs’ trial provided another example of the control he allegedly wielded as head of his New York-based record label, building on the premise set forth by prosecutors that Combs allegedly oversaw a criminal enterprise that relied on employees and other accomplices to carry out illegal acts.
Clark’s “testimony is certainly helpful in painting a sinister image of Combs, of his manipulation and his coercion, his control and his violence, which will be beneficial to the prosecution down the line in terms of gaining the jury’s sympathies that this guy was up to no good and needs to be put away, or at least held accountable,” said Mark Chutkow, a defense lawyer who handled racketeering cases as a federal prosecutor in Detroit.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy; two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
As per the federal racketeering statute, the government must prove at least two predicate offenses, or crimes, committed via a criminal enterprise, Chutkow said.
Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, spent four days on the stand in the first week of testimony, saying she “felt trapped” into engaging in orchestrated sexual encounters, known as “freak offs,” with male escorts at hotels and homes — sessions that she said Combs funded.
Kid Cudi, whose legal name is Scott Mescudi, testified how his car was firebombed in January 2012, following the December break-in at his home. Los Angeles police also testified that evidence showed the break-in was connected to Combs.
The car that police observed leaving the scene of the break-in at Kid Cudi’s home was registered to one of Combs’ companies, according to testimony from Los Angeles police officer Chris Ignacio.
Another accuser, who used the pseudonym “Mia” on the witness stand, testified that she worked for Combs as a personal assistant for several years and he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions during that time.
Combs was never charged in the firebombing or alleged sexual assaults.
His defense team said in opening statements that Combs is a “very flawed individual” prone to violence and jealousy in his relationships, but that the sexual encounters were consensual.
The tangled relationships Combs had with his employees will have to be addressed by the jury during deliberations, Chutkow said, because prosecutors and defense attorneys have raised questions about whether the workers were victims, accomplices or both.
For example, Clark, who testified she was paid $55,000 a year, said she set up hotel rooms for the freak-offs at Combs’ direction and she sometimes procured illicit drugs on his behalf.
Although she testified she was kidnapped twice by Combs or his bodyguards and subjected to multiple days of lie detector tests, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo entered into evidence an email Clark sent to Combs in September 2014, asking for his forgiveness. She did not specify what she wanted to be forgiven for.
The email was sent two years after Combs fired her and about two years before she returned to work for him again.
“Mia” testified to sometimes feeling like Combs was a best friend and working partner, but other times treated her “like I was a worthless piece of crap.”
“You do have these elements of extortion and coercion and fear and intimidation also at play, which you see in gangs and you see in the Mafia and other criminal organizations, and so I think that you don’t necessarily have to have co-conspirators and accomplices that are completely voluntary in their commitment to the organization,” Chutkow said.
Employees may have also realized the benefits of being in the powerful celebrity’s inner circle and so may have been willing to go along, he added.
“That’s why you hear the concept of a ‘den of thieves,’” Chutkow said. “They all have their own agendas at play, but they’re still working together towards advancing other criminal objectives.”
Chutkow said “that’s probably the way the prosecution will kind of categorize this for the jury, and say, ‘Hey, we would love to be able to put on witnesses like firemen and nurses for you, but that’s not the world that Combs worked in.’”
Bad and illegal behavior does not necessarily guarantee a racketeering conviction, said Mark Zauderer, a veteran trial and appellate lawyer in New York.
“There is lots of evidence of violence and possible criminal activity,” he said of Combs’ trial. “But all of that still does not answer the question of whether the jury will find an enterprise and a conspiracy.
“There’s no question that a jury can and will consider a so-called victim’s own complicity in the matters that were violent and even illegal.”
Attorney Rachel Maimin, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, said that while racketeering charges can be complex, prosecutors can sometimes prove the charge with only one witness or even circumstantial evidence.
“I don’t know if they’ve met all of the elements of racketeering yet, but prosecutors are showing that Diddy used employees from his business and organization to carry out criminal activities,” Maimin said. “They’re linking the crimes to his business.”
If you or someone you know is facing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence hotline for help at (800) 799-SAFE (7233), or go to www.thehotline.org for more. States often have domestic violence hotlines as well.
