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The sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs continued Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, with his former assistant Capricorn Clark testifying that he repeatedly threatened her life, subjected her to lie detector tests and forced her at gunpoint to join him in an apparent plot to kill rapper Kid Cudi.
Clark was the 17th witness called by the government to testify in its case against Combs, who has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Federal prosecutors say that for decades, Combs abused, threatened and coerced women to participate in marathon sexual encounters called "freak offs" and used his business empire, along with guns, kidnapping and arson, to conceal his crimes.
Combs has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, the 55-year-old hip-hop mogul could face life in prison.
Here are some key takeaways from her testimony culled from various news organizations in the courtroom, including CNN, NBC News and the Washington Post.
Capricorn Clark testified that in 2004, on her first day on the job at Combs’s Bad Boy Entertainment, he threatened her when he found out she had previously worked at Death Row Records, a label founded by Combs’s rival Marion “Suge” Knight. She said Combs and a member of his security staff took her at 9 p.m. to Central Park.
“He told me that he didn’t know that I had anything to do with Suge Knight and if anything happened, he would have to kill me,” Clark testified.
At another point during her employment, Clark was accused by Combs of stealing jewelry and was given a lie detector test by members of Combs’s security team in a vacant office building. If she failed the test, Clark said, she was told they “would throw me in the East River.”
“I was petrified,” Clark said.
She said she was given lie detector tests for five straight days before she was allowed to return to work.
Clark also testified that she typically worked 20-hour days for Combs, starting at 7 a.m. and ending around 4 a.m. She barely slept, she said, and the stress of the job led her to develop alopecia.
Clark said that part of her job involved setting up hotel rooms reserved for Combs using the aliases Frank Black or Frank White ahead of his arrival. She would unpack his belongings, including baby oil, lubricant, drugs and cameras, as well as IV drips, she told the court. And she would sweep the hotel rooms after he left.
Two other former assistants who previously testified about working for Combs — David James and George Kaplan — described similar job responsibilities, including stocking hotel rooms with what prosecutors say were supplies for his “freak offs.”
Clark testified that Combs occasionally asked her to get him drugs, including ecstasy and prescription medications in her name. She told the court that Combs once asked her to get him cocaine while they were in the south of France in 2006.
Clark broke down in tears as she recalled an instance in 2006 in his Miami home, where she said an enraged Combs shoved her after telling her she could not leave the house while working for him.
“See, your problem is you want a life, and you can’t have that here,” Combs said, according to Clark, she testified.
She said she told Combs’s chef that “I hate it here,” and the message was relayed to Combs.
"If you hate it here, get the f*** out of my house," Combs told Clark as he pushed her around the house, she recalled to the jury.
"That was crossing my boundary," Clark said in court.
Last week, Scott Mescudi, better known as the rapper Kid Cudi, testified about his relationship with Combs's ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
In her testimony Tuesday, Clark said that after Combs found out that Ventura was dating Kid Cudi, he showed up at Clark’s house on Dec. 22, 2011, with a gun in his hand.
“He just said, 'Get dressed, we’re going to go kill [him],'" Clark testified.
When she said she did not want to go, Combs said, “I don’t give a f*** what you want to do, go get dressed,” Clark told the court.
Clark said she drove with Combs and a security guard to Kid Cudi’s house in Los Angeles. Combs rode in the backseat with her with a gun in his lap, she said.
While Combs and the security guard went inside the house, she stayed in the SUV to warn Ventura, who was with Kid Cudi at a nearby hotel.
Clark said she called Ventura’s burner phone, which she said Ventura bought at Clark’s urging to hide her relationship with Kid Cudi from Combs.
She said she heard Kid Cudi say, “He's in my house?"
In his testimony last week, Kid Cudi said that when Clark told Ventura that Combs was at his house, he raced home.
Combs came back to the SUV and demanded to see her phone, Clark said, calling the last number on her call history. At that point, Clark said, they saw Kid Cudi’s car pull up and drive away, and they got in the SUV to chase him. Kid Cudi got away.
Clark said Combs then ordered her to call Ventura to let her know he wasn't going to let Clark go unless Ventura came to see him.
Ventura agreed, and Clark went to pick her up.
When they returned to Combs’s home, Clark told the court that she saw Combs repeatedly kick Ventura as she was curled up in the fetal position a few feet away.
Clark said that she was too scared to intervene or call the police.
But Clark said that she called Ventura’s mother, Regina Ventura, as she left the property.
“He’s beating the s*** out of your daughter,” Clark said she told Regina Ventura. “Please help her. I can’t call the police, but you can.”
Soon after reporting the kidnapping incident to top Bad Boy Entertainment executives, Clark said she was given a termination notice.
Clark testified that Combs told her she’d “never work again,” and that he’d “make me kill myself.”
Later in her testimony, she said she could not find employment and eventually asked for his forgiveness, and returned to work for Combs in 2016 as Ventura’s creative director.
In her direct testimony, Clark said that her relationship with Combs was “1,000%” platonic.
During cross-examination, Combs’s defense submitted into evidence a 2021 text message she sent Combs admitting a past crush on him.
“Did you ever know that I had the biggest crush on you before I started to work for you?” she wrote. “We hung out all the time, I played it super cool. I don’t think you knew. I just knew for sure that you liked to have me around.”
Clark said she didn’t remember texting that message to Combs. And it’s unclear whether he responded to her message.
