Ahead of Diddy’s sentencing, prosecutors on Tuesday, Sept. 30, argued that the Bad Boy Records founder should get more than 11 years behind bars. Included in the filing, viewed by Complex, is a letter from Cassie, who also testified at Diddy’s trial.
“If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is that victims and survivors will never be safe,” Cassie wrote early into her two-page letter, available to read in full later into this post. “Although I can hope for justice and accountability, I have come to not trust anything. I hope that your decision considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see.”
In July, Diddy was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but found not guilty of the more serious racketeering and sex trafficking charges. As Complex’s Shawn Setaro reported at the time, “an audible gasp” was heard in the courtroom when the not guilty verdict on sex trafficking was announced.
Cassie’s letter, joined in Tuesday’s filing by a separate letter from her parents, includes mentions of “thoughts of suicide” and an expression of concern about Diddy “or his associates” coming after her and her family should he be released. Per Cassie, Diddy’s sentence, which his lawyers previously argued should be no longer than 14 months, “should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim” while also considering “the many lives that Sean Combs has upended.”
Cassie disputed descriptions of Diddy as a “changed man,” saying he has “no interest” in any such change.
“He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is,” Cassie wrote.
Earlier this month, letters in support of a lighter sentence were made public. Among them was one from Yung Miami, who said she “came to know a different person than the one often portrayed” during her relationship with Diddy.
“In my personal experience, Sean is not a danger or a threat to the community,” the City Girls alum wrote.
Diddy’s sentencing is currently slated for Oct. 3. Below, read Cassie’s letter in full.
Dear Judge Subramanian,
I have been in a cycle of thought and then over thought writing this letter to you. If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is that victims and survivors will never be safe. Although I can hope for justice and accountability, I have come to not trust anything. I hope that your decision considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see.
For four days in May, while nine months pregnant with my son, I testified in front of a packed courtroom about the most traumatic and horrifying chapter in my life. I testified that from age nineteen, Sean Combs used violence, threats, substances, and control over my career to trap me in over a decade of abuse. He groomed me into performing repeated sex acts with hired male sex workers during multi-day “freak offs,” which occurred nearly weekly. I was forced into lingerie and heels, told exactly how to look, and plied with drugs and alcohol so he could control me like a puppet. These events were degrading and disgusting, leaving me with infections, illnesses, and days of physical and emotional exhaustion before he demanded it all again. Sex acts became my full-time job, used as the only way to stay in his good graces.
I testified that I learned to read Sean Combs’s signals, knowing that when he spoke of “freak-offs,” he was demanding them, and that refusing meant punishment—losing my car, my phone, or worse. He controlled every part of my livelihood and threatened to destroy my reputation by leaking sex tapes, a threat he repeated often. His power over me eroded my independence and sense of self until I felt I had no choice but to submit. When he believed I had wronged him or was not sufficiently responsive, he also threatened people around me and those close to me, including my family. I regularly worried that displeasing him meant putting my family and friends’ safety at risk.
I testified how beyond these threats, Sean Combs frequently used violence to get his way. Over the nearly eleven years we were together, Sean Combs would hit me, punch me, stomp on my face, pull my hair, and throw my body to the ground and against the wall. The jury saw pictures of bruises on my back from Combs kicking me and saw the deep gash over my eye he caused when he slammed me into a bed frame. The entire courtroom watched actual footage of Combs kicking and beating me as I tried to run away from a freak off in 2016. People watched this footage dozens of times, seeing my body thrown to the ground, my hands over my head, curled into a fetal position to shield me from the worst blows. This physical violence caused bruises that makeup artists (paid for by Sean Combs) would cover up, as well as permanent scars all over my body.
During my time with Combs, I was in a constant state of hypervigilance, as I was always anticipating demands for sex acts or otherwise fearing retribution for any perceived slight. My descent into substance abuse was directly correlated with his increased control over my body, my money, my freedom, and my free will. I used those drugs to push through the horrifying sex acts he demanded and to numb myself to the physical pain and emotional turmoil I was constantly in. While the defense attorneys at trial suggested that my time with Combs was akin to a “great modern love story,” nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing about this story is great, modern, or loving—this was a horrific decade of my life stained by abuse, violence, forced sex, and degradation.
I spent the last seven years of my life slowly rebuilding myself—physically getting clean from the drug abuse Sean Combs forced and encouraged, and mentally understanding how to live with a seemingly insurmountable level of trauma. The horrors I endured drove me to have thoughts of suicide—ones I almost followed through on, if not for my family’s intervention and urging that I seek professional care. I have been to rehab and have taken part in dozens of types of therapy modalities to confront, compartmentalize, and cope with the horrific memories of sexual and emotional abuse I endured for nearly ten years. While what he did to me is always present, I am slowly learning how to live my life free of the fear and horrors I endured, and in doing so am fully devoted to my husband and my children.
I still have nightmares and flashbacks on a regular, everyday basis, and continue to require psychological care to cope with my past. My worries that Sean Combs or his associates will come after me and my family is my reality. I have in fact moved my family out of the New York area and am keeping as private and quiet as I possibly can because I am so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about his abuse at trial. As much progress as I have made in recovering from his abuse, I remain very much afraid of what he is capable of and the malice he undoubtedly harbors towards me for having the bravery to tell the truth.
His defense attorneys claim he is a changed man, and he wants to mentor abusers. I know firsthand what real mentorship means, and this disgusts me; he is not being truthful. I know that who he was to me—the manipulator, the aggressor, the abuser, the trafficker—is who he is as a human. He has no interest in changing or becoming better. He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is. When I came out with my allegations in my civil case, he flatly denied them again and again. It was only after actual video footage corroborated the exact words in my civil complaint that he issued an insincere apology on the internet. Thanks to the footage and my testimony, this is also something he will forever be associated with.
For over a decade, Sean Combs made me feel powerless and unimportant, but my experience was real, horrific, and deserves to be considered. While the jury did not seem to understand or believe that I engaged in freak offs because of the force and coercion the defendant used against me, I know that is the truth, and his sentence should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim. Reliving in detail the events and truths described throughout the trial and this letter causes me tremendous emotional pain. I am trying with all that I am, to move on. I hope that your sentencing decision reflects the strength it took for victims of Sean Combs to come forward. I hope that your decision considers the many lives that Sean Combs has upended with his abuse and control.
I thank you for your time and attention.
Casandra Ventura Fine