Rapper Kid Cudi to testify at Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial

NEW YORK — Rapper and actor Kid Cudi is expected to testify at the Sean "Diddy" Combs sex trafficking trial this week, taking the witness stand to tell the jury about his brief relationship 14 years ago with Combs' ex-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie. Prosecutors say Combs was so upset about the relationship that he arranged to have Cudi's convertible firebombed, according to court filings. Prosecutors informed the judge that Cudi, whose legal name is Scott Mescudi, won't be called to the stand before Thursday. Meanwhile, a federal agent resumed testifying Wednesday about what investigators found when they raided Combs' home near Miami in March 2024, six months before his arrest last September. Homeland Security Investigations sent 80 to 90 agents to the residence on Star Island, used an armored vehicle to smash through Combs' security gate, handcuffed and searched a half-dozen employees, and deployed boats to patrol nearby waters, Agent Gerard Gannon testified. Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos portrayed the search as overkill. "So, HSI determined it would come in by land and by sea to secure the property?" Geragos asked. Gannon said Homeland Security Investigations waited to search the property until Combs was on a flight out of town with his family. Gannon showed jurors a pair of handguns that he said agents found at Combs' home, along with photos of ammunition and a wooden box marked "Puffy" — one of Combs' nicknames — that contained various drugs including psilocybin, Xanax and MDMA. Agents also found items that prosecutors say were hallmarks of Combs' drug-fueled "freak-off" sex marathons, including dozens of bottles of baby oil and lubricant, Gannon said. His Los Angeles mansion was also searched. The agent confirmed that the federal investigation began just after Cassie filed a lawsuit against Combs alleging years of abuse and involvement in hundreds of freak-off performances with male escorts, which Combs watched and sometimes participated in. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges that he leveraged his fame and fortune to oversee a two-decade-long racketeering enterprise that controlled Cassie and others through threats and violence. His lawyers say evidence in the case reflects domestic violence, not anything amounting to a criminal racket or sex trafficking. Cassie testified last week that Combs arranged for her to meet Cudi several times in 2011 to work on music. She said her relationship with Cudi began late in the year and she got a burner phone so the two could communicate without Combs learning about it. She said Combs became enraged when she left him, and he kicked her in the back hard enough to leave a bruise as she was exiting his Los Angeles home for the last time that year. Cassie said that although she and Combs broke up, they still engaged in so-called "freak-offs." It was during one of those episodes that Combs picked up her regular phone and noticed communications that revealed Cassie was seeing Cudi, Cassie said. On Tuesday, Cassie's mother, Regina Ventura, testified that she received an email in December 2011 from Cassie saying that Combs was so angry about her relationship with Cudi that he planned to release sexually explicit videos of her and send someone to hurt Cassie and Cudi. Afterward, Regina Ventura said, she received a demand from Combs for $20,000. Scared for her daughter's safety, she went to the bank and sent Combs the money, only to have it returned by Combs days later. Cassie testified that Cudi came to visit her at her mother's Connecticut home around Christmas in 2011 and stayed for three or four days. She said she broke up with him. "It was just too much," she said. "Too much danger, too much uncertainty of, like, what could happen if we continued to see each other." Cassie said she told her family she was going to Los Angeles after the holidays to "get to work." But instead, she said, she traveled after New Year's to meet Combs in Arizona, where he had gone to visit a college with his son. They resumed their relationship. When Cassie and Combs were out of the country, Combs told her that Cudi's car would be blown up and Combs wanted Cudi's friends there to see it, Cassie said.