Los Angeles, April 6 (IANS) Troubles continue to mount for disgraced rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs as his former partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura is prepared to testify against him.
What’s more? She will be using her name to do so, reports ‘People’ magazine.
In a motion filed on Friday, April 4, prosecutors state that “Victim-1” would not be testifying anonymously during Combs’ upcoming trial, where he faces charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
As per ‘People’, Ventura, 38, is Victim-1 and that she will be testifying in the trial. “She is prepared to testify under her own name”, the filing states. “Victim-2, Victim-3, and Victim-4 have asked that their identities not be revealed to the press or the public”.
Prosecutors requested that the anonymous victims “be referred to at trial using only pseudonyms” and for the court to require the defense not to share identifying details about them.
“This case has already received an exceptional amount of media coverage, which will presumably only increase as trial proceeds”, prosecutors state. “Permitting these measures will prevent unnecessary public disclosure of the victims’ identities, and the harassment from the media and others, undue embarrassment, and other adverse consequences that would almost certainly follow if these women were forced to reveal their true names publicly at trial”.
The indictment alleges that Combs and his associates would lure people under the pretense of a romantic relationship before he would use “force, threats of force and coercion” in order to get them to participate in “freak offs”, which prosecutors describe as “elaborate and produced sex performances” that the disgraced music mogul allegedly coerced others to participate in.
The new count of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion alleges that Combs “recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained, advertised, maintained, patronized and solicited (Victim-2), and attempted, aided and abetted, and willfully caused (Victim-2), to engage in commercial sex acts, knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that Victim-2 was engaging in commercial sex acts as a result of force, fraud, and coercion”.
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