Diddy’s ex-assistant testifies about kidnappings in sex trafficking trial

MANHATTAN (CN) ­— Capricorn Clark, a personal assistant to Sean “Diddy” Combs in the mid-2000s, testified in New York federal court on Tuesday that she was held against her will in a dilapidated Midtown office over accusations that she had stolen diamond jewelry.

“If you fail this test, they’re going to throw you in the East River,” Clark testified Tuesday morning about being forced to take polygraph tests. She worked for Combs and his Bad Boy Entertainment as a personal assistant from 2004 through 2012 and later as marketing executive and creative director for Cassie, Combs’ sometimes girlfriend, from 2016 to 2018.

She recalled having been repeatedly issued the death threat by a large man she didn’t know in the unrenovated sixth floor offices of Bad Boy’s new building at West 54th and Broadway.

On direct questioning from prosecutors, Clark said she was brought to Bad Boy’s unfinished offices near Times Square after Combs accused her of stealing three pieces of high-end diamond jewelry on loan from celebrity jeweler Jacob “the Jeweler” Arabo.

She said the missing pieces were a diamond necklace with a cross, a diamond bracelet and a diamond watch that she had been handed to carry just before a flight to Miami.

She recalled the man tasked with administering the polygraph test was extremely wide — about “five of me” ­— and had been chain-smoking cigarettes and drinking black coffee when she first encountered him in the empty, “post-moveout, pre-move in” Bad Boy office.

“You need to calm down, you’re going to be in the East River if I can’t get a good reading,” he threatened again, Clark said.

The polygraph testing continued “intermittently all day” and was repeated over the next four days, she testified.

Clark later said she met with Bad Boy to discuss overtime compensation she was owed for working nearly 24-7 as Combs’ assistant on a $65,000 annual salary.

She said she was told she was owed $80,000 for a three-month period as an assistant.

Combs ripped up the paperwork showing the calculated amount of back wages owed, she said.

In testimony last week, rapper/actor Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi said Clark called him to warn that her boss had broken into Mescudi’s home after finding out about his secret romantic relationship with Combs’ on-and-off girlfriend Cassie Ventura.

On Tuesday morning, Clark said she had advised Ventura to get a backup burner phone during her relationship with Kid Cudi because of the possible risk of Combs’ jealous temper.

“The way she was moving, she was going to get us all killed,” Clark testified, although the statement was struck from the record on sustained objection from Combs’ defense.

She testified Combs came to her Los Angeles apartment, “livid, furious, mad at me,” and kidnapped her a second time, at gunpoint, while he confronted her about Cassie dating Kid Cudi.

Combs ordered her, “Get dressed, we’re going to kill this nigga,” she testified.

Combs was “very upset” after discovering Ventura’s relationship with Combs, Clark said. “He said ‘I should kill you bitches and I should cut her face.’”

Kid Cudi, who briefly dated Ventura in late 2011 during a break in her decadelong relationship with Combs, testified last week that his Porsche 911 convertible had been burned in an apparent Molotov cocktail bombing.

Clark said she was contacted by arson investigators in the summer of 2012 over that incident.

Clark broke into tears on Tuesday as she described Combs kicking Ventura while she was on the ground in the fetal position. “He said if I jumped in he was gonna fuck me up too,” she testified. “My heart was breaking for seeing her get hit like that.”

She said she called Ventura’s mother, Regina, to call the police to intervene. “He’s beating the shit out of your daughter,” she recalled telling Regina Ventura. “I can’t help her, but you can.”

Combs, 55, is standing trial on a five-count indictment charging him with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

The 12-person jury is composed of eight men and four women, while the six alternates are made up of four women and two men.

The trial is expected to run up to eight weeks into early July.

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