Sean Combs’ former employee Capricorn Clark testified on Tuesday that the music mogul was armed with a gun and said he wanted to “go kill” the rapper Kid Cudi after discovering his relationship with Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in December 2011.
Taking the witness stand at Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York, Clark told jurors that Combs started banging on her door in a state of fury that morning, with his pants ripped open, exposing his underwear.
“Get dressed, we’re going to go kill that n—a,” Combs purportedly commanded. Clark said she tried to protest, but Combs told her, “I don’t give a fuck what you want to do.” Clark said Combs was “livid” at her for not disclosing the relationship between Cudi, born Scott Mescudi, and Ventura, one of the women Combs is accused of sex trafficking.
Though Clark told jurors Combs had threatened her before, this was the first time he appeared at her residence, she said. “I had never seen him with a weapon,” she testified. Clark said she, Combs, and a security guard drove to Mescudi’s Los Angeles home with Combs holding the gun on his lap. Once they arrived, Combs and the security guard entered the house, she said. Clark remained in the car, panicked and “praying” that Cudi wasn’t home, she testified.
Clark said she made an initial, furtive call to actress Lauren London. “She was like my sister at the time, and I just wanted somebody to know where I was,” Clark testified, breaking down. “In case this all went really bad.”
Clark said she called Ventura next to warn her what was happening. Mescudi was with Ventura, she discovered, and she feared a confrontation if he returned to the house, she testified. “Cassie, stop him, he’s going to come get himself killed,” Clark recalled saying. She said Combs later exited the house and checked her phone. She had changed Ventura’s name, but Combs hit redial anyway, she testified. At that point, Mescudi pulled up next to Combs’ Escalade outside the house, she said. Mescudi accelerated away, with Combs’ vehicle chasing after him, she said.
“It felt like forever, but it couldn’t have been longer than a minute,” Clark testified about the alleged pursuit, which ended when they saw a police vehicle. She said Combs later forced her to call Ventura and act as bait to lure Ventura. “He has me. He’s not going to let me go,” she recalled telling Ventura. She said Ventura agreed to meet up. Clark said Combs ordered them to stop Mescudi from reporting the break-in and Combs’ involvement to police or all three would face physical harm.
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“I’ll kill all you motherfuckers,” Combs allegedly said. Clark broke down in tears as she described watching Combs allegedly kick Ventura repeatedly down a driveway. She said Combs was “kicking the shit out of Cassie” with “100 percent full force,” and that Ventura curled into a fetal position. Combs ordered Clark to “get the fuck out” or face a beating as well, she testified.
The former employee said she tried to summon two of Combs’ bodyguards to help, but no one intervened. Clark said she also called Ventura’s mom, begging her to “please help her.” She claimed Combs went on to threaten her and Ventura dozens more times after the incident. “I should kill you bitches, and I should cut her face,” Combs allegedly said, referring to Clark and Ventura.
Clark, 46, is considered a key witness in the case and was called to corroborate claims in Combs’ indictment. According to prosecutors, Combs kidnapped Clark for the break-in and then firebombed Mescudi’s car a few weeks later.
Combs denies the kidnapping and arson allegations and has pleaded not guilty to all five felony counts in his indictment. One of the charges alleges Combs sex-trafficked Ventura by forcing her to engage in drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts. Combs claims the encounters, which he dubbed “freak-offs,” were consensual. Under cross-examination today, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo elicited testimony from Clark regarding her assessment of Combs’ 11-year relationship with Ventura. “I felt they were toxic as a couple,” she said.
In her prior testimony, Ventura told jurors that Combs discovered her relationship with Mescudi when he went through her phone during a freak-off in Los Angeles and found emails she exchanged with Clark. She said one email involved getting her toiletry bag to Mescudi’s house the next day. According to Ventura, Combs flew into a rage. She said he placed a wine bottle opener between his fingers and lunged at her. “His eyes blacked out, super angry,” she testified.
Ventura said she fled the freak-off and called Mescudi, who came to pick her up. Testifying last Thursday, Mescudi recalled rushing to Ventura’s aide and taking her to the Sunset Marquis hotel for safekeeping. He said while at the hotel, he and Ventura spoke with Clark over the phone. Clark allegedly told them she was “forced to go along” with Combs on a trip to Mescudi’s house in the Hollywood Hills.
“She told me that Sean Combs and an affiliate came to her apartment and made her get in the car to come up to my house,” Mescudi testified. “They forced her physically.”
Mescudi said Clark reported to them that Combs was inside while she was waiting in a car outside. “She was very scared, sounded like she was on the verge of tears,” he said of Clark.
Both Mescudi and Ventura testified that Clark was a friend, and that they hung out regularly before the alleged break-in. Ventura said she and Mescudi met with Clark after the incident to explain “everything that had happened.” Ventura said she later emailed both her mother and Clark on Dec. 23, 2011, to make a record of Combs’ alleged threats against her. She told the women Combs had threatened to release two “explicit sex tapes of me” and have “someone hurt me and Scott Mescudi physically.”
In her opening statement on May 12, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily A. Johnson said Combs “kidnapped” Clark before heading to Mescudi’s house. In her dueling opening, Combs’ defense lawyer Teny Geragos described Clark as a long-term employee who continued to work for Combs after the alleged incident. “As you listen to her testimony and evaluate: Was this person actually kidnapped? I expect the evidence is going to show you that, even after the criminal investigation into Combs started, she asked to work for him again 12 years after her employment ended. Twelve years after she claimed she had been kidnapped the last time,” Geragos said.
After Ventura filed her civil lawsuit against Combs in November 2023, Clark reportedly called Combs “the devil” in a private post on Twitter, now X. “Black women end up being the sacrifice for the fuckery. Last 11 years of my life, I have had to deal with EVERYONES nonsensical allegiance to the devil. I pray that ends. I don’t think highly of any of you. Can’t keep your head down + pretend shit is cool no more. Do better,” she posted, according to several reports at the time.
Testifying Tuesday, Clark said Ventura’s lawsuit “traumatized” her. She recalled for jurors the arc of her career under Combs, claiming it started and ended with threats. Clark said that on her first day working as Combs’ assistant in 2004, he took her to Central Park after dark and gave her an ominous warning because she previously worked a stint at Death Row Records, the West Coast hip-hop label run by Combs’ rival, Suge Knight.
“He told me he didn’t know that I had anything to do with Suge Knight and if anything happened, he would have to kill me,” Clark said under direct questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner.
Clark said Combs also once mentioned lethal force once while talking about another rapper, 50 Cent. She said Combs was discussing the rapper with someone in an elevator and remarked, “I don’t like the back and forth. I don’t do that. I like guns.”
Clark then recalled Combs accusing her of stealing diamond jewelry that was on loan from a jeweler. She said Combs had her apartment searched and hired a security guard to lock her in an office and subject her to days of lie-detector tests. Clark said the beefy guard told her that if she couldn’t calm down enough to get a good reading, “They’re going to throw you into the East River.” Clark said she acquiesced because she believed the testing was the only way she could prove her innocence. “I was petrified,” Clark told jurors, saying her job, which paid $65,000 a year at the time, left her with stress-induced alopecia.
Clark said one time in Miami, Combs “charged” at her after she complained about her working conditions to a chef. “You hate it here?” Combs allegedly said as he got in her face and forcefully pushed her about 30 yards, she testified. Clark said a bodyguard intervened, and she left the job after that because it crossed “my boundary.” Clark said that when Combs fired her in August 2012, he told her she would “never work again.”
Under cross-examination, Clark said it was true she met with two of Combs’ lawyers on April 10, 2024, to discuss the possibility of returning to work for Combs as his chief of staff. At the meeting, Clark was accompanied by Bryan Freeman, the celebrity lawyer who represents the Menendez brothers’ family as well as Justin Baldoni in his ongoing legal war with Blake Lively. She did not return to work for Combs.
Clark also turned emotional today while speaking about her early friendship with Combs and working with him on successful business ventures. She said he “broke the glass ceiling” for many Black people in the music industry. The defense confronted her with a message she sent to Combs in June 2021, in which she recalled having the “biggest crush” on Combs before she started working with him. But Clark was clear that her relationship with Combs was always “1,000 percent” platonic.
Clark confirmed she sent emails to Combs two years after she was fired, asking him to bury the hatchet. She felt “blacklisted” by Combs at the time and wanted her “life back,” she said. Clark said she believed her purpose was to “inspire” others through her work with Combs.
“At this level of business, he held all the power as it related to me,“ she testified.
Clark confirmed it was Ventura who convinced Combs to hire her back as Ventura’s creative director in 2016. She took the job because the “stakes are high” for her to work because she has no parents and a non-verbal autistic son, she said.
From Rolling Stone US
