Cassie Ventura, the former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs, gave emotionally gripping – and at times – graphic testimony, offering the world a glimpse into her longtime relationship with the music mogul and alleged drug-fueled sex performances known as “Freak Offs,” during his racketeering and sex trafficking trial this week.

Ventura, a singer and star witness in the case, testified about threats, drug use, and violence — including an alleged rape – she was subjected to throughout her relationship with Combs. Through her grueling testimony, prosecutors set the groundwork to bolster their claim that Combs not only sexually trafficked Ventura but also led a broader criminal enterprise with the help of associates, legal experts told CNN.

The defense acknowledged Combs has been violent with romantic partners and has a “different” sex life. However, they argued the women involved consented to these sexual encounters and evidence of domestic violence doesn’t mean he committedthe federal crimes he’s accused of.

But will Ventura’s hours of testimony be enough to convince the jury to uphold the five counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution the former music producer has pleaded not guilty to?

Legal experts say while there are still more witnesses slated to take the stand, Ventura’s testimony is foundational. Additional testimony, they say, will need to make a strong and compelling case that Combs and close associates conspired to carry out a pattern of criminal activity that included kidnapping, sexual assaults, drug use and other crimes.

“It’s important that people recognize Cassie Ventura is not going to be the only witness in this case,” Areva Martin, an attorney and CNN legal analyst, told CNN on Friday after the singer completed her testimony. “No case is built on a singular witness… Cassie is a star witness but not the only witness.”

Though the defense has worked to paint Ventura as a flawed and consenting party, “the government doesn’t need to have a perfect victim,” Former Prosecutor Julie Grant told CNN Friday.

“What the government has done this week essentially is establishing the sex trafficking crimes that they’ve charged Sean Combs with, and I would argue that they are well on their way to proving these crimes,” said Grant, calling Ventura “the most critical witness to this case.”

Racketeering means engaging in an illegal scheme, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is commonly referred to as RICO. At the center of any racketeering case is the “enterprise,” the group entity carrying out the illegal conduct, like the mafia.

The statute describes 35 offenses that may appear to be very different in nature, but are all classified under the same umbrella. Some of those offenses may include: kidnapping, murder, bribery, arson and extortion.

Ventura testified Wednesday that some of Combs’ assistants and other personnel would provide materials like baby oil, Astroglide and condoms for the “Freak Offs.”

When supplies were short, they’d call on Combs’ staff or hotel staff to bring more and when they were over, many times it was Combs’ staff who would go in and clean up, she testified.

On Thursday, Ventura testified Combs’ staff would set up the hotel rooms before a “Freak Off” but she didn’t remember any of Combs’ employees walking in during one of them, and she never talked to any of his employees about them.

If the “Freak Offs” happened in other states,Ventura and Combs’ staff would book hotel rooms for them and Ventura was told to find escorts online for him to approve, hire them and facilitate their travel to wherever the couple was, she testified. Ventura said “Freak Offs” were held at both her and Combs’ houses, in addition to hotels in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Ibiza, and Turks and Caicos.

During cross-examination, Ventura said she “definitely didn’t” want his staff to know about the “Freak Offs” and said she never told her friends or any of Combs’ staff members about the “Freak Offs.”

Escorts were paid between $1,500 and $6,000 after the “Freak Offs” in cash provided by Combs or brought to the location by his security, Ventura testified.

Ventura also testified that Combs threatened her in December 2011 when he learned she was dating Scott Mescudi, also known as rapper Kid Cudi. “He told me about videos that he had that he was going to release, and that he was going to hurt Scott and I,” she said, adding the videos he was referring to were of the “Freak Offs.”

She also testified Combs told her Kid Cudi’s car would be blown up in his driveway before it happened.

Because racketeering is not a specific crime or single criminal act, prosecutors are tasked with proving a pattern following specific criteria. In these type of cases, according to the Justice Department, prosecutor s must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: A criminal enterprise existed; that it affected interstate commerce; that the defendant was associated with it, engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity, and participated in at least acts of racketeering.

For Joey Jackson, a criminal defense attorney and CNN legal analyst, saying that Combs was running a criminal enterprise is “an overreach in terms of the RICO.”

“The guy (Combs) was a legitimate music mogul who happened to have horrific sexual proclivities and was extraordinarily broken and did deviant things. I don’t know that they get you to ‘he built this empire so that he could abuse and degrade women,’” Jackson said.

But Grant noted that for the government to prove sex trafficking “you don’t have to have movement anywhere.”

“You don’t have to go across state lines,” Grant said. “Somebody can be trafficked in their own home. All you really need is someone providing somebody else for that commercial sex act, and when I say commercial, it means anything of value, not even necessarily money to be given by force or coercion.”

In order to prove the sex trafficking charges against Combs, prosecutors will need to convince the jury that Ventura and other alleged victims didn’t consent to sexual activities and were likely coerced, Jackson said.

Sex trafficking involves persuading individuals to do something by way of a threat or force, unlike with prostitution, where all parties give consent to participate, Jackson explained.

During Ventura’s testimony throughout the week, she outlined how she feared her participation in the “Freak Offs” was mandatory and recalled not having “much of a choice,” because she “didn’t really know what ‘no’ could be or what ‘no’ could turn into.”

Combs took videos of the “Freak Offs” and used those as blackmail to threaten and coerce Ventura, she testified.

In one instance, they had an argument at the Cannes Film Festival, and on the flight home he played videos of “Freak Offs” she thought had been deleted, she testified.

Combs told her “that he was going to embarrass me and release them,” Ventura said, a threat he allegedly made frequently.

Ventura said in court Friday that she was “basically a sex worker.”

On Wednesday Ventura testified that in 2018 she went to dinner with Combs for a “closure conversation” as she was dating her now husband, Alex Fine, and after Combs drove her home, Ventura said he raped her in her living room.

“I just remember crying and saying ‘no’ but it was very fast,” she said.

The case outcome will likely focus less on the domestic violence and more on whether “there was coercion with respect to sexual activities,” people were flown across the country to engage in prostitution and Combs potentially used “his business as an enterprise,” Jackson told CNN’s Pamela Brown earlier this week.

Holly Baird, a spokesperson for Combs, told CNN on Wednesday outside the courthouse “we can’t ignore the domestic violence, the toxic relationship, the jealousy and the potential infidelity that occurred throughout the duration of their relationship” but it seemed like their intimacy was “kinky — not criminal.”

Martin said what Ventura described on the stand was not intimacy but rather “that was force, that was violence.”

“All the prosecution has to establish is that force, fraud or coercion, was used to compel participation in commercial sex, and that’s what Cassidy Ventura testified to,” Martin told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

As for the defense, a big part of their strategy is to debunk the prosecution’s theory that Ventura was forced into commercial sex acts, “which is the standard for the sex trafficking charge that’s been brought against him,” Martin said.

“They wanted to show that the violence that Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs used against …Cassie… was not a part of an effort to control or to coerce her but rather was fueled by his drug use and fueled by jealousy that he had when he thought she was involved with other men,” Martin added.

But consent is a dynamic, not static, concept, Martin said.

“It’s not as if your consent to a ‘freak off’ or engaging in commercial sexual acts on day one is permanent,” she said. “So I can consent for as long as I consent, and then at that moment in which I revoke my consent, then I am no longer willingly participating.”

Prosecutors have tried to hone in on the criminality of what transpired between Combs and Ventura rather than the trials and tribulations of their relationship, said Sarah Krissoff, a former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“They basically said all these things happened, you don’t have to like Sean Combs, you’re definitely not gonna like him and we’re not denying these things happened, they’re just not the crimes the government says they are,” Krissoff told CNN.“They may be state crimes, they may be other crimes but they are not sex trafficking, they are not racketeering.”

CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said he believes defense lawyers managed to show that “this was first of all not coercive.”

“This was consensual, and second of all, this doesn’t satisfy the technical legal requirements for operating a racketeering enterprise that Sean Combs is charged with,” he told CNN on Friday.

Combs isn’t the first high-profile figure facing racketeering charges, from mob kings to musicians – and even President Donald Trump – all have had their day in court due to the RICO statute, which dates back to 1970.

In 2021, R&B singer R. Kelly was convicted in New York of racketeering and sex trafficking charges stemming from his efforts over years to use his fame to entrap victims he sexually abused. The following year, he was convicted of multiple child pornography charges at a Chicago federal trial.

Kelly’s case parallels Combs’ in a few ways, but what distinguishes them are the ages of the victims. The case against Kelly involved victims who were underage and couldn’t give consent, whereas Combs has not been accused of wrongdoing against minors – and Combs’ attorneys argue those involved were willing participants.

When the Eastern District of New York indicted Kelly under the RICO Act – the Illinois indictment did not rely on the statute – it placed him at the head of an enterprise made up of the singer and his entourage, including his managers, bodyguards, drivers and personal assistants.

Severalmultimillionaires, CEO’s and prominent real estate brokers have also faced similar sex trafficking charges, like Combs.

Mike Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch was indicted on 16 federal counts in 2024 of sex trafficking and international prostitution in New York, and accused of leveraging “a network of employees, contractors and security professionals” while he led the retailer. He has pleaded not guilty.

“This notion that this is only reserved for drug cartels or mob bosses – that’s no longer the case. We’ve seen the evolution of use of these RICO statutes in cases involving sexual assault, sexual sex trafficking,” Martin said. “The statute doesn’t require that the enterprise be criminal.”

After four days on the stand, Ventura wrapped up her nearly 20 hours of testimony Friday afternoon. The trial continues next week.

Dawn Richard was among the witnesses jurors heard from later Friday.

Richard, a member of Danity Kane, a musical group formed by Combs as part of the MTV reality series “Making the Band,” filed a lawsuit against Combs in September 2024 alleging sexual battery, sexual harassment and false imprisonment, among other allegations.

She testified about seeing Combs attack Ventura in 2009.

“He came downstairs screaming, belligerent, asking where his food was, and proceeded to hit her over the head, kicked her and beat her to the ground in front of us,” Richard testified.

Richard testified that Combs took the skillet with the eggs and “tried to hit” Ventura, who fell to the ground in a fetal position. Combs then dragged Ventura upstairs by her hair, with one arm around her neck, Richard said. She recalled hearing “glass breaking and yelling.” Richard testified that she did not intervene or call police because she was afraid.

The next day, Richard testified, Combs asked her and another woman who was present during the incident to come to his home. He told them what they had witnessed was “passion,” what lovers do, she testified. And, she told the jury, he warned them it was in their “best interest if we didn’t say anything” because “where he comes from, people go missing if they talk.”

Next week, Kerry Morgan, a former friend of Cassie Ventura, is expected to testify in the trial. Prosecutors said they are planning to call at least five other people to testify early next week, including Ventura’s mother.

“Cassie Ventura is going to be the most important witness in this case, but she’s not going to be decisive,” Honig said. “This is not over.”

CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Lauren del Valle, Nicki Brown, Eric Levenson, Kara Scannell and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  If you or someone you know is struggling with intimate partner violence, there are resources available, including the National Domestic Violence Hotline.