Dawn Richard Takes the Stand

Former Danity Kane band member, Dawn Richard, takes the stand for the prosecution in Bad Boy Entertainment CEO, Sean 'Diddy' Combs' RICO trial...

From NY Post

Singer Dawn Richard saw Sean “Diddy” Combs beat his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura “often” — including once coming at her with a skillet, knocking her to the ground, a Manhattan court heard Friday.

Richard — a former singer in the Combs-founded girl group Danity Kane — told jurors she first witnessed the music mogul attack Ventura in 2009, apparently in a rage over his breakfast.

“He came downstairs angry and was saying ‘where the f–k was his eggs,'” Richard recalled at Combs’ federal sex-trafficking trial.

The singer and the other Danity Kane members were recording in the studio of Combs’ Los Angeles mansion, when they witnessed the incident — in which he was “screaming, belligerent, asking where his food was.”

The Bad Boy Records founder then took a skillet with eggs inside and tried to hit Ventura over the head with the pan, Richard recounted.

Ventura managed to partially deflect the blow from the pan by balling up into the fetal position on the floor — but Combs continued his vicious beating, Richard said.

“He started to punch and kick her … body and her head,” Richard testified.

Combs then put his arm around Ventura’s neck and his hand on her head and dragged her up the stairs, Richard told the court.

“I was scared for her and scared to do anything,” she said, adding that she didn’t step in or call the cops, partly because “I had never seen anything like that before.”

The next day, Combs allegedly summoned her and the other artists back to his home, where he locked them in the recording studio and threatened them, Richard said.

“He said what we saw was passion and what lovers in passionate relationships do,” Richard recalled. “He said [Ventura] was OK and it would be in our best interests if we didn’t say anything.”

Combs told them he was trying to take them to the top of the industry before menacingly saying, “where he was from, people go missing if they talk,” Richard testified.

Then Combs gave them flowers, Richard said.

She said she understood he was threatening “death.”