The Bad Boy Records’ longtime staff celebrity stylist who worked with and befriended Cassie Ventura Fine during the decade the R&B singer was in a tumultuous relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs delivered stark testimony on Wednesday at the rap mogul’s federal trial, detailing to the jury the years of alleged abuse and blackmailing that he said he watched her endure.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to an indictment alleging he abused Ventura Fine, his longtime girlfriend, and others. If convicted, he could face 15 years to life in prison.

Deonte Nash brought some levity to very serious testimony as he told the court of a complex relationship with Combs over a decade of employment, which he began as an intern in 2008 at Combs’ Bad Boy label and from there, immediately moved into a celebrity stylist role. Specifically, Nash worked for Ventura Fine, aka Cassie, who he said he introduced himself to early on and befriended as she was launching a seemingly promising 10-album deal at the label. But as Nash told the jury over several hours of testimony, Combs would threaten her career prospects, dangle sex tapes of her with other men that he said he’d release as a form of blackmail, and on two occasions he described from the witness stand, violently attack her—and at times, him. 

One of these instances occurred in 2013 or 2014, Nash said, and involved Combs storming into Ventura Fine’s L.A. apartment while Nash and an assistant, being referred to as “Mia” during the trial, were there helping the singer pack for a trip. Ventura Fine was asleep when Combs arrived, shouting about her not picking up her phone, Nash told the court. Combs then began hitting and kicking Ventura Fine, he said; during the attack, he testified, Nash and “Mia” jumped on Combs’ back to stop him but he threw them off and continued beating her; eventually, she hit her head on a bed frame and began bleeding. 

“When he noticed the blood, he just panicked,” Nash said, telling the jury that Combs then said to “Mia” and him, “Look what y’all made me do.”

Nash testified that at that point, he called 911 but was told by someone in the room to hang up, which he did. Combs then said that Ventura Fine would be sent to a plastic surgeon with a member of his security team. At a video shoot the following day, Nash said, he saw that his friend and client had a stitched-up gash on her forehead, near her eyebrow. Earlier in the day-long testimony and cross-examination by Combs’ defense lawyer, Nash described how this impacted Ventura Fine.

“She would cry, sometimes she would just stay in the house for days and go in a cocoon,” he said.

Nash told the court how Combs would use his vast empire and staff to control Ventura Fine — a key element that the prosecution must prove to the trial’s jury for a racketeering conspiracy charge to stick. Combs frequently would tell Ventura Fine he would not release the music she made and he controlled, Nash said, and threatened to see her parents fired from their jobs. From the witness stand, Nash also confirmed Ventura Fine’s testimony from the beginning of the trial that Combs would threaten to release sexually explicit videos of Ventura; this would happen “anytime she did something he didn’t like,” Nash testified. From the stand, he recalled the moment that he learned the nature of the “freak-off” videos that Combs is accused of dangling to maintain control of Ventura Fine. 

It was following an instance of violence he said he witnessed, also around 2013 or 2014, at Ventura Fine’s apartment. After arriving angry and speaking with Ventura Fine in the apartment’s bedroom, Nash told the court Combs “grabbed her by her hair and the back of her shirt and started pushing her out.” He then, as Nash has a bald head, was “popping me in the back of the head” and grabbed him by his shirt to get him out of the room as well, he testified. The two left the apartment but were held back by Combs’ security men, then eventually drove away. A call from Combs was received, he said, telling them to pull over. At that point, Combs came up to the car and told Ventura Fine he’d upload videos of her to the internet, Nash told the court, saying he’d “release them on schedule” starting with her parents’ employers. Before walking off, Nash said Combs told her he is “the only one that protected her.”

Nash then told the court that she was sobbing as they continued driving off, and he told her that she should go ahead and let him release the tapes, since he’s in them too. 

“She said that he wasn’t on the videos, that it was him taping her with other guys,” he testified, saying she told him that she never wanted to have sex with other men at the “freak offs” but participated in them “because Puff wanted her to.”

That day, Nash said he dropped off Ventura Fine on Sunset Boulevard to get a yellow cab to a hotel. Later, he was informed by his boss, stylist Derek Roche, that he’d handed Combs’ security Nash’s address. Combs, Roche and the mogul’s security arrived to look for Ventura Fine, he testified, telling the court he looked everywhere for her (garnering laughs from the galley when recalling, “he looked in the oven — I don’t know why he looked in the oven.”). When Nash’s phone rang with a call from a nearby hotel, Combs, he said, knew where to find her and made Nash wheedle his way up to her room with hotel staff. When Combs’ security guard and chief of staff, Toni Fletcher, entered Ventura Fine’s hotel room, she said she’d “go over the balcony” when told to go down and see Combs.

In detailing his own relationship with the defendant, Nash testified about multiple times Combs became physically aggressive toward him. In addition to the instance the stylist said that he was “popping me in the back of the head,” in 2013 while they were on a music video shoot, Combs threw him on a parked car, Nash testified, saying, “I thought I told y’all about going out y’all wildin’”; this referred to an instance when Nash told the court he did not go out because Ventura Fine would want to join him and that would anger Combs. 

Despite all of the testimony implicating Combs, Nash said he does not hate the fallen mogul. This was told to defense attorney Xavier R. Donaldson, who spent plenty of time Wednesday questioning Nash’s career trajectory and implying Combs deserves credit for all that Nash has done professionally, then suggesting that the celebrity stylist who worked for Combs for a decade plans to sue him in civil court, joining dozens of others who have filed complaints. 

“This man’s sanity was my safety. … It was just what I was used to,” Nash told Donaldson of working with Combs amid alleged harrowing abuse. “I don’t hate him. It’s just not in me.”