Well, I’m so happy to be with you here today, Laura, and this is exactly what I talk about in the cases where I’m an expert witness as well. Dawn Hughes today is speaking as what they call a blind expert or a subject matter expert, which means that she hasn’t found out a lot about this case. She hasn’t read the documents. She hasn’t interviewed the parties. She’s just speaking about the issues. And one of the prime issues is that issue that you raise, why might someone stay in this relationship? So Dr. Hughes explained that from the perspective of the tactics that an abuser would use that the jury might not be aware of. The abuser has a bunch of tactics to use to try to keep this person with him. And the ones that we’ve heard described in this case include Mr. Combs’s showing Cassie Ventura videotapes that he’d taken of her during these forced sexual marathons. And saying, if you try to leave me, I will release these to the public, which she thought of as ruining her career. So in her case, in addition to the physical abuse, which we’ve seen in the video, and the sexual abuse, which she’s described in great detail and others have described as well, the drugs which were pushed onto her and which she also used apparently to numb some of the abuse. We also have him threatening to blackmail her. So these are things that the psychologist can talk about. She also talked about trauma bonding. And trauma bonding is the feelings of attachment which someone can develop when they’re isolated from a lot of other people and are with the abuser.

I absolutely have found that to be the case in my work. So, the victim becomes isolated. She’s isolated because she doesn’t have contact with many people, meaningful contact, contact alone where she can speak freely. But when she does, how could she describe what she’s living, what she is going through? No one would understand. But who understands that? Sean Combs, because he was there. So they share this private world together. And even though it’s a world that causes her pain, it’s a world that she can talk about with him. He also undoubtedly, occasionally gave her comfort. He gave her drugs that relieved some of the pain that she was in. He denigrated her, he insulted her, he insulted looks, he was very controlling about the clothes that she wore, the makeup that she wear, and so on. But I’m sure that there were some compliments in there as well. So he used both the carrot and the stick to keep her around and to keep her submissive.

So, let me start with the love bombing, and then I want to make sure I get to those texts because they seem like they’re slightly different things. So, the love bombing occurs often in the beginning stages of the relationship. Remember, Cassie was 19 when she met Mr. Combs, who was in his late 30s. And I imagine, I wasn’t there, but I imagine that he wooed her with all the kinds of things that he could do for her, the 10 record deal, the glamorous lifestyle, and perhaps behaved lovingly towards her as well. And so this is like a tool in his toolbox that he can pull out if he wants to, to court her again and again, to groom her again and again to make her attached to him.

‘Right, reminding her those times not necessarily by even talking about them, but by giving her some hint that that person is still in there. And she testified that she thought that that person, that loving person, that affectionate and appreciative person was the real Sean Combs. And this monster who she saw from time to time, she said his eyes went black. This wasn’t the real him. So she took it on to help him get back to the real him. So that’s love, that’s caretaking, and that’s attachment. And that can be a full-time job. If somebody is with a domestic abuser, it feels like a full-time job to make them feel good. And also, It’s only safe…

‘That’s exactly it. So, a domestic violence victim will please and appease the abuser or use fawning, that’s another term that’s used, to try to deescalate, to try to keep the abuser happy, to try keep the abuser in a good mood. And that’s where we come to those texts. Those texts, “I love you,” “I’m looking forward to the freak-off.” Those kinds of texts are another way to please and appeas the abuser. They should not be used to judge how she was actually feeling in any given moment. If she was feeling great fear but she wanted to be safe she is going to try to keep him happy.