Sean Combs trial updates: Court adjourned until Tuesday after Kid Cudi testimony

A defense attorney for Sean Combs suggested that Dawn Richard agreed to testify against Combs at his federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial because he ruined her music career by dismantling Danity Kane and Diddy Dirty Money, music groups of which she was a member.

Dawn Richard returned to the stand Monday as the case against Sean 'Diddy' Combs returned to court.

"You felt like Mr. Combs had no legitimate reasons to dismantle the groups, right?" the attorney, Nicole Westmoreland, asked during cross-examination.

"Right," Richard answered, adding that she was not angry but "saddened" by it.

"You felt like Mr. Combs ruined your career not once but twice?" Westmoreland asked.

"Yes," Richard answered.

Westmoreland questioned why Richard would reach out to Combs after her split from his label if, as she testified, she was so afraid of him.

On re-direct, Richard testified that she "contacted Puff to be part of 'Making the Band," an MTV talent reality show that Combs produced.

Combs was no longer part of the show at that time but Richard told the court that choreographer Laurieann Gibson, who was a judge on the show at the time, told Richard that she would need to contact Combs nonetheless.

Richard also testified that she reached out to Combs in subsequent years, hoping to get Diddy Dirty Money back together.

"I didn't want to go back," Richard testified. "It wasn't good. I didn't want it. I was trying to help a friend." That friend was bandmate Kaleena Harper, Richard told the jury.

Richard testified that generally she tried not to think about her time as an employee of Bad Boy Records. "It was a hard time," Richard told the jury. "I have to go back to memories I don't want to come back to" when she thinks about that time.

"What, if any, memories were you trying to suppress?" prosecutor Mitzi Steiner asked on re-direct examination.

"The environment was volatile. It was very hard to work in," Richard replied.

"As you sit here today, do you have any doubt that Mr. Combs attempted to strike Ms. Ventura?" Steiner asked.

"I have no doubt," Richard answered.

Richard also testified that she had no doubt that the next day, Combs brought her and Harper into a recording studio, locked the door and threatened her to keep quiet about it.

Dawn Richard's testimony has concluded.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland said Dawn Richard's account of his alleged assault on Cassie Ventura changed several times.

Richard told the jury that she once witnessed Sean Combs take a swing at Cassie Ventura with a frying pan before kicking her on the ground.

Westmoreland confronted Richard with transcripts of her interviews with prosecutors during which she previously said she heard the pan hit the wall, saw Combs actually strike Ventura with it, and saw Combs throw the contents of the pan at Ventura and then set the pan down.

"It has been hard for you to keep your story the same," Westmoreland asked.

"I told it to the best of my recollection and as close as I could get it," Richard responded.

"You have four different recollections?" Westmoreland asked.

"No, I don't," Richard answered.

Westmoreland also challenged a statement Richard had attributed to Combs following the alleged assault on Ventura.

"He said that she was okay and that it would be in our best interests if we didn't say anything. He was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk," Richard testified.

"You didn't tell the federal government that Mr. Combs told you 'people go missing,'" Westmoreland said, citing several interviews Richard conducted with federal prosecutors.

Richard responded that she "spoke as best as she could remember."

Richard also testified that she saw Combs carrying guns several times at the studio or "sometimes the club."

"You never saw Mr. Combs pull a gun out and wave it around, right?" Westmoreland asked.

"No," Richard answered.

"You never saw Mr. Combs pull a gun out and cock it back or anything like that?" Westmoreland asked.

"No," Richard responded.

"Matter of fact, you've never seen Mr. Combs pull a gun out, period," Westmoreland said.

"Just had it on him," Richard testified.

Dawn Richard testified that, before a festival in Central Park in 2009 when Diddy Dirty Money announced their formation, she and fellow member Kaleena Harper, along with Cassie Ventura, were in Sean Combs' apartment getting ready.

"Puff and Cassie were in the hallway arguing. He punched her in the face. Sean Combs punched her in the face," Richard testified. It was the latest in a number of times that Richard told the jury that she witnessed Combs physically injure Ventura.

This alleged assault "was a closed fist," Richard testified.

Richard told the court that Ventura "came into the bathroom crying" and said Ventura's "eye was swelling." Richard testified that Ventura "started doing her makeup" to, Richard said, try and hide the injury.

The jury then saw a photo of Richard, Harper and Ventura at the festival wearing sunglasses.

"Why were you wearing sunglasses?" prosecutor Mitzi Steiner asked.

"To have solidarity. To be a friend. To be a support system for someone who needed it," Richard answered.

Combs, dressed in a crew-neck sweater, is scribbling notes and looking through binders as he listens to the testimony.

The defense previously succeeded in limiting the scope of testimony from Richard and from some of the upcoming witnesses after arguing that the government's case is built on gossip. Federal prosecutors countered that Combs created "a culture of coercion and a culture of fear" by allegedly acting violently and then threatening people who witnessed his behavior.

Richard told the jury she advised Ventura to leave Combs.

"He didn't like it when Kaleena and I would talk to Cass," Richard testified, adding that Combs would allegedly tell them to "stay the f--- out of my relationship."

Richard also testified that she felt threatened by Combs, telling the jury, "It was always, or else something bad was going to happen to you if you didn't stay in line." She told the court that an associate of Combs' allegedly told her "It is dark and lonely" if she failed to listen to Combs.

Dawn Richard told a jury in Manhattan federal court that Combs issued the threat the day after she witnessed the Bad Boy Records founder try to hit Cassie with a skillet and then beat her. She said he told her and another woman who saw the attack that "we could go missing" if either revealed what they saw.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner asked Richard what she took "we could go missing" to mean.

"That we could die," Richard responded, saying she was shocked because all of this happened just as she was beginning to record with "Diddy - Dirty Money," a musical trio she formed with Combs and another R&B singer.