Surviving abuse: Cassie Ventura Fine and the unlikely bond with her mother-in-law
Editor's note: This story contains graphic descriptions that some readers may find disturbing. Pamela Parker Fine joined hands withCasandra Ventura Fine– the singer and model she'd met 48 hours earlier. Pam's family and friends gathered in the courthouse in Broomfield, Colorado, just outside Boulder in April of 2019. Both stood side by side minutes before Fine would confront her abuser one last time. "Our Father, who art in heaven," began Pam's older sister. All of them –Pam's son Alex, her mother, her brother and sister-in-law, her sister, her attorney and supporters held hands, formed a circle. "Hallowed be thy name," they said in unison. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." They pulled closer, the circle growing tighter. "…And forgive us our trespasses," Pam said in her breaking voice, a seq uela of his choking. "As we forgive those who trespass against us… Pam didn't know much about the woman, best known as Cassie, who later that year would become her daughter-in-law. She knew only that her son was in love, and that Cassie came to support them at the sentencing hearing for a high-profile domestic violence case against afootball coach at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Four more years would pass before the two women would learn that they had more in common than either of them wanted to share. Cassie would become the main witness inSean "Diddy" Combs'sex trafficking and racketeering case. Both would stand up to powerful men. Both women walked away from men they loved – men who had hurt them. Both would say they did so to protect other women. Pam has been a grief counselor and a high school dean. She has created suicide prevention programs for teenagers and helped host proms for students with special needs. She is described by those who know her as a helper and a fixer, a strong woman who grew up in the Midwest taking her son to Cincinnati Reds and Bengals games and supporting him playing football in high school and later at Central Michigan University. Pam has been many things to many people, but the victim was not one of them. She metJoe Tumpkinwhen he was the defensive coordinator for the Chippewas, her son's college team. They began dating in 2014, her son's senior year. When Tumpkin was hired as an assistant football coach in Boulder the next year, she would fly from her home outside of Detroit to see him every 10 days. The abuse soon began. It grew worse over the next two years. Tumpkin pushed her, grabbed her by the hair, head butted and bit her, she would later tell a detective when filing a police report and wrote in an application for a protective order. When Tumpkin had been drinking, he'd dig his finger into her chest. She was "thrown into walls" and choked, Broomfield Detective Dale Hammell wrote in a police affidavit. Fine would lay there believing that if she fought back against the 6-foot-1, 230-pound man, it would be worse. Pam has permanent damage to her larynx, causing her voice to break and tremble at times due to "repeated strangulation" according to a medical report presented to the court. Exhaustion was the only way to end the episode. She would curl into a ball at times, retreating to a leather chair to make it more difficult for Tumpkin to hold her down and strangle her. He pulled her by the hair, dragged her and beat her, she said, when she would try to leave. Pam hid the bruises on her arms, legs and face from her coworkers and family. After all, shelovedhim. Cassiebegan dating Sean "Diddy" Combs when she was 19. Soon after, he became abusive. And by 2015, she had been taking part in"freak offs,"for years. The drug-fueled sexual performances orchestrated by Combs, she said made her more a "sex worker" than a musician, she said at his criminal trial. To survive the ordeal and not disappoint Combs, she'd send texts to appease him: "I'm always ready to freak off." Deep down, Cassie was distraught. "It made me feel worthless,"she said. "Freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again." Cassie was forced to engage in sex acts with male and female sex workers while Combs filmed. He beat her, punched her, kicked her, and stomped on her. She said she took drugs and to numb herself during the"freak offs." In 2015, after Combs had beat her up in a Las Vegas hotel suite leaving her with black eyes, a bruised lip and welt on her head, Combs forced her to stay at his home, covering her injuries with makeup, to hide the abuse from his family. In March 2016, Cassie was looking forward to her first movie premiere in Los Angeles. She was starring as the romantic lead in"The Perfect Match."While she walked dozens of red carpets – the Met Gala, Grammy parties, the BET awards, she was a guest of Combs. This was going to be her moment. Five days before the premiere, Cassie was at the now-shutteredInterContinental Hotelin Los Angeles with Combs for a "freak off" when Combs hit her. When she tried to leave, he ran after her into a hallway. She curled into a ball to try to protect herself. Combs pushed her to the ground, pulled her by the hair, dragged her, and kicked her. She testified in court that she did not fight back because she had fought back earlier in the relationship but doing so "would make it worse for myself." Fighting back would make Combs"stronger and want to push me harder." She took one arm out and pulled the other to try to shield her eyes. The next night Cassie went to Combs' house for a dress fitting for her movie premiere. Photos shared in court show Ventura in a long sparkly black and gold Stello gown with a deep V-cut. She wore oversized black sunglasses over herbruised eye. When her moment came to walk the red carpet three days later, a radiantCassie held hands with Combs, her hair styled to fall just over her injured eyebrow and eye. She had a bruise on her shoulder, and photos of her in a short green Balmain embroidered dress show a bruise on her shin at the after party. But shelovedhim. Pam couldn't muster the courage to leave Tumpkin to save herself. But she could do it – forhim. She was worried forhissafety. By November 2016, Tumpkin was angrier, drinking more. For Pam, this was it, she would later testify in court. She curled into a fetal position in the brown leather chair again. He pulled her by the hair and threatened her one last time before she was able to leave. A few hours later, the "I'm sorry" texts began. Pam said that the only reason it ended was because that day, "I finally didn't go back." Pam flew back to Michigan and called her mom, telling her everything. Eventually, she called Boulder's head football coach, whom she knew. "I wanted (Tumpkin) to get help." A few days later an attorney for Tumpkin called her. The attorney, she said, offered to pay her, for therapy or anything else. Pam hadn't called police. "That's not what battered women do," she said at the sentencing hearing. "I didn't want him in trouble. I loved Joe Tumpkin with all my heart, I adored that man. I wanted him to be safe. I didn't want him to kill someone on the streets of Boulder. I didn't want him to beat the next woman after me." Her family worried the abuse could intensify after she left. Even though she was in Michigan, they urged her to get a protective order. Pam flew back to Colorado and met with Detective Hammell. She worried about going up against someone associated with a university football program, especially one that had rebuilt and had its best record since 2001. She had seen how Colorado had dealt with allegations of sexual harassment in the past few years. Tumpkin's defense attorney had representedJosh Tupou, a 300-pound lineman at Colorado in 2015, and Colorado defensive backJeffrey Hall, who pled guilty felony charges after assaulting a female Boulder student at a party in 2014. There were times when Pam considered dropping the case. Tumpkin coached in the Alamo Bowl in 2016, a month after she reported the abuse to the head coach. The next year the university would conduct its own85-page investigation. She would feel threatened. She would lose her older brother to suicide. She would go to therapy. She would invest her time with her students. She would try to heal. "I'd text detective Hammell, 'I don't think I can do it,'" she said in court. He'd reply with encouragement: "'I've never told a victim what to do but what I will tell you Pam is I believe the truth wins.'" Pam said she held onto that, repeating it to herself over and over, "that I do believe the truth wins." The strength, she said, came from her son Alex. "My son texted me and said, 'We're strong enough to get through this, mama, we love each other. We'll get through this,' " she said at the sentencing hearing. "You need to do this for all the girls who have been silenced in the past. And in the future." Cassie met Combs for dinner in September in 2018 in Malibu. There, she delivered the news: She was leaving him. Cassie knew she could never feel "physically or mentally safe," she said in hercivil suit,"if she stayed with him." Combs had threatened her. He has been accused of blowing up the car of a musician she once dated, and required her to carry his handgun in her purse. She thought being at the Italian restaurant would protect her. Instead, he forced himself into her apartment and raped her, she testified at Combs' criminal trial. She had hidden the abuse for so long, she had said in court. Even when she told her mom, who had been married to her dad for 30 years, she did not tell her everything. "I was terrified...It's not normal, constantly being bruised up by the person you love," Cassie testified. Slowly, there were signs that she no longer was isolated from her friends and family. She posted a photo of herself at the beach in September, her brother's arm around her, her head on his shoulder. "Big brothers are the best. I love you, Roddy," she captioned it. Cassie had met Alex earlier that year when Combs had hired him as her personal trainer. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Casandra Fine (@cassie) In October 2018, Alex supported his mom. "A little while back my mama was beaten by her boyfriend at the time," he wrote in an Instagram post with a photo of them in matching T-shirts for a nonprofit that helps the Los Angeles community. "She felt she could trust the system, but it failed to protect her. ... As men, it is our job to respect them, protect them, and believe them. This post isn't just for my mom. This goes to every man. Respect women." On the stand, eight months pregnant with her third child with Alex, Cassie testified about her life after leaving Combs - how she was suicidal, how she went to therapy, counseling and an in-patient treatment center. She has shared how her parents have helped that they " have been my greatest support system and the most real and true example of unconditional love." Those close to her say two big things have helped: Alex and seeing her mother-in-law stand up to her abuser with her family's support. Her husband will say it's all her: "Over the past five days, the world has gotten to witness the strength and bravery of my wife freeing herself of her past.Cassie saved Cassie. She alone broke free from abuse, coercion, violence and threats. She did the work of fighting the demons that only a demon himself could have done to her." It took 28 months from the day Pam filed a police report on Tumpkin's abuse to his sentencing in April 2019. Tumpkins initially was charged with five counts of second-degree assault and three counts of third-degree assault. Prosecutors offered him a deal in which he plead guilty to one count of third-degree assault. In the courthouse, Pam sat next to her mom and sister. Alex and Cassie, wearing Alex's blazer, sat just behind Pam. "It was like this circle of love and strength," said Bridgette Braig, a former University of Colorado Boulder professor and longtime Boulder resident who attended the sentencing. "Pam was surrounded by support." Pam's mother, Patricia Parker, read from a statement, pausing at times to share how nervous she was to stand in front of the judge: "I'm so proud of my daughter. For the sake of the women who will come after her, she gathered her courage to not participate in a lie, to be the truth, to live uncompromisingly and fearlessly." Alex was confident, measured and controlled as he spoke about the man who once was his coach. "I point the finger at us men, as men we need to keep other men in check. That means our brothers, our sons, cousins, and friends," he said. "We need to hold each other accountable in how we treat women and handle the men responsible who don't." Judge Michael Goodbee acknowledged that domestic abuse cases can be perplexing to family and friends. He would sentence Tumpkin for one misdemeanor count of third-degree domestic violence. "Victims can develop what I will call a learned hopelessness. Many of them focus on not triggering their abuser and simply surviving in their existing circumstance. Hopelessness can become a central experience in their life," he said. "What I will say Ms. Fine to you is that hopelessness did not define you in this case. You managed to escape a fog of violence and a fog of any learned helplessness, you've regained your voice, and your voice has been strong and impactful. … I think that you may have created the possibility of an enhanced safety for domestic violence victims." Pam hadn't seen Tumpkin since that day in November 2016 when she told him she was leaving. She had been afraid to go to the police, to go to the university. She had been afraid to tell her story. Afraid that they would shame her, criticize her, tear her down. She did so, she said, "for the women who come after me." "For 28 months I have been referred to as a victim of Joe Tumpkin," she said. But she would never carry that title after leaving the courtroom that day. "I am a survivor." Room 26a of Southern District of New York's Manhattan courthouse is the place Cassie would see Combs for the first time since 2018. The date was May 13. She would later issue her only public statement about her relationship with Combs and the trial: "I hope that my testimony has given strength and a voice to other survivors and can help others who have suffered to speak up and also heal from the abuse and fear." The narrow window that opened in 2022 when theNew York Adult Survivors Actgave sexual abuse victims a one-year period to file civil claims even after the statute of limitations had lapsed. Cassie filed a civil suit against Combs in November 2023.Combs would settlethe case the next day for $20 million. Federal investigators used the suit to file the federal charges. Wearing a brown turtleneck dress that clung closely to her 8 1/2 month pregnant belly. Cassie walked past Combs toward the stand, looking straight ahead. Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focusing on health and wellness. She is the author of "Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter's Search for Truth and Renewal," and can be reached at ltrujillo@usatoday.com. This story was written using court documents, including the transcripts from Joe Tumpkin's 2019 sentencing hearing, police reports and the protective order filing, Cassandra Ventura Fine's 2023 civil lawsuit, testimony from Sean "Diddy" Combs' trial, and the University of Colorado Boulder's investigative report. Ventura Fine and Alex Fine's attorney did not return requests for comment. Pamela Fine declined to comment. If you are a survivor of sexual assault, RAINNoffers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) andHotline.RAINN.organd en EspañolRAINN.org/es. If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, call theNational Domestic Violence Hotlineat 800-799-7233 or text "START" to 88788. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Cassie and a horrifying family connection to abuse, strength
Surviving abuse: Cassie Ventura Fine and the unlikely bond with her mother-in-law Editor's note: This story contains graphic description...
