Live updates: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial continues after news of Cassie Ventura’s birth

Celebrity stylist Deonte Nash is back on the stand today, and parts of his testimony have so far been key for the prosecution, according to attorney and CNN legal affairs commentator Areva Martin.

Nash, a stylist who worked for Sean “Diddy” Combs and is also friends with Cassie Ventura, testified yesterday he heard Combs make threats to Ventura about releasing sexually explicit videos of her, something Martin says is a “very important part of the prosecution’s case.”

“The prosecution has to prove that Cassie Ventura was forced, was coerced, to engage in commercial sex acts,” Martin told CNN. “We’ve heard the defense’s claim –– their defense is that, no, she willingly participated in these ‘Freak-offs’ because she wanted to please Sean Combs and she was in love with him –– but this directly contradicts that theory.”

Martin said Nash, who said yesterday that he was subpoenaed to testify, has so far been “a very credible witness” who knew both Combs and Ventura.

Nash’s testimony that he heard Combs threaten “to ruin (Ventura’s) career” and threaten to “withhold the release of her mixtapes if she did not relent, if she did not capitulate to his request to participate in these ‘Freak-offs,’” is compelling, Martin said. “(Nash) also said he knew based on conversations he had with Cassie Ventura that she often did not want to participate in these ‘Freak-offs’, but yet felt compelled.”

Martin suspects that when time comes for the defense to put on their case, they’ll continue to hear “even more” from Combs’ side that Ventura “was able to make her own decisions, and that, contrary to being coerced into these sex acts, that she did so as a willing participant.”