New York (AFP) – Sean Combs’s defense lawyers on Tuesday will question a woman who dated the music mogul up until his arrest, and who has testified in agonizing detail that he pressured her into drug-fueled sex with escorts. After three days on the stand, the woman speaking under the pseudonym Jane will face intense scrutiny from defense lawyers who have insisted that what prosecutors deem sex trafficking was, in fact, consensual.
Jane told jurors how the final year of her relationship with the artist known as “Diddy” exploded into violence in June 2024. At the time, Combs was already under investigation by federal authorities; his homes had been raided, and the now-infamous security footage of him assaulting his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura in a hotel was public. Throughout her testimony, Jane, who began seeing Combs in early 2021, detailed how she had longed for a more traditional romantic relationship with him.
But she said 90 percent of their time together resulted in sometimes days-long sex parties that saw Combs direct her to have sex with male escorts while he watched, even as she told him the encounters made her feel “sleazy” and “disgusted.” The June 2024 date at home was meant to be a chill night in, she said, but she and Combs got into a fight over his relationship with another woman. The argument escalated when Jane said she pushed Combs’s head onto a marble countertop and began hurling candles.
“I was angry with him,” Jane said. “It was a built-up mix of everything… I just kept saying that I hated him.” Combs was livid: Jane told jurors he kicked down doors and ultimately put her in a chokehold. She managed to run out of the house barefoot, but upon returning hours later, he was still there. He kicked and punched her until she had a black eye and “golf-ball” sized welts, she said. Combs instructed her to ice the injuries and “put an outfit on.”
Jane told jurors that she put on the requisite heels and lingerie for a so-called “hotel night” with Combs and a man he had invited. Through tears, Jane said Combs gave her ecstasy and demanded she have sex with the man, and when she protested he said, “You’re not going to ruin my fucking night.” When she said again she didn’t want to participate, he stood closely to her face and asked in a “forceful” tone: “Then is this coercion?” Jane ultimately complied and gave the escort oral sex: “I just felt like I wasn’t even in my own body,” she said.
Jane testified that Combs paid for her rent at the time and still does. He also continues to fund her legal costs.
– ‘Sexual trauma’ –
When Ventura — who last month testified of physical and psychological abuse in similarly excruciating detail — filed her 2023 civil lawsuit that opened the door for a federal investigation, Jane said she “almost fainted.” “There was a whole other woman feeling the same thing,” Jane said. “I feel like I’m reading my own sexual trauma. It makes me sick how three solid pages, word for word, is exactly my experiences and my anguish,” she messaged Combs, in text records read in court.
After weeks of back-and-forth, Jane said Combs called her a “con artist” and threatened to show sexually explicit videos to the father of her child. She had previously testified at length that she felt “obligated” to participate in hotel nights for “fear of losing the roof over my head” that Combs was bankrolling. Jane said that following their physical fight in the summer of 2024, they saw each other twice more before his arrest last September.
The 55-year-old faces life in prison if convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking. Jane’s story was not in the original indictment against Combs, but she was added after receiving a subpoena requiring her to testify in November 2024 before a grand jury. She began speaking to prosecutors in January of this year. Jane testified that she told Combs’s defense team about the brawl last summer before she told prosecutors. She said she felt “obligated” to meet the defense team “due to my relationship.”
Jane has not filed any civil suit against Combs and said in court Monday she has no plans to. “I just pray for his continued healing,” she told jurors, “and I pray for peace for him.” The Manhattan federal trial is expected to last several more weeks.
© 2024 AFP
