By MICHAEL R. SISAK, LARRY NEUMEISTER and DAVE COLLINS
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ recent ex-girlfriend sobbed on the witness stand Friday while describing their many drug-fueled sex marathons, saying he ignored her when she signaled that she wanted to stop and chided her for crying after one of the encounters.
The woman testified using the pseudonym “Jane” for a second day in the hip-hop mogul’s sex trafficking trial. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to running his business empire as a racketeering enterprise that enabled and concealed the abuse of women over two decades. If convicted, he faces 15 years to life.
Jane said she gave Combs “subtle cues” about wanting to stop engaging in sex acts with male sex workers while he watched, including telling him she was tired or hungry or make gestures and facial expressions indicating she didn’t want to continue. But, she said, Combs would tell her to keep going and “finish strong.”
Asked by a prosecutor why she didn’t tell him directly that she wanted to stop, Jane said, “I just, I don’t know,” as she cried loudly.
Jane’s account in the trial’s fourth week has closely paralleled earlier testimony by another Combs ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Cassie said Combs assaulted her repeatedly and forced her into “hundreds” of encounters with male sex workers called “ freak-offs ” while Combs watched, directed and sometimes filmed. Jane called the encounters “hotel nights” and the men “entertainers.”
Prosecutor Maurene Comey tried to elicit from Jane testimony that would support the government’s claim that Combs coerced women to submit to his sexual fantasies by using his fortune to make them reliant on him and his needs.
By September 2023, Combs had been paying Jane’s rent for about five months. Comey asked Jane what she feared would happen if she stopping doing hotel nights. “That he would take it away, that Sean would take the house away,” Jane responded.
When she wept after one of the “hotel nights,” Jane recalled Combs telling her “don’t do that right now” and “I can’t do this right now. I’m too high.” She said she blacked out earlier in the evening after she took the drug ecstasy, which she said Combs gave her.
When she tried to remain sober for another encounter, she threw up in a hotel bathroom after having sex with two men in a row. Combs said, “That’s good. You’ll feel better now that you’ve thrown up. So let’s go.” Jane said she then had sex with a third man, telling jurors she was “repulsed.”
She said she endured the “dark, sleazy” encounters because she enjoyed spending time alone with Combs afterward. “I would really fight to block out how sad I was after,” Jane testified. Still, she expressed her love for Combs, telling him in messages that “my heart is really in this and it’s breaking.”
Jane dated Combs from 2021 to 2024. During her first day of testimony Thursday, she said it began as a loving and passionate relationship, but he soon began sharing his fantasies involving her with other men and role playing. Both Jane and Cassie described trying to rush through the encounters just to get them over with. Jane said the encounters sometimes lasted more than 24 hours.
Jane testified Friday she texted Combs in 2023 saying she longed to return to the early days of their relationship. She told him she felt obligated to perform for him and regretted ever getting involved in the encounters, which had come to dominate their time together.
“I don’t want to keep feeling like that,” she wrote, telling Combs that she wanted them to “talk like adults and figure out where we’re going from here.”
Combs responded: “Girl, stop.”
Prosecutors played an audio tape on Friday in which Jane asked a man to wear a condom during their first hotel night, but Combs “guilt tripped me out of it. It wasn’t something he wanted to see.” It was the first time jurors in the trial heard any recording from inside those encounters.
The judge has taken steps to protect Jane’s anonymity, including warning observers not to describe or sketch her in a way that would reveal her identity. The Associated Press does not identify people who say they’re victims of sexual abuse unless they choose to make their names public, as Cassie has done.
On Thursday, Judge Arun Subramanian threatened to eject Combs from the courtroom if he continued “nodding vigorously” at jurors, telling lawyers that he should never attempt to interact with the jury.
Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.