By MICHAEL R. SISAK, LARRY NEUMEISTER and DAVE COLLINS
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ latest ex-girlfriend sobbed on the witness stand Friday whereas describing their many drug-fueled intercourse marathons, saying he ignored her when she signaled that she wished to cease and chided her for crying after one of many encounters.
The lady testified utilizing the pseudonym “Jane” for a second day within the hip-hop mogul’s intercourse trafficking trial. Combs, 55, has pleaded not responsible to working his enterprise empire as a racketeering enterprise that enabled and hid the abuse of girls over 20 years. If convicted, he faces 15 years to life.
Jane mentioned she gave Combs “delicate cues” about eager to cease participating in intercourse acts with male intercourse employees whereas he watched, together with telling him she was drained or hungry or make gestures and facial expressions indicating she didn’t wish to proceed. However, she mentioned, Combs would inform her to maintain going and “end sturdy.”
Requested by a prosecutor why she didn’t inform him straight that she wished to cease, Jane mentioned, “I simply, I don’t know,” as she cried loudly.
Jane’s account within the trial’s fourth week has carefully paralleled earlier testimony by one other Combs ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Cassie mentioned Combs assaulted her repeatedly and compelled her into “a whole bunch” of encounters with male intercourse employees known as “ freak-offs ” whereas Combs watched, directed and typically filmed. Jane known as the encounters “resort nights” and the lads “entertainers.”
Prosecutor Maurene Comey tried to elicit from Jane testimony that might assist the federal government’s declare that Combs coerced girls to undergo his sexual fantasies through the use of his fortune to make them reliant on him and his wants.
By September 2023, Combs had been paying Jane’s lease for about 5 months. Comey requested Jane what she feared would occur if she stopping doing resort nights. “That he would take it away, that Sean would take the home away,” Jane responded.
When she wept after one of many “resort nights,” Jane recalled Combs telling her “don’t do this proper now” and “I can’t do that proper now. I’m too excessive.” She mentioned she blacked out earlier within the night after she took the drug ecstasy, which she mentioned Combs gave her.
When she tried to stay sober for one more encounter, she threw up in a resort rest room after having intercourse with two males in a row. Combs mentioned, “That’s good. You’ll really feel higher now that you just’ve thrown up. So let’s go.” Jane mentioned she then had intercourse with a 3rd man, telling jurors she was “repulsed.”
She mentioned she endured the “darkish, sleazy” encounters as a result of she loved spending time alone with Combs afterward. “I might actually combat to dam out how unhappy I used to be after,” Jane testified. Nonetheless, she expressed her love for Combs, telling him in messages that “my coronary heart is basically on this and it’s breaking.”
Jane dated Combs from 2021 to 2024. Throughout her first day of testimony Thursday, she mentioned it started as a loving and passionate relationship, however he quickly started sharing his fantasies involving her with different males and function taking part in. Each Jane and Cassie described attempting to hurry by way of the encounters simply to get them over with. Jane mentioned the encounters typically lasted greater than 24 hours.
Jane testified Friday she texted Combs in 2023 saying she longed to return to the early days of their relationship. She advised him she felt obligated to carry out for him and regretted ever getting concerned within the encounters, which had come to dominate their time collectively.
“I don’t wish to hold feeling like that,” she wrote, telling Combs that she wished them to “speak like adults and work out the place we’re going from right here.”
Combs responded: “Woman, cease.”
Prosecutors performed an audio tape on Friday during which Jane requested a person to put on a condom throughout their first resort evening, however Combs “guilt tripped me out of it. It wasn’t one thing he wished to see.” It was the primary time jurors within the trial heard any recording from inside these encounters.
The decide has taken steps to guard Jane’s anonymity, together with warning observers to not describe or sketch her in a means that might reveal her identification. The Related Press doesn’t determine individuals who say they’re victims of sexual abuse until they select to make their names public, as Cassie has achieved.
On Thursday, Choose Arun Subramanian threatened to eject Combs from the courtroom if he continued “nodding vigorously” at jurors, telling legal professionals that he ought to by no means try to work together with the jury.
Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.
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