Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial: Defense Depicts Ex-Girlfriend as Willing Sex Partner
Lawyers for Sean Combs cross-examined a former girlfriend at his federal trial on Tuesday, highlighting her feelings of affection for the music mogul and the agency she had in their relationship in an effort to counter prosecutors’ narrative of a romance curdled by intimidation and coercion.
The woman, Jane, who is appearing in court under a pseudonym to protect her privacy, said that she “felt very loved by him” at times despite their often tumultuous three-year relationship. She said she cherished their time cuddling and watching “Dateline” on television; she bathed Mr. Combs and comforted him with foot rubs. “He was my baby,” Jane said.
Mr. Combs, the music producer and impresario also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. The government has accused him of running a “criminal enterprise” whose objectives included coercing women into sex and covering it up. Following Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, who testified over four days last month, Jane is the second woman put forward by prosecutors as a victim of sex trafficking.
Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty, and the defense has argued that Jane and Ms. Ventura were willing participants in sex acts with the mogul.
Under questioning from prosecutors, Jane had described taking part in what she called “hotel nights”: drug-fueled sex marathons with hired male escorts at Mr. Combs’s direction, which she said she did not want to engage in, and led to problems like frequent urinary tract infections.
In her fourth day in court, under cross-examination from Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Jane said she was eager to please Mr. Combs, and that she felt their hotel nights satisfied him. She said she accepted that Mr. Combs filmed these encounters, and said she would seek his approval in performing certain sex acts “to turn him on.”