Combs, Sean

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Defense to Analyze ‘Hotel Night’ Texts With ‘Jane’

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      The music mogul’s lawyers have started walking his former girlfriend — now a government witness — through a voluminous history of text and audio messages.Sean Combs’s former girlfriend, who has said she was subjected to a pattern of degrading sex marathons with male escorts, will take the stand for her fifth day of testimony on Wednesday at the music mogul’s federal trial, as his lawyers seek to portray her as a willing participant in the encounters.On Tuesday, the defense’s cross-examination of the woman — who is testifying under the pseudonym Jane — delved into lengthy, emoji-filled text exchanges surrounding the encounters, which the couple referred to as “debauchery” or “hotel nights.”Prosecutors say Mr. Combs coerced Jane into these nights, and she has testified that they left her feeling disgusted, used and sometimes physically sick, saying that Mr. Combs tended to be dismissive when she voiced her aversion to them.While questioning Jane, the defense highlighted messages from Mr. Combs in which he appeared to be solicitous about what she wanted to do sexually; once, in 2021, he asked her about her own sexual fantasies, writing, “we don’t have to be debaucherous lol.” Jane testified that she often read “undertones” of expectation in her boyfriend’s messages, leading her to be agreeable or try to cater to the kind of voyeuristic sex that he often requested.“I know my partner and what he likes and what he wants,” she testified.The trial is scheduled to have a delayed start on Wednesday, but when testimony starts in the afternoon the defense is expected to parse more messages that help chronicle the couple’s volatile relationship, which lasted from 2021 to Mr. Combs’s arrest in 2024.Mr. Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking Jane and another former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, who testified at the start of the trial. He is also facing a charge of racketeering conspiracy, which includes allegations that he ran a criminal enterprise that helped facilitate sex trafficking, among other crimes.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers have denied that the mogul coerced the two women into sex, and they have asserted that members of Mr. Combs’s staff, including security guards and high-ranking employees, were members of lawful businesses — not a criminal conspiracy.Under questioning from the prosecution, Jane described the drug-fueled nights of sex as “performances” and said she continued to participate to please Mr. Combs and to secure time alone with the man she loved. But in 2023, the dynamic shifted when he began paying her $10,000-a-month rent in Los Angeles. She testified that Mr. Combs started to use the house as “leverage” for her to continue participating in sex with escorts.And she described a violent brawl with Mr. Combs in 2024, when he was under criminal investigation. She testified that afterward, when she had welts and a black eye from his blows, he demanded she perform oral sex on an escort despite her protests. She said she took the Ecstasy pill he gave her and complied.Olivia Bensimon More

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      Defense to Question Woman About ‘Hotel Nights’ With Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      One of the music mogul’s ex-girlfriends, who is going by the pseudonym Jane, has spent days testifying that he pressured her to have sex with other men.For more than 13 hours over three days, jurors in the federal trial of Sean Combs have heard gripping testimony from one of his former girlfriends, a witness for the prosecution called Jane. Now it is time for her cross-examination.Mr. Combs, the producer and impresario also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. The government has accused the music mogul of running a “criminal enterprise” whose objectives included coercing women into sex and covering it up; after 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, who faces life in prison if he is convicted, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and has strongly denied that any of his sexual relations were not consensual.Appearing under a pseudonym to protect her privacy, Jane first took the stand on Thursday afternoon and will continue on Tuesday. She has recounted vivid details of a troubled relationship with Mr. Combs, which began in 2021 and lasted until shortly before his arrest in September 2024.Jane said she was pressured to have sex with a succession of male escorts without condoms, and developed painful infections as a result. She once threw up in the bathroom of a luxury hotel after having sex with two men, she testified; after Mr. Combs told her “let’s go” because a third man was waiting to have sex with her, she complied.Jane was also part of Mr. Combs’s life during the critical period after Ms. Ventura filed her bombshell lawsuit in November 2023, in which she described being coerced into drug-fueled sex marathons she called “freak-offs.” Recognizing a similar pattern to what she called “hotel nights” or “debauchery,” Jane texted Mr. Combs three days after that suit was filed: “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.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Ex-Girlfriend to Resume Testimony About Sex Under Duress

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      The woman, known in court as Jane, has testified that she felt obligated to participate in sex marathons with male escorts because the mogul was paying her rent.A former girlfriend of Sean Combs is set to retake the stand on Monday at his federal trial to continue her testimony about a series of sex marathons with male prostitutes, which she said she felt pressured to continue because Mr. Combs was funding her livelihood.As the trial enters its fifth week, prosecutors are expected to drill down on a key part of their sex-trafficking case: allegations of financial coercion.The former girlfriend, who is known in court by the pseudonym Jane, spent more than seven hours last week testifying about her tumultuous relationship with the music mogul, which started in 2021 and continued until his arrest in 2024. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, and his lawyers have denied that the sex at the center of the case was ever coercive.Jane testified last week that in an effort to fulfill her boyfriend’s fantasies, she began to participate in drug-fueled sexual encounters with a succession of hired men that the couple called “debauchery” or “hotel nights.” Her account of the sex marathons — which could last for days and typically involved Mr. Combs watching and masturbating — aligned with the “freak-offs” described by Casandra Ventura, another former girlfriend who testified at the start of the case.The pattern of “hotel nights” left Jane feeling used, exhausted and at times sick, she testified. But Mr. Combs was dismissive when she voiced her reluctance, she said, and she continued out of a desire to please him. At times, she arranged to hire certain “entertainers” herself so she could choose the men involved, she testified.The dynamic shifted in 2023, when Mr. Combs began paying her $10,000-a-month rent. Jane said she feared losing her home if she did not comply.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Ex-Girlfriend Will Continue Testimony About Unwanted Sex

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      Testifying under a pseudonym, “Jane,” the woman has described “hotel nights” involving drugs and encounters with escorts that she told the mogul she did not want to continue.The 18th day of testimony in the federal trial of Sean Combs will continue on Friday with a woman who described the encounters she had with a succession of men at the music mogul’s direction as a “Pandora’s box” of unwanted sex.The woman, who is testifying under the pseudonym “Jane,” is the second witness put forward by prosecutors as a victim of sex trafficking by Mr. Combs, who also faces charges of racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. Mr. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers have strongly denied that any of his sexual arrangements were nonconsensual.The first of those witnesses, Casandra Ventura — the singer known as Cassie, who was in an off-and-on relationship with Mr. Combs for 11 years — has played a prominent role in Mr. Combs’s legal troubles over the last year and a half. Her bombshell lawsuit, filed in November 2023, led to the government’s investigation, and a leaked hotel security video showing Mr. Combs brutally assaulting her has been a key piece of evidence, shown to jurors repeatedly since the trial began four weeks ago.Before Jane took the stand on Thursday afternoon — under strict conditions from the court to protect her privacy — little had been known about her. In filings before the trial began, prosecutors referred to her in filings only as “Victim-2,” saying that the “financial losses, dependency and social isolation” she experienced during her relationship with Mr. Combs from 2021 to 2024 “made her more vulnerable to his coercion.”At the start of her testimony, she described herself as a single mother who was earning her living through social media promotions when she met Mr. Combs in 2020 on a trip to Florida. They began flirting, and gave each other nicknames: She was Bert and he was Ernie, after the “Sesame Street” characters. By early 2021, she said, they were in a passionate, intimate relationship (though Mr. Combs was clear that he was seeing other women at the same time).What she says happened next parallels parts of Ms. Ventura’s testimony. Mr. Combs brought Jane to a Miami hotel suite where she said she saw “assistants” setting up with lights and beverages, and draping bedsheets over the furniture. Mr. Combs invited a male escort to the room and gave the two detailed sexual directions, she testified, while the famed music producer watched and masturbated.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Combs Trial, ‘Jane,’ an Ex-Girlfriend, to Testify About Sex Abuse

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      Prosecutors say the woman, who will take the stand under a pseudonym, endured coerced sex marathons called “freak-offs.” The defense contends they were consensual.A second woman who prosecutors say was sex trafficked by Sean Combs is set to take the stand on Thursday at his federal trial in what is expected to be several days of testimony about drug-fueled sex marathons with male prostitutes known as “freak-offs.”A judge has allowed the woman to testify anonymously, and she is being referred to in court by the pseudonym “Jane.” She is the most significant witness since Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend of 11 years, whose allegations of physical and sexual abuse gave rise to the criminal case.Prosecutors have said that Jane’s relationship with Mr. Combs mirrored the one he had with Ms. Ventura in many ways. Like Ms. Ventura, they have said, Jane was coerced into freak-offs through violence, financial control and threats related to videos of the sexual encounters, which they said Mr. Combs directed step by step.Unlike Ms. Ventura, who is a singer known as Cassie and a public celebrity, Jane’s identity has not been revealed.The government has described Jane as a single mother who started spending time with Mr. Combs in 2020 and quickly fell in love with the music mogul, agreeing to participate in an initial freak-off to please him.“Jane thought the first freak-off was a one-time, wild night,” Emily Johnson, one of the prosecutors, said at the start of the case. “Jane was wrong.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs, Defendant: Gestures to His Family, Sticky Notes to His Lawyers

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      With no cameras in the courtroom, few have glimpsed the music mogul as he helps direct his defense, facing charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.He shakes his head and fidgets in his seat during testimony, passes notes to his lawyers and blows kisses to his mother in the courtroom gallery. Sometimes Sean Combs pulls out chairs for the women on his legal team.His federal trial has drawn worldwide attention, with minute-by-minute coverage from the press and social media influencers who broadcast live updates from the street outside U.S. District Court in Lower Manhattan.But since federal courts bar cameras, Mr. Combs’s demeanor during the most critical eight weeks of his life — Does he smile? Does he seem mad, nervous, sad? — has been largely outside public view, captured only by the sketches of courtroom artists.For weeks now, Mr. Combs, who is facing sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life, has been an attentive and largely easygoing presence in the courtroom. His expressions of disagreement with witnesses have been subdued, showing no inkling of the volcanic, violent temper often described in testimony.When George Kaplan, a former assistant, described the pace of working for Mr. Combs as “almost like drinking from a fire hose,” the mogul nodded in approval. When another assistant, using the pseudonym Mia, said she would be punished if she did not do “everything that he told me to do,” he just scoffed and shook his head.It is an understated posture for a man whose profile as a chart-topping producer, rapper, reality-TV star and gossip-page fixture was larger than life, giving rise to the multitude of nicknames — Puff Daddy, Diddy and Love — by which he has been known.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Woman Expected to Testify That Sean Combs Held Her Over a Balcony

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      Bryana Bongolan, a friend of the mogul’s former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, is set to give her account of being dangled from a 17th-floor balcony.A woman is expected to take the stand at Sean Combs’s federal trial on Wednesday to give her account of the music mogul dangling her over a 17th-floor apartment balcony.Bryana Bongolan, a friend of Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’s former girlfriend, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Combs last year. In her complaint, Ms. Bongolan said she had been staying in Ms. Ventura’s Los Angeles apartment when, early one morning in 2016, Mr. Combs stormed in, yelled at Ms. Bongolan and held her over the balcony railing — “with only Combs’ grip keeping her from falling to her death” — before he pulled her back and slammed her onto a patio table.Her full account has been anticipated for months. The indictment that charges Mr. Combs with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy made brief mention of what appears to be Ms. Bongolan’s account, saying that “on one occasion, Combs dangled a female victim over an apartment balcony.” Her story was also referenced in Ms. Ventura’s bombshell civil suit in November 2023, which led to the government’s investigation and Mr. Combs’s arrest.The racketeering charge against Mr. Combs involves accusations that the mogul engaged an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees to help him commit a series of crimes over two decades.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers have said that he and his employees were involved in legitimate business operations, not a criminal conspiracy, and that the sex at issue in the government’s case was entirely consensual.Prosecutors, nearing the halfway point of what they expect to be an eight-week trial, said they will soon call “Jane,” the second woman — after Ms. Ventura — who the government says was a victim of sex trafficking by Mr. Combs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Trial Will Focus on Footage of Hotel Assault on Cassie

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      The music mogul has been accused of using a brown bag filled with $100,000 cash to buy hotel security video of him beating up Casandra Ventura.It has been a year since 2016 footage of Sean Combs brutally assaulting his longtime girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, in a Los Angeles hotel was broadcast on CNN. Now those images, which became a potent demonstration of the music mogul’s violence, are a centerpiece of his federal trial.The video of Mr. Combs striking and kicking Ms. Ventura has already been shown to jurors multiple times. On Tuesday, prosecutors are expected to delve into the events that followed the assault, which they have said involved Mr. Combs delivering $100,000 in a brown paper bag to purchase hotel security footage of the beating.Mr. Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, which involves accusations that the mogul engaged an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees to help him commit a series of crimes over two decades.At least two of those criminal allegations — bribery and obstruction of justice — relate to the aftermath of the assault at an InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers have said that he and his employees were involved in legitimate business operations, not a criminal conspiracy, and that the sex at issue in the government’s case was entirely consensual.On Tuesday morning, Eddy Garcia, a hotel security supervisor who was on duty shortly after the 2016 assault, is expected to take the stand. He will be testifying under an immunity order after telling the government that he intended to assert his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More