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The cross-examination of one of Sean Combs’ alleged sex-trafficking victims devolved into a tense exchange and required an afternoon break Tuesday after Combs’ defense attorney suggested the woman only rebuffed a “hotel night” with the mogul in November 2021 out of jealousy – not because she was being coerced.
As defense lawyer Teny Geragos walked the woman through a series of messages sent shortly before Thanksgiving that year, Geragos suggested the ex-girlfriend was trying to back out of a threesome with Combs and a male escort because she saw on social media that Combs was spending time with another girlfriend.
The woman, testifying under the pseudonym “Jane,” said that exchange came later, saying she had been trying to gently maneuver out of a night of “debauchery” and only spend time with Combs. Still, she agreed that she became upset that while Combs was suggesting a hotel night with her, he was currently with another woman. Jane said she saw on Instagram that Combs was lavishing her with quality time and expensive gifts, including a Chanel bag, while Jane was expected to have sex with two different men.
“You didn’t get a Chanel bag,” Geragos ventured in an apparent attempt to portray Jane as possessive and out for material gain.
“No, I only got trauma,” Jane shot back.
When Geragos countered that Combs actually bought Jane a different designer bag, asking Jane to clarify what a “Bottega” bag is, Jane curtly responded that Geragos probably had a purse of her own from the Italian fashion house. Geragos then asked Jane how much the bag she received cost.
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“How much does my body cost?” Jane replied, clearly upset. After the judge reminded Jane to answer the questions that were asked, Jane asked for the afternoon break, which the judge granted.
The afternoon exchange struck a dramatically different chord than Jane’s firm but amicable morning testimony. Speaking to jurors on her fourth day on the witness stand, Jane was adamant she saw things “entirely differently” from the defense. “I was in a chaotic whirlwind of a dark life,” she said of her relationship with Combs.
When her cross-examination first started, the woman, identified as Victim-2 in Sean Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy indictment, agreed with Geragos that she repeatedly got “back together” with Combs of her “own volition.” She said her love for Combs, which she admitted is ongoing, clouded her thinking. She described feeling “love and pressure” to indulge Combs’ desire for the drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts often referred to a “freak-offs” during the trial. She said their relationship “was built under a lot of emotional manipulation and pressure” and that she felt obligated “to fulfill my duties as a girlfriend.”
In the packed lower Manhattan courtroom, Jane also described feeling a need to protect Combs because she thought he was sharing something very “vulnerable” with her. “I didn’t want to judge him for his behavior in these rooms,” she said.
Jane said she actually started researching Combs’ fixation on bringing men into their relationship to better understand him. When she landed on the term “cuck,” she felt it was “spot on,” she said. Cuck is a shortened version of cuckold, which refers to a man who tolerates or derives pleasure from his partner’s infidelity.
“Cucks could also have a bi-curiosity that they are too ashamed to experience themselves,” Jane testified. “So they use the woman to venture out in this curiosity without actually doing the act itself.” Combs leaned forward in his seat and appeared very engaged as Geragos pursued this line of questioning.
Jane said she worried about Combs’ heavy use of drugs and alcohol as well. During a trip to Turks and Caicos early on in their relationship, Jane felt like Combs’ eyes looked jaundiced, his teeth and gums appeared gray, and his hands were shaking. She believed he was “not taking very good care of himself” and needed her, she said.
In her opening statement, Geragos described Jane as “a capable, strong, adult woman” who willingly agreed to engage in Combs’ “swingers lifestyle” because she loved the mogul. On Tuesday, Jane repeatedly agreed she loved Combs very much. She said while she came to loathe the addition of so many male escorts to the relationship, the “hotel nights” generally afforded her extra love, affection and attention from Combs, which she cherished.
What Jane craved most in her relationship with Combs was quality alone time, she testified. Describing herself as “nurturing,” Jane said she loved giving Combs foot rubs, binging Dateline episodes with him until the mogul fell asleep, and having insightful conversations. “He was my baby,” Jane said.
Speaking while Combs’ mother, sister, two sons and Dana Tran (the mother of one of Combs’ children) watched in the gallery, Jane confirmed Combs wired her a total of about $150,000 over the last few years and invested $20,000 in her clothing business. She said he would use the financial support as leverage to get what he wanted. She believed he might stop paying her $10,000 monthly rent if she crossed him. “He used it kind of as a little tool. The rent was always just like a little reminder,” she testified.
In an apparent attempt to present the couple’s sex life as fun and lighthearted, Geragos pressed Jane on the NBA nicknames the couple allegedly used for themselves and a particular male escort. Remaining firm, Jane said it was Combs who coined the nicknames and the NBA “trifecta” moniker. She said Combs would call himself Michael Jordan while referring to Jane as Kobe Bryant and the escort as Shaquille O’Neal.
Geragos also sought to recast Jane’s trip to Turks and Caicos with Combs in 2023. On Friday, Jane testified that she was devastated and fought with Combs when he insisted they have a male escort join them in the Caribbean. On Tuesday, Geragos played a voicemail for jurors on which Combs was heard referring to the trip and gleefully bestowing a new nickname on Jane. “You are the crack pipe. That’s my new name for you,” Combs said on the recording.
Jane conceded Tuesday that she had “fun” on the vacation, but was firm that she was solely referring to the time she spent alone with Combs. She said Combs was teasing her because he was “addicted” to having sex with her.
Jane dated Combs between 2021 and 2024. In her direct testimony, she described falling “head over heels” for the music mogul and said her initial willingness to fulfill Combs’ “fantasy” of watching her have sex with another man opened a “Pandora’s box” that led to countless marathon sex sessions with male escorts that Combs often recorded.
During her first day on the witness stand last week, Jane said Combs moved her to Los Angeles early in the relationship and expected her to be ready whenever he demanded a drug-fueled “hotel night” that could last several days and involve multiple male escorts and dozens of bottles of baby oil.
On Monday, Jane gave harrowing testimony about a night in June 2024 when Combs allegedly choked, punched, and kicked her in a rage. She said the physical fight started when she confronted Combs over her belief he took a different romantic partner on a family vacation. She recalled being angry and said she “pushed” Combs’ head into a marble kitchen counter when he bent over “like he was about to tie his shoe.” The fight escalated from there, she said, leading Combs to bust down four doors in her house trying to get to her as she kept trying to run and hide.
She said Combs lifted her onto her “tippy toes” in a chokehold before she ran outside barefoot and hid for two hours near a wall about six blocks away. When she returned to the house, thinking the coast was clear, Combs attacked her again, she said, punching her in the face and kicking her on the ground. After that, Combs cruelly demanded she use ice, makeup and a new hairstyle to camouflage her black eye and several welts on her head because he was booking a male escort for an impromptu “hotel night” to round out their evening, she testified.
The alleged attack was notable both for its ferocity and timing. It allegedly took place just weeks after Combs issued a public apology related to an instance of domestic violence, saying he was “committed to be a better man each and every day.” The apology followed the release of video of Combs kicking and dragging his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura inside L.A.’s InterContinental Hotel in 2016. (It also came after Rolling Stone published a May 2024 exposé breaking new details regarding Combs’ alleged history of violence.) The hotel video was leaked in the wake of Ventura suing him for sex trafficking. Ventura’s lawsuit laid the ground work for the criminal investigation that led to Combs’ homes being raided in March 2024.
On the witness stand, Jane told jurors she was blown away when she read Ventura’s lawsuit. “I almost fainted, in fact I think I did,” Jane said. “I just reacted like, ‘I can’t believe I’m reading my own story.’”
The woman testified that she repeatedly made it clear to Combs that she didn’t enjoy hotel nights and only engaged in them at his request. In a series of text messages sent in October 2023, just weeks before Ventura’s lawsuit, Jane told Combs that the sex sessions, also dubbed “freak-offs,” left her feeling “violated.”
“I’m not an animal. I’m not a porn star. Our experiences are desensitizing sex for me,” Jane said in the text exchange. “It’s been three years of me having to fuck strangers. I’m tired.”
Combs, 55, was arrested last September and has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy. If convicted as charged, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Combs’ defense lawyers say the billionaire businessman may have been a bad boyfriend with a drug problem and a jealous streak, but they say his interest in “kinky sex” was not illegal. They say the two alleged sex-trafficking victims in the case were consenting, long-term girlfriends.
“You will see that these women are strong, capable, and they were in love with him. You will see that breaches of trust, infidelity, and jealousy are what drove the domestic violence you will hear about. You will see that alcohol and drugs played a major role in his temper. The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual, but it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker, or somebody transporting for prostitution,” Geragos said in her opening statement.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, allege that Combs ran a criminal enterprise that manipulated women into highly degrading hotel nights that they found humiliating. Prosecutors say Combs and his inner circle knew the women weren’t happy and used physical violence, threats, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice to fulfill Combs’ desires and protect his reputation at all costs.
From Rolling Stone US
