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Sean Combs’ personal assistant “Mia” returned to the stand Monday for the third day, where she spoke about her reticence to come forward sooner with allegations of sexual assault against Combs. “I was terrified and brainwashed,” she said, while being cross-examined by Combs’ defense attorney, Brian Steel.
Steel took a highly aggressive approach to his cross examination as he picked up the defense’s efforts to undermine Mia’s allegations by highlighting instances where she appeared affectionate towards, or supportive of, her former boss. Mia, testifying under a pseudonym, responded to Steel’s questions by trying to convey the complex emotions that came with working for someone who was both her alleged abuser and someone she described as her “protector.”
As he pressed Mia, Steel’s tone was often exaggerated and sarcastic, and at times directly confrontational. At one point he asked Mia if she’d joined “the #MeToo money grab,” garnering one of many objections from the prosecution, which the judge sustained. (Mia later asserted that she did not intend to file a civil suit against Combs.)
Steel also repeatedly cast doubt on the veracity of Mia’s allegations, asking if her claims were true, suggesting the events she described never happened, or that she made them up. (Combs’ defense had yet to take such a pointed approach with past witnesses.) At one point, Mia retorted, “I would not lie in this courtroom. I never lied in this courtroom. Everything I have said is true.”
As expected, the prosecution repeatedly objected to Steel’s questions and Judge Arun Subramanian often sided with the prosecution (at one point, he sustained about 10 objections in as many minutes). Federal prosecutor Maurene Comey expressed her concern to the judge that Steel’s tone would not be reflected in the court transcripts; and she accused Steel of trying to “humiliate” Mia and effectively deter other potential victims from coming forward.
One person who seemed engaged with Steel’s approach was Combs. The mogul’s face was glued to Steel as he grilled Mia, intense and concentrated, as if he was watching a movie for the first time.
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For much of the cross, Steel asked Mia about supportive and loving social media posts and text messages she sent Combs both during her employment and after. In one exchange from 2019, after she’d stopped working for Combs, Mia described a nightmare in which Combs saved her while she was trapped in an elevator with convicted sex criminal R. Kelly. A few months later, Mia texted Combs that she was sending him “all the love in the world.”
Asked if Combs still had a hold on her at that point, Mia said the mogul still did “psychologically.” She also added that she sent these texts after “tragic events” in his life, like the death of his partner, Kim Porter, in November 2018. “I was always constantly seeking his approval. He was my authority figure, my only authority figure,” Mia said at one point.
When the prosecution got to question Mia on redirect, Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser asked about some of the positive social media posts that were referenced during the cross-examination, such as posting for Combs’ birthday. Mia said that if she did commemorate her boss’ birthday she would be “in trouble,” adding that if Combs thought she wasn’t doing her job she would be “screamed at, humiliated, made fun of, and my job would be threatened.”
Steel also pressed Mia over why there was no contemporaneous documentation of Combs’ alleged abuse, even though she was constantly filming Combs at his instruction and taking notes during their time together. Mia said she never captured Combs in a moment of anger because she “would not have been allowed to film that.” She added that she only filmed “whatever he wanted me to film” and that capturing such an incident would’ve been a “huge break of trust, loyalty, and confidentiality.”
Similarly, Mia said that writing down an alleged instance of abuse, or discussing with others, would’ve been a breach of confidentiality. She said that the only time she “reached out for help was very subtly to people in the office but not disclosing things that other people hadn’t witnessed.” She suggested others who worked for Combs were similarly cautious, saying “nobody around batted an eye” when Combs misbehaved or acted out.
Mia even said she grew fearful when Combs threatened to tell his girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, about “everything” between them. Mia said this made her “feel like I had sone something wrong,” as well as “internalize blame and shame.”
“I don’t know how to explain what that does to a person,” she added.
Mia said the first time she likely spoke publicly about the alleged abuse was during a June 2024 meeting with prosecutors, though she acknowledged it was possible she’d mentioned it previously to her therapist. Steel pounced on this during his cross-examination, asking Mia if she would be willing to approve the release of her therapist’s notes. The prosecution successfully objected to this line of questioning, though Steel again asked later if she’d be willing to forgo patient confidentiality. (This again earned Steel a warning from the judge.)
Steel also fixated again on the text messages Mia sent in December 2016 after she learned that Combs was shutting down the part of his business she was working on at the time, Revolt Films. In these messages, which Mia was also asked about last week, she said she felt that her life was “over.” On the stand Monday, she acknowledged that she felt as if her “entire world was being ripped away from her,” adding, “And even if in hindsight that world was awful, I didn’t know it at the time.”
When Steel asked Mia if she would have continued working for Combs at the time if given a chance, she said, “I wanted to continue following my dreams. I was finally making real stuff, and I had a separation from him.”
As Mia’s time on the stand came to a close, the prosecution asked about the challenges of testifying, but also why she decided to come forward. Asked by Smyser if she’d ever been able to speak about Combs’ alleged abuse without looking down, Mia responded, “No, it’s the worst thing I have ever had to talk about in my life.”
But Mia was also adamant as to why she felt she had to testify. “Because I can’t look my niece and goddaughter in the eyes… in the future if they happen to be in this situation.”
During her testimony last week, Mia repeatedly broke down in tears as she detailed a hellish eight years working for Combs between 2009 and 2017.
She claimed she fluctuated between a constant state of feeling like Combs’ best friend and “a worthless piece of crap,” all depending on the volatile mogul’s mood. Sometimes, she’d be showered with praise and promised executive roles in one of Combs’ many companies. At other times, Mia said, she might have her arm crushed in a heavy industrial door or have a bowl of spaghetti hurled at her for not rushing off to IHOP in the middle of the night fast enough.
Mia said her job was always in jeopardy and once was placed on unpaid leave for “insubordination” because she left a hotel without Combs’ permission to attend a party with Ventura at Prince’s house. “We ran through the house,” Mia said of the women trying to escape when Combs turned up. “There was something across the street that looked like — I don’t know if it was woods or not, but somewhere to hide, like bushes, and we were trying to run to hide there.”
Mia testified that Combs sexually assaulted her multiple times, describing the alleged attacks as unpredictable and sporadic. They occurred, she said, on Combs’ 40th birthday bash at the Plaza Hotel, inside his bedroom closet, and on a staff bunk bed while she slept. There were other sexual assaults, Mia said, but she repressed them, only able to recall a “horrible dark feeling in my stomach.”
“I always thought that it was the last time, and if there ever [was] a next time, I would somehow be more prepared,” Mia testified. “We would have to get right back into work, and there was so much going on, I never processed it. I never thought it would happen again.”
Mia was identified as Victim-4 in the Southern District of New York’s criminal indictment against Combs, with her allegations tied to the racketeering charge against the music mogul. Prosecutors accuse Combs of wielding his vast wealth and “multifaceted business empire” to fulfill his sexual desires with crimes including physical assault, threats, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice. He allegedly forced his sleep-deprived employees to do his bidding by subjecting them to physical force and threats of financial and reputational harm. (Combs has pleaded not guilty to the five felony counts against him.)
On cross-examination, Combs’ attorney Steel grilled Mia on why she never told anyone about the alleged assaults. He also confronted Mia with numerous social media posts where she heaped praise on Combs, promoted his business ventures, and created a specialized scrapbook for Combs’ 45th birthday.
“The man who you say has ruined your life,” Steel asked. “This is what you write to him?”
“At the time, as low as he would make me, he would also make me feel the opposite as well,” Mia explained in response. “Again, I can tell you what my therapist has said, but I’m not a professional to explain that.”
Following the end of Mia’s cross-examination and redirect Monday, the jury briefly heard from Sylvia Oken, area director of sales and marketing at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She told the jurors that Combs would often use aliases while booking hotel rooms, including “Frank Black” and “Phillip Pines.” Phillip Pines worked as Combs’ personal assistant from December 2019 to December 2021, filing a workplace lawsuit against Combs in late 2023. He previously told Rolling Stone about having to set up for “Wild King Nights” and the “wreckage” he was tasked in cleaning up afterwards.
From Rolling Stone US
