The fifth week of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial featured a courthouse appearance by one of his famous friends: Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West
Key moments from the fifth week of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trialBy MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTERAssociated PressThe Associated PressNEW YORK
NEW YORK (AP) — The fifth week of Sean “Diddy” Combs ’ sex trafficking trial featured four days of testimony from a former Combs’ girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym Jane and a surprise appearance at the courthouse on the fifth day by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.
Ye said he came to show his support for his good friend but couldn’t get into the courtroom and watched for a few minutes on an overflow courtroom monitor.
Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, has pleaded not guilty in the trial, which resumes Monday.
Here are key moments from the past week:
Jane says she still loves Combs
Jane testified for six days about her over three-year relationship with Combs, saying her plans to meet him at a New York hotel last September were interrupted by his arrest.
Her testimony consumed four of the week’s five trial days as she told about her conflicted feelings toward Combs.
She told a prosecutor: “I just pray for his continued healing, and I pray for peace for him.” And when a defense lawyer asked if she still loved him, she responded: “I do.”
When she completed her testimony and with the jury still in the room, she went to the prosecutor and gave her a warm embrace before proceeding to the defense attorney and hugging her too.
She said she resents she felt forced to have sex with strangers in multiday sex marathons as the man she longed most to cuddle with filmed and fed her drugs to give her energy to satisfy his sexual fantasies.
Her testimony echoed what the jury heard in the trial’s first week when Casandra “Cassie” Ventura testified for four days that she engaged in hundreds of multiday “freak-offs” while they dated from 2007 to 2018, having sex with male sex workers in front of Combs, who masturbated, filmed the encounters, and verbalized what he wanted to see sexually.
Another famous rapper wanted multiple partners in his love life, Jane says
Jane said she and Combs split up from Halloween 2023 until February 2024. During the break, she said, she flew on another famous rapper’s private jet to Las Vegas, joining the celebrity to celebrate his romantic partner’s birthday for a night that included dinner, a stripper’s club visit and a hotel room party.
In the hotel room, Jane testified, the rapper who was close friends with Combs made a pass at her amid flirtatious banter, saying he had always wanted to have sex with her. She said she danced in the hotel room, where a male sex worker was having sex with a woman, and at some point Jane flashed her breasts.
Jane agreed with a lawyer’s assessment that the famous rapper was “an individual at the top of the music industry as well … an icon in the music industry.”
Jane also revealed that the unidentified famous rapper and his partner were looking for someone they could add to their sexual experiences who was “in the lifestyle.”
“I believe they were asking me because maybe they just picked up the energy from me or I just maybe assumed that maybe they had already got an inclination that me and Sean had been doing kind of similar things,” she said, noting that she referred a male sex worker she knew.
Rapper Ye, once known as Kanye West, surprises a courthouse
A day after Jane finished testifying, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, made a surprise appearance at the courthouse and quickly learned what a tough ticket it is to get into the courtroom where his good friend Combs is on trial.
Ye, wearing all white, was ushered by courthouse security to an overflow courtroom to watch the trial on a video monitor along with others who were unable to get into the courtroom. He lasted only a few minutes there before he made his courthouse exit, saying nothing during his trip except that he was there to support Combs.
Testimony reveals Combs has a favorite TV show and is a bit of a crime buff
It turns out that Combs, the subject of several true-crime TV documentaries, is a bit of a true-crime fan himself.
Jane revealed this week that his favorite show is “Dateline,” the magazine-style NBC stalwart that is heavy on murders and mysteries.
She told jurors that, in their alone time together, she and Combs would watch “Dateline” for hours “till we fell asleep.”
Other activities when it was just the two of them included hugging, cuddling and bathing Combs, and giving him foot rubs, Jane testified.
Jane planned to meet Combs at the New York hotel where he was arrested
Jane testified that she last saw Combs in August, when they were in their “same routine having sex and everything” when Combs suggested that she invite over the very first male sex worker she had sex with in front of Combs.
She said that afterward, she and Combs continued texting each other and were planning to meet in New York at a hotel in September.
“Did you end up going to New York to see him?” she was asked. “No,” she answered.
“Why not?” she was asked before she responded: “Because he got arrested.”
To protect Jane’s identity, a judge leans on secrecy over public access
The courtroom rules surrounding Jane’s testimony were the strictest yet in a bid to protect her identity from becoming common knowledge.
But the rules imposed by the judge became too much for defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, who protested that Jane was blocked from telling more about the hotel party in January 2024 with the famous, though unidentified, rapper.
Agnifilo said the defense had consented to the “pseudonymity” of Jane.
“What we didn’t consent to, and we don’t, most respectfully, is that these events which play important parts in the background of some of the most critical events in the trial, should be in any way not fully public,” he said.
He said names should have been released.
“Part of the reason that trials are fully public is so if other people realize they know something about an event that’s discussed in a public courtroom, they could come forward and they could share whatever their recollection is about it,” he said.
Defense lawyers say prosecutors are targeting Black jurors
The fate of one anonymous juror was in limbo after the judge said Friday he will reconsider his decision to oust the juror even though he suspects he might have an “agenda.
Judge Arun Subramanian said he had decided that conflicting answers from the juror about where he primarily lived — in New Jersey or New York — raised questions about his credibility and whether he was answering questions in a bid to stay on the jury. If the juror does primarily live with a girlfriend in New Jersey, he would be outside the court district and disqualified.
Prosecutors said the juror’s dismissal is required because of his conflicting answers. Defense lawyers argued that prosecutors were only trying to disqualify a Black juror and that his dismissal could spoil an otherwise diverse panel of jurors.
The judge bristled at the suggestion that race was a factor, saying there was no support for claims that prosecutors did not use race-neutral arguments to exclude jurors during jury selection and now.
