A former private assistant to Sean “Diddy” Combs who says he raped her testified Monday that she continued sending him loving textual content messages for years after her job resulted in 2017 as a result of she was “brainwashed.”
The girl, testifying for a 3rd day beneath the pseudonym “Mia” on the music mogul’s federal intercourse trafficking trial, used the phrase as protection legal professional Brian Metal confronted her with skepticism and even steered she fabricated her claims.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not responsible to intercourse trafficking and racketeering expenses. His legal professionals concede he may very well be violent, however he denies utilizing threats or his highly effective place within the music trade to commit abuse.
Metal had Mia learn aloud for the jury quite a few loving textual content messages she despatched to Combs, together with one in 2019 wherein she mentioned she had a nightmare that she was trapped in an elevator with the singer R. Kelly and Combs rescued her.
“And the person who sexually assaulted you came to your rescue?” Metal requested incredulously. He rephrased, asking if she actually dreamed of being saved by a person “who terrorized you and caused you PTSD?” Prosecutors objected and the choose sustained it.
It was one in every of many objections throughout a combative cross-examination of Mia on the trial, now in its fourth week, throughout which a number of authorities witnesses have been handled extra gently by protection legal professionals and have even spoken positively of Combs.
In an Aug. 29, 2020, message to Combs, Mia recalled completely satisfied highlights from her eight years working for him — similar to ingesting champagne on the Eiffel Tower at 4 a.m. and rejecting Mick Jagger’s provide to take her house — saying she remembered solely “the good times.”
In the identical message, Mia talked about as soon as feeling “bamboozled” by a lady. Metal requested why she did not say Combs had bamboozled her as effectively, given her accusations.
“Because I was still brainwashed,” Mia answered.
Requested to elucidate, Mia mentioned that in an surroundings the place “the highs were really high and the lows were really low,” she developed “huge confusion in trusting my instincts.”
When Metal steered her assault claims have been made up, Mia responded: “I have never lied in this courtroom and I never will lie in this courtroom. Everything I said is true.”
She mentioned she felt an ethical obligation to talk out after others got here ahead with allegations towards Combs.
“It’s been a long process. I’m untangling things. I’m in therapy,” Mia mentioned.
Mia remained composed days after testifying Combs forcibly kissed her and molested her at his fortieth party quickly after she began working for him in 2009, and months later raped her in a visitor room at his Los Angeles house.
She testified final week that his subsequent sexual assaults have been “random, sporadic, so oddly spaced out the place I might assume they might by no means occur once more.”
Prosecutors criticized Metal’s two-day cross-examination, which has relied closely on Mia’s social media historical past.
Assistant U.S. Legal professional Maureen Comey accused him of yelling at and humiliating the witness, and argued that selecting aside years of her social media posts — together with birthday greetings and reward for Combs’s enterprise successes — was extreme and largely irrelevant.
“We are crossing the threshold into prejudice and harassing this witness,” Comey instructed the choose throughout a break, whereas jurors have been out of the courtroom.
She warned that Metal’s method through the high-profile trial may deter victims from testifying in different circumstances sooner or later.
Choose Arun Subramanian mentioned: “I have not heard any yelling from Mr. Steel and I have not heard anything that was sarcastic in the questions.” Nonetheless, he cautioned Metal about overusing questions on Mia’s social media posts praising Combs.
