After graphic testimony, Diddy's defense asks alleged victim Mia about public praise
The woman will continue cross-examination under a pseudonym on Monday as testimony in Sean "Diddy" Combs' federal criminal trial enters its fourth week.
A former employee who testified that Sean “Diddy” Combs repeatedly sexually assaulted her described her time with him as “toxic” and “exciting” because “the highs were really high and the lows were really, really low.”
Prosecutors used that testimony to try to preempt a cross-examination that spotlighted the highs to try to dispute the woman’s description of the lows.
“Mia, did you tell Mr. Combs at various points that you loved him, even after the sexual assaults started happening?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser asked, calling the woman by a pseudonym.
“Oh, yeah,” Mia answered.
“Why did you do that?” Smyser asked.
“That’s how we talked to each other. And when the dynamic would shift to the best friend or friend dynamic, you were just desperate to keep it there because you’re safe,” Mia answered.
Combs’ lawyer Brian Steel questioned Mia about that dynamic on Friday in a cross-examination that worked to counter her testimony while contradicting testimony from a psychologist who testified for prosecutors about a “trauma bond” that forms between abusers and victims.
“How were you best friends with a person who has treated you the way that you said to the jury?” Steel asked, according to a court reporter’s transcript obtained by Legal Affairs and Trials.
“I mean, I guess we can ask my therapist,” Mia said, adding that Combs “was vulnerable with me quite a bit, so I would feel responsible for helping him, and then I would feel bad for him.”
“I can describe it, but I’m not a psychiatrist or a therapist. I don’t think I’m allowed to,” she continued.
Steel, who is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is widely known for his representation of rapper Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams, will continue questioning Mia on Monday in U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian’s courtroom in lower Manhattan.
He began his exam on Friday morning by asking Mia, “Because of Sean Combs, you suffer a great deal?”
Mia answered “yes,” and Steel confirmed some of her previous testimony through softly worded questions that referred to the rapes she said Combs committed as “things that are unthinkable” and “violating you in the most unthinkable manner.”
“I’d like to make sure that this is correct. You said that Sean Combs’ conduct was the worst thing that ever happened to you?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered softly.
“I couldn’t hear you,” Steel said.
“Yes,” Mia said again.
“At times you wanted to — God forbid — kill yourself, right?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
Steel then spent several hours questioning Mia about social media posts and correspondence during her time with Combs that Combs’ defense team hope will undermine her testimony about sexual assaults, violence and forced labor, which are key to the racketeering conspiracy charge against the 55-year-old rapper and business mogul.
Steel’s questions about Mia’s affection for Combs led to him accusing her of lying.
“Isn’t it true that Mr. Combs never had unwanted non-consensual, forcible sexual contact with you? Isn’t that true?” Steel asked.
“What I said in this courtroom is the truth. I have not lied to anyone at all,” Mia answered.
“Although unforgivable for any person to put their hands on a woman, especially a man, isn’t it true that it did not happen as many times as you just said to this jury?” Steel asked.
“Everything I’ve said in this courtroom is true,” Mia answered.
The implication of the questions contradicted testimony from psychologist Dawn Hughes, who told jurors on May 21 that when abusers and their victims “pair violence and abuse with times of good, it creates that very strong bond.” Judge Subramanian on May 28 rejected Combs’ lawyers’ request to strike Hughes’ testimony and said their argument amounted to “any testimony regarding the common behaviors of sexual abuse victims is pseudoscience.”
‘You are proud of Mr. Sean Combs.’
By the time he accused Mia of lying, Steel had questioned her about approximately 20 photos and messages she wrote that referenced Combs positively.
Jurors saw a photo of Mia and Combs’ former girlfriend and alleged victim Cassie Ventura wearing custom-made bracelets while on a vacation in Cabo, Mexico, that she testified Combs funded. They saw a photo Mia posted in 2013 of herself with Combs, Ventura and Ventura’s former friend Kerry Morgan at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. They saw a photo Mia shared of her with Combs, Ventura and rappers Travis Scott, Meek Mill and The Game. And they saw a photo of Combs that Mia posted on Instagram with the caption, “Just the number 1 guy on the Forbes list. Getting me a vanilla latte. No big deal. Regular people shit. @iamdiddy #Starbucks.”
“The date is October 2, 2013. So, again, about four years — four years plus — after you say Sean Combs has traumatized your life, right?” Steel asked.
“Yup,” Mia answered.
Steel also questioned her about writing “legends recognizing legends” interference to Combs presenting an award to Jimmy Iovine, who was the chairman of Interscope Records
“One of the legends is the person you’re telling this jury that has traumatized you, right?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“Sexually, right?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“Emotionally?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“Physically?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“Financially?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“That’s the legend?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
Jurors also saw a birthday post Mia made for Combs on Instagram that called him her mentor and said, “Thank you for always letting me give birth to my dreams.” The image was of Combs dressed as a doctor delivering Mia’s baby in a hospital. Steel reminded Mia of her testimony that Combs gave her two shots of liquor then kissed her and groped her during his 40th birthday party in 2009. Mia said she awoke in a chair the next morning. Steel said Mia posted Combs’ birthday tribute on “the anniversary” of her sexual assault, but Mia said she “didn’t celebrate it as an anniversary.”
“It was his birthday to me,” she testified.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial deals with serious issues of domestic violence, sexual coercion and sex trafficking. If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233.
Steel highlighted another Instagram birthday tribute in which Mia thanked Combs “for constantly inspiring me and giving me an extended family for life” and called him “one of my greatest friends.” Steel said she included a photo of herself in a tutu next to Combs who is “holding, it looks like and please correct me, his private part in his hands.”
“If that’s what you see, I guess so,” Mia testified.
“And this is what image you picked out, right, Mia?” Steel asked.
“Yeah,” Mia answered.
“You put this on your page, right?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“Your friends get to see it who are on social media with you, right?” Steel asked.
“Yes,” Mia answered.
“Your family gets to see it who are on social media with you, right?” Steel asked.
“Some of my family, yeah,” Mia answered.
“And you are proud of Mr. Sean Combs. That’s why you wrote this, right?” Steel asked.
“No. I wrote this because Instagram was a place to show how great your life was, even if it’s not true, and because I had his fans following me, as well as his official Diddy fan site,” Mia answered. “And I also didn’t want my family and friends to know the misery I was in. So of course you post the great times. The highs were high and the lows were low, and he also saw my Instagram.”
Steel also questioned Mia about reposting Combs’ birthday post for her in 2014 that said, “Beside every great man is a great woman. Happy birthday. Mia, love you. P.S. Sorry I was acting crazy last night.”
Mia testified that Combs “threatened my life on the phone the night before, and so this was, I guess, his apology.”
Steel twice tried to ask Mia about testifying “that you were sexually assaulted so many times you can’t remember,” but Judge Subramanian sustained Smyser’s objection for misstating testimony. Steel then asked, “You remember telling them that the sexual assault occurred so often, more times than you can count?”
“I don’t remember phrasing it that way. I remember saying that there were more. I don’t remember all the times. I did have the memories I already shared, and I know it happened more, but I don’t remember how many,” Mia answered.
‘I just froze. I didn’t react.’
In direct, Smyser questioned Mia about other emails and texts to try to show a more nuanced relationship with Combs.
On Oct. 17, 2015, she wrote, “You know I love you and would do everything for you 🙂” while asking for Combs’ help paying for a flight back from Capetown, South Africa. She said she’d gone there at Combs’ direction to be with Ventura after Ventura saw a video online of Combs at a club with another woman, but Combs abruptly demanded she return.
“I hope this email doesn’t make you upset. I’ve just been trying to avoid this conversation at all costs. Please let me know. I’m sorry for hitting you during this time. I wanted to make sure you were good. Never would stay away for too long. Just wanted to make sure your beauty was good. At the end of the day, regardless, I love you.”
Jurors also saw a message Combs wrote Mia on Oct. 31, 2015.
“If you don’t call me now, fuck it all, and I am gonna tell everything and don’t ever speak to me again. You have two min. Fuck her. Call my house now or never speak to me again. Fuck ABC and all lawyers. Let’s go to war.”
Mia testified Combs was threatening to ruin a television show she’d sold to ABC, and “to tell Cass about the sexual assaults, but framed differently.”
“What you do you mean, framed differently?” Smyser asked.
“As though it was my fault or that I was — that I had a part in it,” Mia answered.
“How did that make you feel?” Smyser asked.
“So scared and so like a horrible person and just terrified,” Mia answered.
“Had you wanted to have sex with Mr. Combs?” Smyser asked.
“No,” Mia answered.
Mia took screenshots of her phone in 2015 to preserve the messages, which included Combs telling her, “Call me. Call me now. Now. Now. I have come to the conclusion that it’s best that we no longer have any dealings. Please don’t call me. I won’t call you.”
Mia told Combs that Ventura “said she needs me right now, but of course I will do whatever you want,” Mia wrote. “I have never seen her like this. I am not sure how I can help you guys, but know that I love you both and I’m here to help.”
Smyser confirmed with Mia that she sent the messages “after the sexual assaults had begun.”
“Why were you telling Mr. Combs that you love him in these emails?” Smyser asked.
“Because I want to stay with Cass. I want to stay with Cass, but I don’t want to make him mad,” Mia answered.
Mia described “Puff” as having a volatile temper, and she cried as she testified that Combs raped her when she lived at his home in Los Angeles in 2009 and 2010.
Smyser asked how she reacted, and Mia answered, “I just froze. I didn’t react.”
Mia also testified Combs forced her to perform oral sex on him after he approached her when she was working in his bedroom closet. She said she “didn’t do anything” and “I just let it happen” and she felt “like trash and scared and ashamed and defeated and like an idiot.”
She testified Combs assaulted her on “always random, sporadic” occasions.
“It would go so oddly spaced out where I would never think that it would happen again,” Mia testified.
Mia also testified about Combs assaulting Ventura, which she said he did beat “all the time.” She testified about seeing him bash her head into the corner of the bed until it split open and gushed blood, which matched testimony from another witness, Combs’ former stylist Deonte Nash.
Nash testified on May 28 that Combs told them, “Look what y’all made me do” after Ventura’s head started bleeding. Nash said he tried to call 911 but “was immediately told to hang up” by someone; he said he couldn’t remember who. He said Combs told his security to take Ventura to a plastic surgeon.
But just as Mia did, Nash continued supporting Combs.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey asked why Nash invited Combs to Ventura’s 29th birthday party “if you’d seen him do all of this violence to Cassie?”
“Girl,” Nash addressed the prosecutor, “I was not about to tell him he couldn’t come give that girl a party.”
Job duty: ‘Protect him at all times’
Like the other employees who took the stand before her, Mia’s testimony addressed the forced labor allegations underlying Combs’ racketeering conspiracy charge.
A native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, her first job in New York City was with designer Georgina Chapman (jurors didn’t hear that Chapman was married to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein), then she worked as a personal assistant for comedian Mike Myers. She took the occasional early call from Myers “or maybe on the weekends I would have to watch his dog, but it was pretty much 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, Monday through Friday.”
She testified she was “either 25 or just turned 26” when she began as Combs’ personal assistant in 2009 before eventually being promoted to director of development and acquisitions for Combs’ Revolt Films. When she first met him for a job interview, he answered his apartment door wearing only his underwear. She testified she was told she’d work a lot and “there were a few jokes about 24-hour nail salons thrown in.”
“But I guess I didn’t fully understand,” Mia testified.
She said Combs often required her to go without sleep. She didn’t sleep for 24 hours her first day on the job, and she said she went five days without sleep during a trip with Combs to Las Vegas. She testified her Adderall prescription for her attention-deficit disorder “allowed me to quasi function or stay awake,” but she once had “like a physical breakdown” in which “it felt like I was underwater, and my equilibrium was off and I started, like, not seeing things.”
“And then out of nowhere, like didn’t mean to, but I burst into tears, hysterical, and like couldn’t stop crying,” Mia testified.
She said Combs told her she “could go to sleep at that point.”
Smyser went through Mia’s job duties and asked her about one that said “protect him at all costs.” Mia read the description aloud: “Protect him at all times. His privacy, etc. Stay attached to blackberry 24/7. Staying within PD’s eyesight unless he advises otherwise always while on duty. Listening, asking, hearing, prioritizing and translating PD's situation. Maintaining PD's daily routine in both professional and private circles from the minute he wakes up in the morning until the moment he falls asleep at night and even in the interim. Anticipating his needs, whims, and moods.”
“Let me stop you there, Mia,” Smyser interjected. “Why was it important to anticipate Mr. Combs’ needs, whims, and moods?”
“It dictated a day,” Mia answered.
Smyser asked Mia to read a paragraph that began “every single day is different.”
“PD can ask you to do 17,000 things at one time that range from cracking his knuckles, to writing his next movie, to doing his taxes. He can also just have you standing next to him for 22 hours and not ask you one thing.”
She said Combs didn’t allow her to lock her bedroom door when she lived in his Los Angeles home, and she got in “big trouble” once for leaving the home without his permission. She recalled a time when she was his only assistant and “I didn’t have time to feel” but said it was “like insane.”
She said Combs gave her “like an awesome pep talk and also positioned it as though we were, like, going to be doing this as a team.”
“He’s like, ‘I just need a second brain. Like, I need somebody.’ And he believed in me and trusted me. And it was going to be — it was going to be hard and it was going to be crazy, but we were going to, like, get through,” Mia testified.
Juror saw an email about Combs that Mia sent Combs’ security guard Damian “D-Roc” Butler on March 25, 2011.
“He’s so psycho, D. He’s so mean. He just went bat shit crazy on me because he didn’t see all of his workout options folded and organized. He didn’t like the pants that were in there. He said his shirt was too big. When I asked what he liked/wore so I can get the exact stuff, since I obviously don’t know, he went crazy on me. What did he say in the car? Give me a warning before you guys come back so I’m out of the way.”
Shortly after Mia sent it, Vashta Wilson, Combs’ human resources director, told her “that Puff wanted me to be suspended without pay, so I was being suspended without pay.” Mia testified in trial that Wilson told her “that Puff had said I was being insubordinate.”
“Were you being insubordinate?” Smyser asked.
“No,” Mia answered.
Mia said she was fired in 2016 by Brian Offutt, Combs’ chief operating officer, because he said Combs “no longer wants to be involved with film.”
Mia testified she sobbed and “was so confused why I wasn’t being told by Puff.”
Her lawyers asked for $10 million in a mediation that ended with her receiving about “200 and something thousand dollars” from a $400,000 settlement. She testified she discussed “just some” of Combs’ violence during the mediation and never said he sexually assaulted her “because I was terrified.”
“I felt like I was betraying him. I felt like I was telling his secrets. I don’t know,” she testified. She said she’d return the money “absolutely in a second” if it would make it so what happened with Combs didn’t actually happen.
Combs texts Mia amid criminal probe
Mia also testified that Butler, who she said was “like my big brother,” texted her several times after Ventura sued Combs in November 2023. She said he offered to send her money — she said he never did — and she said he said, “Puff and Cass, they would just, like, fight like a normal couple.”
“And my, like, radar went off because I was like A, that’s not how D-Roc talks, and B, D-Roc was around that a lot,” Mia testified.
Combs texted her on Feb. 4, 2024, “Hey, Mia. It’s Puff. Please let me know when you get 10 min. to talk. Love.” She didn’t reply, and he texted again three days later.
“Hey. I don’t wanna be blowing up your phone. Just needed to talk to you for 10 minutes. Just need my memory jogged on some things. You were my right hand for years, so I just to speak to you to remember who was even around me. And it would be good to hear your voice. But if you don’t want to, all good. Just let me know. Love. Hope you’re well.”
She testified she didn’t reply “because I wanted nothing to do with him.”
“He was the person I was traumatized by, and now he’s coming back,” she said.
Federal agents raided Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami the next month. He was arrested in September and has been in jail since.
In testimony last week, Mia said she’s no longer able to work “because I would have to leave because I would be triggered by really normal situations with an overwhelming sense of fear.”
“If someone said my name from across the room, all those feelings of getting in trouble would come flooding back. I have triple-guessed myself in everything I did,” Mia testified.
“Who is the person who caused those feelings in you, Mia?” Smyser asked.
“Puff,” Mia answered.
Smyser asked no more questions.
Judge blocks ‘happy birthday’ video
Judge Subramanian on Friday blocked Steel from introducing as evidence a 30-second video of Mia singing “Happy Birthday” to Combs.
Mia didn’t post the video on social media, which Combs’ lawyer Alexandra Shapiro said counters testimony that she praised Combs as part of a public social media front.
Combs’ lawyer Marc Agnifilo told the judge the most useful part of the video is Mia’s demeanor.
“I believe that the jury may conclude that her affect on the stand is an act. I think that’s possible. I think the jury might conclude that. And this video makes that conclusion clearer,” Agnifilo said.
Smyser, the assistant U.S. attorney, said the defense told her about the video on Thursday but didn’t send it to her that night with the other exhibits they planned to use the next day. Instead, they disclosed it Friday during court in the midst of cross-exam, “and there absolutely is prejudice to this timing.”
“If we had received this last night, we could have, for example, investigated on the internet, tried to figure out where this came from, tried to figure out what the purpose of this video was, who was filming it, what was going on in this video.”
The judge said he won’t allow the video because Combs’ lawyers didn’t disclose it by 7 p.m. the night before as required, but he also said he’d preclude it, anyway, under Federal Rules Evidence 403, which allows relevant evidence to be excluded if its potential for prejudice, confusion or waste of time outweighs its probative value.
“The relevance and probative value of this video is minimal,” judge said. “There is no content to the video that’s different than the myriad Instagram clips and other materials that the defense properly disclosed.”
Subramanian said Steel can ask Mia if she remembers the video, and if she denies sending it “you can attempt to introduce it on impeachment grounds.”
Mia testified she recorded the “Happy Birthday” video in 2013 because “it’s hard to get somebody wealthy and famous something material, and I always try to be meaningful, and so I reached out to all of the people that I believed were important to Puff in his life and asked them for a birthday shout-out for him, and then I compiled it to a video form.” She also acknowledged she didn’t record the video for social media.
Steel then asked questions that introduced jurors to the contents of the video without actually entering it as evidence.
“And you were included in that birthday shout-out, true?” Steel asked.
“True,” Mia answered.
“And you were enthusiastic?” Steel asked.
“Absolutely,” Mia answered.
“And you told him you love him?” Steel asked.
“Of course, probably,” Mia answered.
“And you explained to him that it’s been great being with him and looking forward to more time together?” Steel asked.
“I don’t remember what I said, but I’m sure it was very positive and in the same sentiment as what we’ve seen, yeah,” Steel asked.
Judge seals exhibits, orders no sketches
Judge Subramanian, a 2023 Joe Biden appointee, decided before trial that the woman could testify under a pseudonym, and photos and texts involving her were sealed from public view to protect her identity.
The judge also ordered courtroom sketch artists not to draw her face, but he rejected prosecutors’ request to cut the camera in the overflow courtroom and press room that shows the witness stand because he said the rooms are extensions of the courtroom. Before Mia took the stand, he warned everyone “that they are not to in any way, shape, or form document the witness in any notes or in any sketches or anything of that kind.”
“The courtrooms will be monitored by court security. Any use of devices or any documenting of the witness’ appearance or anything of that nature will result in severe consequences,” Subramanian said.
Subramanian also told jurors they’ll know Mia’s true name, “but the name will not be used in open court, solely to protect her privacy from disclosure to persons who are not parties to this case.”
“The fact that this witness is testifying using a pseudonym does mean that her testimony is deserving of greater or lesser weight than that of any other witness,” the judge said.
Judge rejects news groups’ request to unseal ‘freak off’ video evidence
Jurors so far have seen six still images from the explicit videos recorded during the elaborate sex parties with male escorts that Ventura testified she and Combs called “freak offs.”
Judge Subramanian on May 14 rejected a request from several news organizations to show the videos in open court or allow three reporters to see and hear them as they’re played for the jury.
“I’m not seeing any case that would suggest in any way, shape, or form that images or videos of these types of acts that are alleged to be sexual abuse would be required to be shown in open court when they pose the obvious risk of revictimization of the people who are providing this testimony,” the judge said. “Especially when the individuals are subjecting themselves to testimony about the incidents in open court, and the public will have access to that testimony.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Comey also said “prosecutors are not aware of a single case in which a video of alleged sexual abuse has been shown outside of the jury and the parties.”
No one mentioned the case I wrote about the other week, the federal death penalty case of Joseph Duncan in the District of Idaho, in which U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge in Boise, Idaho, allowed videos of Duncan sexually torturing a 9-year-old boy to be shown in open court.
Judge Subramanian’s analysis distinguishes the videos in Combs’ case, however, because they involve witnesses testifying in trial. The victim in the video in Duncan’s case was murdered so he didn't testify. For the victim who survived, Lodge allowed her to testify in a closed courtroom with no members of the public present, though the girl never ended up testifying.
Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff is a reader-supported project that utilizes my 20 years of reporting experience in traditional media to bring you in-depth news about major legal issues. If you want to support my work, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
In Combs’ case, Judge Subramanian acknowledged prosecutors’ argument that showing the videos in open court “constitutes the revictimization of these individuals.”
”And so whether it stems from the Crime Victims’ Rights Act or from basic notions of avoiding that kind of trauma to alleged victims at this point, those are compelling interests that would override any interests in the public of having access to these materials,” Subramanian said.
The new organizations requesting the videos be unsealed are ABC News, The Associated Press, Business Insider, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Inc., NBCUniversal News Group, Newsday LLC, The New York Times Co., the New York Post, Reuters, New York Magazine and The Washington Post.
Their lawyer Robert Balin of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP told Judge Subramanian in court on May 13 they do not want copies of the videos and “do understand the serious privacy concerns.”
However, “prohibiting any public or press viewing of these videos would not be narrowly tailored,” Ballin said. “I would say that the testimony is not a substitute for these videos. If it were, the government would not be putting in stills, would not be putting in videos. They obviously think they have some persuasive value. It is important that the press, the people through the press, be able to see justice being done.”
Ventura’s lawyer Douglas Wigdor opposed the request in a four-page letter that said her “privacy interests clearly outweigh the limited right of public access in this circumstance.”
A lawyer for a woman identified in the indictment as Victim-2 opposed the request in a nine-page letter that said she has significant privacy interests because she is not suing Combs and “is involved in the criminal case as a result of a government subpoena.”
“Ms. Doe has taken every step not to reveal her identity or private life in connection with this trial, while upholding her duty to testify as a witness in the trial,” according to the letter from Lindsay Lewis of Dratel & Lewis in New York City.
“As noted, she is a victim-witness with deep trauma related to the conduct and videos at issue,” Lewis wrote. “The Video Exhibits depict sexual acts in which Ms. Doe is alleged in the Third Superseding Indictment, to have participated as a result of force, fraud or coercion.”
In court, Comey emphasized that Ventura says Combs threatened to publicly release the videos to coerce her to continue doing what he wanted. She said the videos include Ventura and Lewis’ client.
“Showing them to anyone more than absolutely necessary would feed into that victimization, would re-victimize them, and would unnecessarily humiliate them. We have now heard vivid testimony about how humiliating one victim found all of these incidents to be,” Comey said, referring to Ventura. “And, in our view and in victims’ counsel view, it is absolutely unnecessary and unwarranted to show them to anyone outside of the jury and the parties.”
She said prosecutors will show Ventura and the other woman screenshots and have them identify themselves and the escorts “and then minimize the amount that we play while they are on the stand.”
”And, instead, play whatever excerpts we think the jury needs to see when the witnesses are not — the victims are not themselves on the stand,” Comey said.
The prosecutor also said members of the public won’t have to leave the courtroom.
“To the extent any of those exhibits have any sound that is also sexually explicit, we have arranged for headphones to be available for everyone in the well of the courtroom so that that sound could be played without impacting people needing to leave the courtroom,” Comey said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson used that procedure to show jurors six images of Ventura from the so-called “freak off” videos in direct-examination on May 14.
The first was of an escort Ventura identified as “Jules.”
“What type of event is this still image taken from?” Johnson asked.
“This is during a freak-off,” Ventura answered.
“Have you seen this image as part of a larger video?” Johnson asked.
“Yes,” Ventura answered.
“And where was that video found, if you know?” Johnson asked.
“Um, off of one of the devices that I gave to the government,” Ventura answered. She said the devices were broken “some for years.”
The next image showed “me and Jules, I think,” Ventura said.
“Is this a frame from a longer video that you’ve watched?” Johnson asked.
“Yeah,” Ventura answered.
“OK. And what was the occasion where you were with Jules in this video?” Johnson asked.
“Also a freak-off,” Ventura answered.
Another image showed Ventura with an escort named Greg, according to the testimony transcript, and another showed her with a man named Dave.
The fifth image showed only to the jury was of Ventura wearing high heels and “sitting on the couch at a freak-off by myself,” she testified.
“And what is between you and the couch?” Johnson asked.
“Um, a big cover, like bed cover, sheet,” Ventura answered.
“Some kind of linen?” Johnson asked.
“Linen, yeah,” Ventura answered.
“And what’s on the floor?” Johnson asked.
“The same thing,” Ventura answered.
“What are you wearing on your feet?” Johnson asked
“Very high shoes,” Ventura answered.
“And what's next to you, if you can see it, on the side table?” Johnson asked.
“Looks like water. Bottle of water,” Ventura answered.
“You mentioned drinking water a lot at the freak-offs earlier. Why did you need to drink water?” Johnson asked.
“To stay hydrated from all of the partying,” Ventura answered.
“When you say ‘partying,’ what do you mean by partying?” Johnson asked.
“Using drugs, drinking alcohol,” Ventura answered.
The sixth and final image shown only to the jury showed Ventura with baby oil on her skin “just standing there next to the bed.”
“Was this taken at a freak-off, if you know?” Johnson asked.
“Yes,” Ventura answered.
“And that’s behind you on the nightstand?” Johnson asked.
“Candle. Looks like some tops for the different lubricants,” Ventura answered.
At least one photograph from a freak off, or shortly before one began, has been entered as evidence unsealed. It shows Combs on a hotel room bed holding cash. Ventura testified the room, which was lit red, appeared to be inside the London Hotel in New York.
Judge rejects mistrial but instructs jury
Judge Subramanian denied Combs’ lawyers’ request for a mistrial on Wednesday after a prosecutor questioned Lance Jimenez, an arson investigator with the Los Angeles Fire Department, about police destroying cards of two fingerprints found on Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi’s burned Porsche convertible after someone stuck a Molotov cocktail through the roof in in January 2012. Mescudi testified on May 22 that the fire occurred after Combs learned of his relationship with Ventura.
Agnifilo asked for a sidebar after Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik asked Jimenez if in his 15 years investigating arson, “has evidence been ordered destroyed by someone who was not a member of your team?”
Jimenez never answered. Shapiro, an appellate specialist who also is defending Combs in sexual assault lawsuits, told Judge Subramanian during the side bar that he should declare a mistrial “based on the prosecutorial misconduct that went into this.”
She reminded the judge that prospective jurors before trial suggest “that Mr. Combs could buy his way out of this.
“This type of conspiracy theory is out there, and the type of implication that we believe these questions were designed to create plays right into that,” Shaprio said.
Slavik said a mistrial “is absolutely unwarranted here.”
“There was a good-faith basis for the questions asked by the government,” Slavik said. “I simply think that there is no prejudice here, much less incurable prejudice that would require a mistrial.”
Slavik said a curative jury instruction would suffice, and Judge Subramanian agreed.
He told the jury, “Members of the jury, before the break, you heard some testimony about fingerprint cards. And I am now instructing you that the questions regarding the destruction of the fingerprint cards and the answers given are irrelevant to this case and the defendant and are not to be considered by you.”
Prosecutors said last week they’re ahead of schedule and may rest the second week of June.
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