By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A former personal assistant to Sean “Diddy” Combs who says he raped her testified Monday that she continued sending him loving text messages for years after her job ended in 2017 because she was “brainwashed.”
The woman, testifying for a third day under the pseudonym “Mia” at the music mogul’s federal sex trafficking trial, used the word as defense attorney Brian Steel confronted her with skepticism and even suggested she fabricated her claims.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering charges. His lawyers concede he could be violent, but he denies using threats or his powerful position in the music industry to commit abuse.
Steel had Mia read aloud for the jury numerous loving text messages she sent to Combs, including one in 2019 in which she said 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?” Steel asked incredulously. He rephrased, asking if she really dreamed of being saved by a man “who terrorized you and caused you PTSD?” Prosecutors objected and the judge sustained it.
It was one of many objections during a combative cross-examination of Mia at the trial, now in its fourth week, during which several government witnesses have been treated more gently by defense lawyers and have even spoken positively of Combs.
In an Aug. 29, 2020, message to Combs, Mia recalled happy highlights from her eight years working for him — such as drinking champagne at the Eiffel Tower at 4 a.m. and rejecting Mick Jagger’s offer to take her home — saying she remembered only “the good times.”
In the same message, Mia mentioned once feeling “bamboozled” by a woman. Steel asked why she didn’t say Combs had bamboozled her as well, given her accusations.
“Because I was still brainwashed,” Mia answered.
Asked to explain, Mia said that in an environment where “the highs were really high and the lows were really low,” she developed “huge confusion in trusting my instincts.”
When Steel suggested her assault claims were 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 said she felt a moral obligation to speak out after others came forward with allegations against Combs.
“It’s been a long process. I’m untangling things. I’m in therapy,” Mia said.
Mia remained composed days after testifying Combs forcibly kissed her and molested her at his 40th birthday party soon after she started working for him in 2009, and months later raped her in a guest room at his Los Angeles home.
She testified last week that his subsequent sexual assaults were “random, sporadic, so oddly spaced out where I would think they would never happen again.”
Prosecutors criticized Steel’s two-day cross-examination, which has relied heavily on Mia’s social media history.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Comey accused him of yelling at and humiliating the witness, and argued that picking apart years of her social media posts — including birthday greetings and praise for Combs’s business successes — was excessive and largely irrelevant.
“We are crossing the threshold into prejudice and harassing this witness,” Comey told the judge during a break, while jurors were out of the courtroom.
She warned that Steel’s approach during the high-profile trial could deter victims from testifying in other cases in the future.
Judge Arun Subramanian said: “I have not heard any yelling from Mr. Steel and I have not heard anything that was sarcastic in the questions.” Still, he cautioned Steel about overusing questions about Mia’s social media posts praising Combs.