A woman who dated Sean Combs up until his arrest on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges last year testified at his federal trial on Thursday that an intense love affair with the music mogul turned into a pattern of unwanted voyeuristic sex that she struggled to end.
“It was a door that I was unable to shut for the remainder of the relationship,” she testified.
A judge has allowed the woman to testify anonymously, and she is being referred to in court by the pseudonym “Jane.” She is the most significant witness since Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend of 11 years, whose allegations of physical and sexual abuse gave rise to the criminal case. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Prosecutors have said that Jane’s relationship with Mr. Combs mirrored the one he had with Ms. Ventura in many ways. Like Ms. Ventura, they have said, Jane was coerced into sex with male escorts through violence, financial control and threats related to videos of the sexual encounters, which they said Mr. Combs directed step by step.
As her testimony began, Jane described her early flirtation with Mr. Combs while she was on a trip to Miami with her friend, who was romantically involved with him.
“I was already drawn to him pretty instantly,” she testified, recalling how he hosted her and her friends at his Miami home and on a yacht. They gave each other nicknames: She was Bert and he was Ernie, after the “Sesame Street” characters.
When Mr. Combs first pursued her, she said, she was hesitant at first because of her friend’s relationship with him. But after that friend got engaged to another man, they began dating, and she quickly fell for him.
She testified that they began a private romance that involved travel on his private jet, drugs such as Ecstasy and ketamine, and extended sexual sessions in which he directed her on what to wear, typically provocative lingerie and high heels.
For a while, Jane said, she loved the “passionate” nights with Mr. Combs, and she felt exhilarated after the first time Mr. Combs watched her have sex with a man from an online escort service. But Mr. Combs soon began asking for that kind of voyeuristic sex frequently, and it became a vast majority of their intimacy.
“I truly felt that that night opened a Pandora’s box,” she said.
She told him many times throughout the relationship that she no longer wanted to have these sexual encounters, but Mr. Combs would be dismissive and they would end up doing it anyway, Jane testified.
Jane took the stand after a dramatic moment in which the judge overseeing the case, Arun Subramanian, admonished Mr. Combs for nodding at jurors while his lawyer questioned an earlier witness about an account of violence.
Mr. Combs’s enthusiastic reaction came during the cross-examination of a woman who has accused him of lifting her up onto the railing of a 17th-floor balcony in a violent act of intimidation. During her questioning, the defense threw the timeline of the account into question.
“I saw your client looking at the jury and nodding vigorously,” Judge Subramanian said after the witness left the stand, out of the presence of the jury. “That is absolutely unacceptable.”
Speaking to Marc Agnifilo, Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer, the judge asked for an assurance that it would not happen again, saying that if the issue continued, it could result in the “exclusion of your client from the courtroom.” Mr. Agnifilo agreed.
Mr. Combs’s lawyers have argued at trial that Ms. Ventura and Jane were willing participants in the sexual encounters. They have admitted that Mr. Combs was responsible for domestic violence but said that violence was linked to jealousy or drug use, not sexual coercion.
At the start of the trial, Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, described Jane’s relationship with Mr. Combs as “toxic and dysfunctional” but said “the evidence is going to show you that she is a capable, strong woman who willingly engaged in their sex life so they could spend time together.”
“That is simply not sex trafficking,” she added.
The government did not secure Jane’s cooperation in the case until after Mr. Combs was arrested in September. Prosecutors noted in court papers that Mr. Combs had been depositing payments into her bank account as recently as that month. She began meeting with prosecutors in January.
Her relationship with Mr. Combs overlaps with the criminal investigation into his conduct: One of the key violent outbursts preceding a freak-off that prosecutors have cited occurred less than a year before the start of the trial.
The trial’s 17th day began with an intense cross-examination of Bryana Bongolan, a friend of Ms. Ventura’s who previously testified that Mr. Combs held her above the railing of a 17th-floor apartment balcony before throwing her onto balcony furniture, an act of violence and intimidation that she said caused bruising and persistent nightmares and paranoia.
Her allegation is part of what prosecutors have described as a yearslong pattern of violence by Mr. Combs.
Mr. Combs has long denied Ms. Bongolan’s allegations. On Thursday, one of his lawyers, Nicole Westmoreland, threw into question the timing of her account, pointing to a photo — dated Sept. 26, 2016 — that Ms. Bongolan said she took with her phone only hours after being attacked in Los Angeles.
The night before, Ms. Westmoreland said, Mr. Combs was performing in New Jersey in the Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour, which featured artists from Mr. Combs’s label. Ms. Westmoreland also showed a hotel bill that she said was for Mr. Combs’s stay in New York City that week.
“You agree that one person can’t be in two places at the same time?” Ms. Westmoreland asked.
“In theory, yeah,” Ms. Bongolan replied.
Asked if she had lied on the stand about the account, Ms. Bongolan testified, “I can’t agree with you.” Back under questioning by the government, she said that although she was not certain of the precise date, she had no doubt that Mr. Combs held her over the balcony.
Anusha Bayya contributed reporting.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
Ben Sisario, a reporter covering music and the music industry, has been writing for The Times for more than 20 years.
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