Judge threatens to remove Diddy from courtroom
The judge presiding over Sean “Diddy” Combs’ criminal trial has threatened to ban the disgraced music mogul from the courtroom for nodding and making faces at members of the jury.
Judge Arun Subramanian called his actions “absolutely unacceptable”. Mr Combs’ attorneys assured the judge that it would not happen again.
Judge Subramanian said Mr Combs was “vigorously nodding” during the cross questioning of Bryana Bongolan, a friend of Mr Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura who accused the rapper of holding her over a balcony.
Mr Combs has pled not guilty to all charges, including sex trafficking and a racketeering conspiracy.
A new witness takes the stand
The court also heard from a woman using the pseudonym “Jane”, who dated Mr Combs between 2021 and his arrest in 2024.
Jane described the initial months of her relationship with Mr Combs as an exciting whirlwind; she said he took her on trips to Miami, and another one to Turks and Caicos, and The Bahamas. The rapper took her to upscale restaurants and she described herself as “head over heels” for him.
But she testified that Mr Combs soon asked her to participate in what prosecutors referred to as “hotel nights”, when Mr Combs hired an escort in order to watch Jane engage in sexual acts with another man. The first encounter in May 2021 took place in Miami, and she believed it would be a one-off experience.
“That night opened a Pandora’s box in our relationship,” Jane told the court. “It was a door I was unable to shut for the rest of the relationship. There was so much of it after, and it was too much.”
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Jane testified that she went along with additional encounters because “I just really loved him at that point and wanted to make him happy”. But she also said “many times” that she had told Mr Combs she did not want to engage in these “hotel nights”.
But Mr Combs asked her to participate in several more and she “felt frustrated, I felt just obligated” to go along with his wishes, she told the court.
Starting in approximately April 2023, Mr Combs began paying $10,000 per-month for a home for her, she testified. Jane said the arrangement came with a sense of obligation, and the rapper had implied he did not want to pay rent for a woman he was not seeing.
Mr Combs also provided her with drugs such as ecstasy, cocaine and ketamine from the onset of the relationship, she testified. She told the court she had used the substances during some of her encounters with Mr Combs as well as the “hotel nights”.
Her testimony will continue on Friday, and she will later face questioning from Mr Combs’ defence team.
