The former employee, testifying under the pseudonym Mia, was the second woman to share an account of sexual abuse at trial. Mr. Combs denies sexually assaulting anyone.
A former assistant to Sean Combs who said that he berated her, threw objects at her and sexually assaulted her during her years working for him resumed testimony at his federal trial on Friday, describing a pattern of threats by a mercurial and demanding boss.
The former employee, referred to in court by the pseudonym Mia, is key to helping the government try to prove racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges against Mr. Combs. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Combs of subjecting Mia to forced labor — including sexual activity — through violence and threats of serious harm.
During her testimony, Mia described a series of explosive outbursts from Mr. Combs when he did not think she was performing her duties quickly enough. He threw a bowl of spaghetti at her, she said, and another time, a computer. (Both of them missed, she said.) Once, on a yacht in the Caribbean, she testified, he asked her to count the cash in a safe, then grew irate when he deemed her counting too slow.
“He chased me out and cursed at me and told me, ‘You better learn to walk on water like Jesus, bitch,’” Mia said on Friday.
Mr. Combs has vehemently denied sexually assaulting anyone. Lawyers for the music mogul, who has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him, have acknowledged that their client has a history of violence and a “bad temper,” but they have asserted that he is not a racketeer or sex trafficker.
As a part of Mr. Combs’s entourage from 2009 to 2017, Mia — who called Mr. Combs by the nickname “Puff” on the stand — recalled becoming enmeshed in the life of a high-flying record producer, partying with him and going along with him on vacation, while also being subjected to violence and intimidation. She became a close confidante to Casandra Ventura, the music mogul’s on-and-off girlfriend of 11 years, whose recounting of brutal violence, meticulous control and marathon sexual encounters with male prostitutes, known as “freak-offs,” are at the heart of the government’s case.
