“The highs were really high and the lows were really, really low,” the former personal assistant said. Mr. Combs has denied assaulting anyone.
A former personal assistant to Sean Combs testified on Thursday that she was sexually assaulted by her boss, describing a work environment that could descend into violence and chaos.
“The highs were really high and the lows were really, really low,” she testified at Mr. Combs’s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial.
The woman is taking the stand under the pseudonym “Mia.” Prosecutors have previewed her testimony for jurors by saying that she would “tell you about the times that the defendant forced himself on her sexually, putting his hand up her dress, unzipping his pants and forcing her to perform oral sex, and sneaking into her bed to penetrate her against her will.”
Previous witnesses have described Mia as part of Mr. Combs’s entourage and a friend of Casandra Ventura, the music mogul’s on-and-off girlfriend of 11 years, whose testimony about violence and marathon sexual encounters with male prostitutes, known as “freak-offs,” are at the heart of the government’s case.
Mr. Combs is not accused of sex trafficking Mia but of subjecting her to forced labor — including sexual activity — through violence and threats of serious harm. The forced labor allegation is part of a broader racketeering conspiracy charge that accuses Mr. Combs of directing a criminal enterprise that helped him commit crimes and cover them up over two decades.
Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. His lawyers have acknowledged that he was responsible for domestic violence, but they vehemently denied the existence of a criminal conspiracy, asserting that he was the head of entirely lawful businesses that were disconnected from his private sex life. They have argued that the sex at issue in the case was entirely consensual.
