A former employee of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, testifying anonymously as ‘Mia’, alleges he sexually assaulted her ‘on more than one occasion’.She also testified about feeling ‘terrified and trapped’ by Diddy.‘Mia’ told the court that she was in charge of cleaning hotel rooms after ‘freak-offs’, describing them as ‘destroyed’.A warning that this episode contains descriptions of violence, sexual violence and rape.Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty speaks to Nada Tawfik, the BBC’s New York correspondent and criminal defence attorney Shaun Kent about the testimony from ‘Mia’ and the rest of the week in court.Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is on trial in New York, facing federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering with conspiracy and transportation for prostitution. He denies all the charges.The Diddy on Trial podcast is here to investigate the rumours, confront the theories, and give you the answers that you need.We also want YOU to be part of the conversation. Have you any questions about the case? Heard a theory that doesn’t sit right with you? Get in touch now via WhatsApp: 0330 123 555 1.Details of organisations in the UK offering information and support with some of the issues raised are available at bbc.co.uk/actionlinePresenter: Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty Series Producer: Laura Jones Sound Design: Mark Burrows Senior Digital Producer: Matthew Pintus Executive Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith Senior Producer: Chrystal Genesis Production Coordinator: Hattie Valentine Editor: Clare Fordham Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts Assistant Commissioner: Will Drysdale Commissioning Producer: Adam Eland Commissioning Assistant Producer: Rechmial Miller
Chapter 1: What allegations does Mia make against Diddy?
BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts Hello and welcome to Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matanda-Doughty. Now, I'm stood outside the federal court in Lower Manhattan. It's threatening to rain again, but that is not deterring the press and all the influencers from turning up because we're told today we're going to hear from Mia.
Now, she's somebody that the prosecution has been talking about since opening statements. Just a reminder, Sean Diddy Combs is on trial for federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering with conspiracy and transportation for prostitution. These are charges he's always denied.
Today, we're expected to start to hear a testimony that is going to last until the end of the week from Mia about what she experienced while she was working for Diddy. But this is also our episode where we round up all the big developments from the week. And just a warning, this episode contains descriptions of violence, sexual violence and rape. So it's four o'clock.
We stayed in a little bit late today. The judge kept everybody late because Mia's direct testimony is going to carry on into tomorrow, actually. So we've just come out and I'm catching up with the BBC's New York correspondent, Neda Tawfiq, who's going to break down some of what Mia had to say. So Mia was a big witness for the prosecution that we'd heard about from opening statements.
And they began in a similar way to others with her corroborating accounts of violence we'd heard from Cassie.
Yeah, that's right. You know, Mia was testifying under a pseudonym, but she worked for Diddy for eight years. So she was there for a big span. She was somebody who was supposed to keep tabs on Cassie, she said, under her testimony. So she details seeing Diddy crack Cassie's head open, chase after her, throw her to the ground, among other things.
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Chapter 2: What was Mia's experience while working for Diddy?
And prosecutors actually asked, did Cassie ever fight back? And she kind of laughed weakly on the stand, saying no. You know, the most she ever did was kind of hold her hands up to shield herself. But the individual incidents she went through, and one was when she was there with Deontay Nash, Cassie's stylist, with Cassie in an apartment.
And all of a sudden, Diddy came running in angry, looking for Cassie, and grabbed her and dragged her into the bedroom. Now, Mia says that her and Deontay both jumped on Diddy's back to try to stop him, but he wouldn't stop beating Cassie. And She talks about the kind of wood frame of the bed and how hard it was and how it ultimately left a huge gash in Cassie's eyebrow and her head.
And she actually needed stitches. But Diddy basically said not to call emergency services, according to Mia, and told them to get in touch with an assistant who was aware of doctors who could help in those situations. Eventually, she had to go to a plastic surgeon, but Diddy was adamant that they be told that she was drunk and hit her head.
And they also spoke about the free coughs. This is something we've heard about a lot since opening statements, days-long drug-filled orgies that Cassie alleges she was forced to participate in. But Mia spoke to her perception of how she thought Cassie actually felt about these. What did she have to say?
Mia details being in the car with Cassie in Los Angeles. And she says that her boss, Sean Combs, called Cassie. And Cassie just said, oh, Puff wants to do a hotel night. And that's how they referred to them, the staff, a hotel night. And she said she could immediately see Cassie's whole demeanor change. She got upset. She got nervous. She started getting stomach issues. She said she got sick.
And that's something that we heard from Cassie on her testimony, just how she You know, had these physical reactions to having to do these freak offs. And Mia also said they had a term called man down and that after these hotel nights that both Cassie and Diddy would be so wrecked that they would need time to recover so much that they actually had a term for it.
Mia also spoke about stuff she had to do as an employee after the free coughs or the hotel nights. She referred to it as sweeps.
We've heard this before from other people, but never with that name. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we've heard from other personal assistants that part of the job was about protecting Diddy's reputation and all of them actually directly spoke about being afraid that hotel staff might sell pictures of the hotel rooms and embarrass Diddy.
And we even heard from one hotel manager and looked at Diddy's account, right? We know that the hotels said there was excessive amounts of candle wax melted all over the room. that there was oil everywhere. This was kind of the norm. And we heard the same from Mia. She said she would go in, she would have to wipe up blood that she was told was from Cassie's period.
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Chapter 3: How did Diddy allegedly control his employees?
Yeah, so prosecutors would kind of always ask her, you know, did you report this to police? Did you ask anybody to help? Did you report this to HR? And she kind of laughed and she said, HR wasn't there to help us. HR was only there to punish us and to do what Diddy wanted.
So she was very much creating this picture of a company, an organization that first and foremost worried about Sean Combs and his reputation and his priorities.
and not the employee's well-being that was certainly the picture she painted be interesting to see how the defense tries to come back on that point on cross-examination she does clarify that this the bowl of spaghetti doesn't hit her but they do ask her you know were there times where you sustained injuries from acts of aggression from mr combs and she spoke about something that happened at revolt tv one of the instances of physical violence that she details was when
Sean Combs took her phone. They were, as you mentioned, at Revolt TV, and she kind of hovered behind him because she was concerned about him seeing any emails that some of the staff had exchanged about him because they always keep each other in the loop, and she didn't want him to get the wrong impression.
He noticed, got a little annoyed by that, kind of ran off into the bathroom to kind of go through her phone, and she said that he just started, when she reached her arm in to get her phone, started banging the door on her arm many times to the point where she thought it was broken, but it was just badly bruised.
So we've heard about alleged incidents of physical aggression from Mia. And I'm going to give a warning before we get into the next bit, because we hear about allegations of sexual assault. Mia alleges she was sexually assaulted throughout her working relationship with Diddy.
And she spoke about the first time prosecutors got her to open up about that. Mia says she was pretty new working for Diddy at the time of his 40th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel. And she said that he rented out the whole hotel, but her job was to go up and down from the penthouse to take care of anything he needed.
And at one point, she alleges that he called her into the kitchen and made everyone else go away. and gave her shots of vodka and said, let's cheers to my 40th birthday. And she said she was in her 20s, that usually alcohol wouldn't have an impact on her, but she remembered feeling off. And then she says that Diddy got close to her, put his arm kind of on the wall by her head.
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Chapter 4: What incidents of violence did Mia witness?
and put his other arm up her dress and then kissed her. And she describes just freezing, not knowing what to do, kind of in a panic. And she says she didn't really have any memory after that. The next thing she remembers is waking up the next day in a chair, fully clothed, but with no memory of what had happened.
But she said she just continued to work for him because in her mind she thought he was probably drunk.
Mia describes the next incident of sexual assault that she alleges, and she actually said it took place in Diddy's home.
Yeah. The whole time Mia was on the stand, she had her head bowed. She was looking down throughout all the questioning. It was like she was really making an effort not to even catch a glimpse of Diddy at all sitting there in court. But specifically when she speaks about all of these alleged incidents of sexual assaults,
She gets very emotional, sobbing at points, speaking so softly it's hard to hear. And prosecutors had to jump in to help her a few times. So she details kind of sleeping in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed in the house. And she had testified earlier that she wasn't allowed to lock the doors in the room because Diddy said, this is my house, you're not allowed to lock the doors.
And she says that she was sleeping and all of a sudden she woke up feeling the weight of a body on top of her. And she said Diddy essentially told her something like kind of keep quiet and took his hand and undid his pants. And it took a lot of effort for her to kind of describe what she alleges happened next. But prosecutors helped her along to detail how he. forced himself inside of her.
That's what she alleges. And she's basically, again, talks about how frozen in the moment, not knowing what to do. Later on, she's asked by prosecutors, you know, did you ever say no? And she says, you know, no, I didn't say no because I was just absolutely shocked and frozen. You And she said, I couldn't even tell him no about a sandwich. How was I going to tell him no about something like this?
And then it would set off alarm bells in his head that I knew what he was doing was wrong. And she said that would affect her career, even potentially put her in physical harm. It would obviously, for her, kind of make her, in her mind, viewed as somebody who was trying to hurt him and isolate her from the entire group.
And in... in a way that is very typical in the direct testimony that the prosecution asks about, why didn't you go to law enforcement? If this was so bad, why didn't you tell anyone? And you're kind of pre-empting what they might say in the cross-examination there. I thought the stuff she had to say about the police was really interesting and her perception of Diddy's relationship with them.
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Chapter 5: What role did HR play in Diddy's company?
She said she... thought her boss was so powerful that going to the police wouldn't help at all. And she was asked to clarify, you know, how did you come to that conclusion? And she describes two incidents where she was speeding. And both times, it was the only time she said she name dropped and said that the cops, when they found out it was Diddy, were kind of so happy and awed by his celebrity.
One time she told the cop, look, I have to get to my boss. She picked up the phone, had Diddy speak to her and she said, is that Puffy? Oh, my God, I love you. Another instance, the cops apparently saw, you know, Diddy in the car and were like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Didn't realize it was you. So she talks about, again, this off celebrity around him.
And I think it's just obviously important to note that this is all her testimony, what she said in court. Diddy has denied all of these charges. We're going to get a chance to hear on cross-examination what they have to say. So, yeah, Mia's still on the stand and it's going to take us to the end of the week.
And we had a shorter week this week because of Memorial Day holiday. We had Capricorn Clark and Deontay Nash taking the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday. Let's go back to Wednesday. What did Deontay have to say?
Yeah, so he was the stylist for Cassie and also worked with Diddy, styling him for a while and saying he witnessed a lot of violence against Cassie by Diddy. The one incident, you know, we spoke about with Mia kind of jumping on Diddy's back when he came into the apartment, the gash on her eyebrow. He was there for that.
But also just the fact that Cassie didn't want to be part of these freak-offs and was blackmailed. He talked about Cassie opening up to him about that, how... When they were rushing off from Diddy one time, he threatened to release tapes. And that's when Cassie opened up to him and said she'd been forced to have sex with male escorts and she didn't like it.
And also the blackmail that he would release the tapes to Cassie's parents. So he was a key witness in that respect. He was also a very colorful character. He had... little remarks on the stand when, you know, one of the photos of him was put up. He said, you know, I look good. So with all these very heavy topics, he brought a little bit of levity in testifying.
Some stark comparison to Capricorn Clark, who was pretty emotional. She was talking about this Kid Cudi incident and she spoke to an allegation of kidnapping. That's important because that's a predicate offense for the Rico charge.
Yeah, I mean, this is somebody who says Diddy came in holding a gun to her, upset that he had found out that Cassie was seeing Kid Cudi. And telling her to get in his car because they were going to go kill Cuddy. That's her testimony. And she says she didn't want to go, but he had a gun and he forced her. And once there, she called Cassie kind of in a panic about all of this.
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Chapter 6: What allegations of sexual assault did Mia describe?
So she is somebody who is providing that extra circumstantial evidence, right, about this kind of break-in incident. into Kid Cudi's house by Diddy and his security guard. And just more broadly, she talks about just the threats she constantly faced from Diddy.
So Capricorn Clark, again, a really large chunk of time was spent on her testimony as someone who worked close with Diddy and could give her perspective.
Well, we'll obviously be watching Mia tomorrow on the stand finishing and then her cross-examination, which I'm assuming will be at the beginning of next week. Neneda, thank you so much for breaking that down for us today.
We are not quite done because we're going to be hearing from our resident criminal defense attorney, Sean Kent, who's going to be answering all those questions and all my questions, of which I have many. So we're going to head to the BBC Bureau now and get that done.
So, Sean, we had a really quite long day today with Mia, who is using a pseudonym, but she's one of the prosecution's main witnesses. We heard about her in opening statements. We've heard about her kind of throughout. And they started off with her corroborating some of the claims that Cassie made and Deontay Nash about violence that Cassie experienced.
Is this once again just presenting to the jury that, OK, this is two, now three people who say they witnessed this, so it definitely happened? Or are they doing something else here?
Probably a little bit of both, because the way that I read her testimony is she won 100 percent corroborates Cassie's testimony. And that's something the government is always want to do in trials. They want to make sure that, OK, maybe you didn't believe her, but to not believe Cassie, you now have to disbelieve four or five different individuals with the exact same accounts.
And that's probably what you're noticing in trial is that it's the same story over and over and over again. And the reason I probably also love her Mia's testimony is also because she actually helps with the forced labor charge as well. So she corroborates forced labor. She corroborates Cassie. I think they can get two bites, one apple. So I think that's what they're trying to do.
So you can even get that in some of Mia's testimony when she was like, I couldn't even change a tampon. That could speak to the forced labor charge. Yeah.
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Chapter 7: How did Mia perceive Diddy's relationship with law enforcement?
Mia also spoke about having the perception that going to the police about Diddy wasn't enough. She said this was before Me Too. This was before social media. And I thought his power was above the police. That's what she says. She gives some examples prompted by the prosecution saying, oh, well, I'd get speeding tickets.
And then when I tell the police, you know, I was speeding for my boss, P. Diddy, and I get him on the phone. Those tickets were written off. They were really happy to talk to Puff Daddy. At what point in the jury's mind do you start going, how big is this thing? This seems to be involving the police, medical professionals, security guards. You know, where does this alleged enterprise stop?
There's two ways I want to respond to that. One, and this is why you have to be careful to object to everything during a trial, OK? If you remember the day before yesterday, the defense requested a mistrial motion because they said, we believe the United States of America is asking a question about the Los Angeles Fire Department officer.
We believe the question about the destroying of fingerprints and how rare that is, as they're making the suggestion that Diddy is so powerful, he can have fingerprints destroyed and disappear. Nobody said that but the defense. And the defense highlighted that in front of a jury. And now you've got the jury thinking, I wonder if he is so powerful. And guess what? Who's scared to hear that?
Diddy is scared because he doesn't want that. And that's why you have to be careful with objections. And so but that's the point of RICO. And that goes to the second part to answer your question. I keep talking about the jury charge, the charge at the end that the judge is going to tell what the law is. Well, the judge is going to say the members of the enterprise are known and unknown.
They're not having a board meeting where everybody's sitting around and saying, you're a member, you're a member, you're a member, you're a member, you're a member. There's no board meeting. So it's just an enterprise. And one person can know about their enterprise. And guess who the one person is? Diddy. So these cops don't know they're a member of the enterprise.
These drivers don't know they're a member of the enterprise, but they are. And that's what the government is going to be arguing. And that's what the listeners are able to see now is now that we understand Rico, we're seeing the chess moves and you don't.
I think when we started talking about this at the beginning and I was telling you what the defense strategy was going to be and you're like, how do you know this? Well, now that you know what Rico is, you know, there can only be one defense strategy. They've got to defeat the enterprise. They can try to kill everybody's credibility out the wall. They can say consent.
But there's certain moves that they have to make and the only thing they can make. And this is why I always said, I think he's going to testify.
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Chapter 8: What did other witnesses testify about Diddy's behavior?
I've got some really good listener questions actually. Right. This one, this is from Sarah. And I think this is a really good question. And this has come up a lot. It says, I have a question relating to consent. So kind of what you're just talking about there. Consent versus coercively obtained consent.
So for example, the Punisher, so that was a male commercial sex worker, said that Cassie leaned in during one of these freak-offs and moved to allow a sex act to
therefore presenting as if she was giving consent in the moment however if you don't want to be in that situation in the first place but are forced groomed or manipulated into doing it but decide to make peace with it in the moment to get through it as painlessly as possible it doesn't have to be kicking and screaming in a situation for it to be deemed against a person's free will could there be a different word or a legal term used to define this and illustrate it to society that's an interesting point would they call that some something else
And that's why that expert testified. Like, literally, that's literally the entire reason why the expert testified. And remember, there was a fight from the defense to make sure they couldn't use the phrase that everybody knows, coercive control. You're in the courtroom. They could not use the phrase coercive control. But she testifies circularly around it. What Sarah just said is exactly right.
And what the prosecution is trying to show is she could not exert free will because her free will was overborne by the grooming and the conditioning that her free will was taken by a master-servant relationship is the easiest way to describe that. that her personality was overborn.
And if you've watched, people have been asking the questions like, why are they putting people on the stand that said, I still like him, I still care about him?
Because they want to be able to say, this false deity over there has created a situation that even though they've been beat, they've been kicked, they've been poorly paid, they're so brainwashed by him that they still say, I still love you, and they still want his adoration. That's still against the law.
I've got another question here from Rich in Bournemouth in the UK. He says, hey, guys, love the pod since I stumbled on it in February. Wondered if you could help us out with something of the court processes and the like. What do they discuss? This is a good question. What do they discuss during a sidebar? Why is there a delay in filing exhibits in the docket?
Surely they're not still going through evidence. They're going through evidence in court. Like they're having little arguments in court while we're sat in there. And the judge is like, you couldn't have brought this up earlier.
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