The federal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs entered its eighth day of testimony in New York on Wednesday, with a homeland security agent resuming testimony about the federal raid of Combs’s Miami property last year.
Combs, 55, is facing charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He was arrested in September and has pleaded not guilty.
On Wednesday morning, Gerard Gannon, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations who oversaw the March 2024 search of Combs’s Miami Beach home, took the stand for the second time this week.
Gannon told the court on Tuesday that agents discovered AR-15 rifle parts, high heels, sex toys, lubricants, baby oil and lingerie in the closet of the main bedroom of Combs’s Miami home.
On Wednesday, Gannon recalled that agents found a Gucci bag containing an assortment of pills including MDMA tablets, as well as white residue that tested positive for cocaine and ketamine, and other items in a different closet in Combs’s home.
Photos shown in court were of items that agents said were found in a hallway closet, including more than 20 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.
Gannon testified that agents found a loaded .45 caliber handgun in a suitcase in the guesthouse on the property.
Under cross-examination, Gannon said the AR-15-style guns found in Combs’s home were disassembled and thus inoperable.
The prosecution then called Dr Dawn Hughes, a forensic and clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma. Hughes previously testified during the 2022 defamation case of actors Amber Heard and Johnny Depp.
Hughes testified that it was common for victims to remain in abusive relationships because they often feel trapped and that it can take months, or even years, before a victim is able to disclose the abuse to anybody. Trauma victims, she said, typically experience deep feelings of shame, humiliation and degradation.
“They don’t want to talk about it,” Hughes said. “They don’t even want to think about it in their own brain.”
In abusive relationships, Hughes said there is “almost always love” which creates “an intense psychological bond that creates an attachment with their abuser”.
It often takes multiple attempts for victims to leave abusive relationships, Hughes said, before describing a cycle of “returning, and reconciliation, and then returning again” as a common pattern in abusive relationships.
In tandem with physical violence, Hughes said abusers frequently use financial control to maintain power and make victims feel trapped. Victims often use drugs and repress memories, she said.
Hughes told the court that she was paid $600 an hour for her work as an expert witness and $6,000 for a day of testimony in court.
During cross-examination, Combs’s lawyers tried to paint Hughes as a biased expert witness who is being paid by the prosecution.
On the stand, Hughes confirmed that she’s never testified in defense of someone accused of a sex crime, explaining to the court that she doesn’t “evaluate offenders”.
After Hughes, the government called George Kaplan, a former assistant to Combs, to the witness stand.
Kaplan said that he started working for Combs Enterprises in 2013 and that he was promoted in less than a year to Combs’s executive assistant.
Kaplan testified that Combs would frequently threaten to fire him, and would say that he only wanted the best employees.
Kaplan said that he communicated with Combs daily, and often prepared hotel rooms for him, stocking them with clothes, candles, lubricant, baby oil and more, and would clean them afterward.
Kaplan told the court that “protecting” Combs’s public image was “very important”.
Court adjourned at about 3pm ET. Kaplan will continue testifying on Thursday morning.
On Tuesday, the jury heard from a former assistant to Combs, a male escort and Cassie Ventura’s mother, Regina Ventura, who accused him of blackmail and of assaulting her daughter.
On Monday, the jury heard from singer Dawn Richard and Kerry Morgan, a former close friend of Ventura’s during her relationship with Combs. Both women testified that they had witnessed Combs assaulting Ventura.
Cassie Ventura spent four days on the stand last week, and testified about years of physical and emotional abuse she endured from Combs during their 11-year on-again, off-again relationship.
Ventura said Combs orchestrated drug-fueled sex performances with male sex workers that he called “freak-offs”, and that he coerced and blackmailed her into participating.
She also alleged that Combs raped her in 2018 after their breakup.
Prosecutors have sought to portray Combs as controlling and abusive, and as someone who exerted power over nearly every aspect of Ventura’s life and decisions.
Attorneys for Combs have tried to undermine Ventura’s credibility and sought to depict her as a willing and consenting participant in the so-called “freak-offs”.
The trial is expected to last seven more weeks. If convicted, Combs could spend the rest of his life in prison.
