Updated June 5, 2025 at 8:30 PM EDT
This report includes descriptions of alleged sex trafficking.
On Thursday (June 5), a woman who told the jury that she was romantically involved with Sean Combs up until the time of his indictment and arrest in September of 2024 took the witness stand in the hip-hop mogul's federal criminal trial. The witness, who testified under a pseudonym to protect her identity and was identified as "Jane," said that Combs financially supported her during their relationship and leveraged that support in order to pressure her into sexual encounters with male escorts.
Unlike Combs' former partner Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's highest-profile witness so far, there's little publicly known information about Jane, who will presumably be the centerpiece of the second half of the prosecution's case against Combs. The trial, which is nearing the end of its fourth week, is expected to last eight weeks total.
The producer and entrepreneur faces two counts of sex trafficking by coercion, two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and one count of racketeering conspiracy. Prosecutors say these crimes span two decades. Jane is listed as "Victim 2" in the government's indictment of Combs, in which he is accused of forcing her into commercial sex acts from around 2021 until approximately 2024. Combs' defense attorneys say their client had an unconventional yet consensual sex life that had nothing to do with his businesses. He has pleaded not guilty.
In the courtroom, Jane described a romantic first date with Combs in early 2021 that lasted several days. Although they did not live in the same city, she said the record producer and entrepreneur showered her with affection, compliments and romantic trips in the first few months of their involvement.
"I was head over heels for Sean already," Jane said. "I felt like Sean was really passionate, and he brought a lot of passion out of me too."
The relationship was not public or monogamous, and involved drug use during much of the time they were together. Jane became emotional on the witness stand describing how, months into the relationship, Combs told her he fantasized about watching her with another man. She said she agreed to try it, but was surprised when he arranged to make it happen that same night because they had been taking drugs and had already been awake for close to 24 hours straight at that point.
Jane described arriving at a hotel suite hours later, where Combs' assistants were setting up the room with lights, beverages and other supplies. That was the first night Jane had an encounter with a male escort while Combs watched and masturbated. She said it felt exhilarating and "taboo," but she assumed it was a fun, one-off thing.
"I truly feel that night opened a Pandora's box for our relationship," she told the court. "It was a door that I was unable to shut for the remainder of the relationship."
According to Jane, these "hotel nights" eventually took up the majority of the time she spent with Combs. She said she went along with them willingly in the early stages because she loved Combs and wanted to make him happy — echoing earlier testimony by Cassie Ventura. But Jane said from 2021 until 2024, she told Combs many times that she no longer wanted to have sex with other men. Whenever she broached the subject, she felt he was dismissive.
Jane explained that she was a single mother making a living as a content creator when she began dating Combs. But she said her social media work waned as she invested more of her time into the relationship, and he often gave her thousands of dollars and paid her rent. On one of the occasions she told him she wanted to stop having "hotel nights" with escorts, Combs allegedly framed it as a break-up conversation and asked how much time she needed to move out of the house he paid for. Jane told prosecutor Maurene Comey that she didn't want to stop seeing Combs altogether, but she felt "obligated to perform" in the encounters.
Jane's direct questioning and cross-examination are expected to take up the remainder of this week and most of the following week.
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