Judge threatens to ban Sean 'Diddy' Combs' from courtroom for gesturing at jury

The judge overseeing the trial of fallen hip-hop giant Sean “Diddy” Combs threatened to remove him from the courtroom after he apparently made facial expressions at jurors.

It was “absolutely unacceptable” that Combs should be “looking at jurors and nodding vigorously” during witness testimony, judge Arun Subramanian told Combs.

“It cannot happen again.”

The judge also scolded Combs’s defence team for the lapse in courtroom decorum.

The Manhattan Federal court heard the music mogul dismissed requests by one of his former girlfriends to stop having sex with other men at his behest, and threatened to stop paying her rent.

Testifying at Combs’ sex trafficking trial on Thursday under the pseudonym Jane to protect her privacy, the woman said she was Combs’ girlfriend between 2021 and 2024.

She is the third woman who prosecutors say was sexually abused by Combs to take the stand at his trial which is in its fourth week.

Jane, a model and social media influencer, said she felt “exhilarated” the first time she had sex with a male escort in front of Combs in May 2021, about five months into their relationship.

But she said she thought it would be a one-time occurrence. Instead, she said she had sex with other men in front of Combs about 90 per cent of the time she saw him.

“I was pretty head over heels for Sean,” she told jurors.

Several heady months followed, including a romantic trip to Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas in February 2021.

She said Combs first gave her illicit drugs on that trip.

When she eventually told him she did not want to have sex with other men anymore, Combs - whose net worth Forbes estimated at above $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in 2022 - threatened to stop paying her rent, Jane said.

“He just was dismissive or wanted to move on from the subject,” Jane said.

Jane said she and Combs would call the events with other men “debauchery” or “hotel nights”. Her description of the events resembled what another former girlfriend of Combs’, Casandra Ventura, referred to as “Freak Offs”.

Combs put Jane up in a home in Los Angeles for $10,000 a month, she said, and when she spoke against hotel nights, he would bring up that point.

“My feeling of obligation really started to stem from the fact that my partner was paying my rent,” she said.

Ventura, a rhythm and blues singer known professionally as Cassie, said she participated in “Freak Offs” with Combs and male sex workers for nearly a decade - at first to please him, and later because he blackmailed her with videos of the encounters.

Earlier on Thursday, Combs’ lawyer Nicole Westmoreland accused another witness, Ventura’s friend Bryana Bongolan, of falsely testifying that Combs dangled her over Ventura’s 17th-storey Los Angeles balcony in September 2016.

Westmoreland suggested Combs was on the East Coast at the time of the alleged attack.

“You came in here and you lied to the ladies and gentlemen of this jury, didn’t you?” Westmoreland asked.

“I can’t agree with you,” Bongolan replied.

Under further questioning from prosecutor Madison Smyser, Bongolan said she did not know the exact date of the incident but said she had no doubt it took place.

Prosecutors later displayed a text message Ventura sent an associate on September 30, 2016, stating that Combs’ had dangled Bongolan’s feet over the balcony.

Outside the jury’s presence following Bongolan’s testimony, US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he had observed Combs “nodding vigorously” in the jury’s direction during Westmoreland’s questioning, and threatened to kick him out of the courtroom if he did that again.

“There should be no efforts whatsoever to have any interactions with this jury,” Subramanian said.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to five counts including racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He could face life in prison if convicted on all counts.