The sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs wrapped up its third week with a standout performance from Brian Steel, the attorney recently known for representing Young Thug in the YSL case.
Steel came aboard Diddy’s defense team just before the trial began, and dedicated most of Friday to cross-examining a former assistant of Diddy’s who had accused the music executive of repeatedly sexually assaulting her during her testimony the previous day.
The woman, whose identity is being protected and who is testifying under the name “Mia,” was confronted by Steel with several Instagram posts she had made while working for Diddy, in which she spoke highly of the mogul.
Multiple posts showed Mia sending birthday wishes to him. In these messages, she thanked him for “being the good kind of crazy,” for being “one of my greatest friends,” and for “letting me give birth to my dreams.”
Additionally, there were upbeat posts from three different years about her time with Combs at Burning Man. This stood out because during her Thursday testimony, she had described an incident at the festival where she claimed Combs forced her to take ketamine.
Steel focused heavily on the birthday posts. He emphasized that Mia had alleged Combs sexually assaulted her at his 40th birthday celebration in 2009. Therefore, Steel argued, the mogul’s birthday also marked the anniversary of that supposed assault.
Speaking about her 2014 birthday post for Combs, Steel stated: “On the fifth anniversary of the sexual abuse, you’re saying, ‘You continue to inspire me every day.'”
“I didn’t celebrate it as an anniversary,” Mia replied at one point. “It was his birthday to me.”
When questioned about her posts painting a positive, highlight-reel picture of her time working for Combs, she explained the reality of social media.
“Instagram was a place to show how great your life was, even if it wasn’t true,” she explained. “All these postings were the good moments.”
Mia explained that her time working for Combs, which spanned from 2009 to 2017, has resulted in complex severe PTSD, and that she’s unable to work because of it.
After reviewing numerous Instagram posts, Steel moved to what appeared to be his main point. If Combs really committed all the acts Mia is alleging, why was she praising him? And why did she stay in his circle for eight years?
“It’s called psychological abuse,” she responded. “Nobody was there to say that these things that were happening were wrong. Nobody flinched at his behavior.”
She acknowledged that looking back, she shouldn’t have needed external validation that Combs’ alleged abusive treatment of her and Cassie (who Mia described as being like a sister to her) was wrong. But at the time, she felt trapped in an inescapable situation.
“[Between] my logic brain and my trauma brain, my trauma brain wins all the time,” Mia said. “I wanted to make everybody happy all the time… I would make excuses to myself.”
At this point, Steel seemed to reach the peak of his questioning. He asked her whether it was accurate that Combs’ abuse, while terrible, “did not happen as many times as you said to this jury?”
When Mia rejected that suggestion, Steel questioned whether she was being dishonest about any sexual encounters with his client being unwanted.
“What if you’re not a victim? Then what?” he pressed.
Mia maintained that everything in her previous testimony was accurate.
Steel then presented the jury with a scrapbook Mia had made for Diddy as a gift for his 45th birthday. It contained press coverage of him from 1991 to 1999. He described the gift, and the accompanying note, as “loving.”
“I’m a very loving person,” Mia responded.
“To the person who sexually abused you?” Steel shot back.
“Yes,” Mia confirmed.
Following that exchange, Steel brought up text messages from December 2016, when Mia learned that her employment with Combs was ending (though she actually continued working there for several more months).
After getting this news, Mia had texted a member of Combs’ team, “I’m going to kill myself. My life is over.”
In court, Mia explained her intense reaction to potentially losing her position, despite the alleged mistreatment she endured from Combs.
“This was all presented as if it was a job,” she said. “This was not a job. This is all I knew. I’d worked so hard and gone through so much [and] I was cast away without an explanation.
“In hindsight, [leaving] was fantastic. At the time, the worst thing ever.”
