Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - DIDDY SEX VICTIMS PADDLE BOARD INTO OCEAN STORM TO ESCAPE COMBS

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Another victim in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex trafficking trial referred to by a pseudonym, “Mia,” former personal assistant to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ and an executive at his film studio, Revolt TV, testifies Combs allegedly sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. Mia states he could become violent, once slamming her into a wall and, on another occasion, throwing her into a pool. She once worked five days straight without sleep and used the drug Adderall to stay awake. "Mia" was not allowed to lock her bedroom door when staying at Combs' and could not leave his sight. She recalls a confrontation in 2012 when she and Cassie Ventura were barricaded in a beachside room, hiding from an enraged Combs during a vacation in Turks and Caicos, they push furniture against the door to block Combs from entering.   "I was looking at Cass and she was screaming for help and, 'You have to help me, Puff is going to kill me,'" "Mia" recalls. "She is usually chill and calm, and she was terrified." "Mia and Cassie dash out a back door to the beach and out to a paddle board, fleeing into the water, however weather shifted drastically, sky turned black. We were both debating. I was trying to weigh if it was scarier to face Mother Nature or go back to Puff. We eventually went back to Puff." In cross-examination, defense Brian Steel questions Mia on her social media posts with Combs and on her communications with him in which she said, “love you” and praised him as a “mentor and inspiration She said there were exciting times in the job and the “highs were really high, and the lows were really low.” Follow Crime Stories with Nancy Grace for the latest in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex trafficking trial.  Joining Nancy Grace today: Troy Slaten - Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney, Slaten Lawyers, APC; X @TroySlaten  Dr. Bethany Marshall-  Psychoanalyst, Author: "Deal Breaker," and featured in hit show "Paris in Love" on Peacock; Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive Brian Fitzgibbons - Director of Operations for USPA Nationwide Security, Leads a team of investigators specializing in locating missing persons; Instagram: @uspa_nationwide_security, former Marine and Iraq war veteran Irv Brandt - Former Senior Inspector, US Marshals Service International Investigations Branch, Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affairs; Country Attache, US Embassy Kingston, Jamaica. Author: “SOLO SHOT: CURSE OF THE BLUE STONE” available on Amazon, also “Forever Solo: Knight of the Dragon” also “Flying Solo: Top of the World”, “Solo Journey: Buddha Knights a Jack Solo Mystery Novel:, “Going Solo: The Gospel of Luke” Twitter: @JackSoloAuthor”  Lynn Shaw - Founder and Executive Director of Lynn's Warriors, an organization committed to ending human trafficking and sexual exploitation; Host of Lynn's Warriors on YouTube,  X: @lynns_warriors, YouTube: @LynnsWarriors  Kayla Brantley -  Reporter-At-Large for DailyMail.com and Host of DailyMail’s podcast: 'The Trial of Diddy;' X: @_KaylaBrantley, Instagram: @KaylaBrantley Lauren Conlin - Podcaster, Reporter, Host- Co-Host of "PopCrimeTV" on YouTube, website: primetimecrimeshow.com; X- @Conlin_Lauren, IG: @LaurenEmilyConlin, YouTube: @PopCrimeTV   Sydney Sumner - Crime Stories Investigative Reporter  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. We learn that Sean Combs did these sex victims enduring so much paddleboard out into the ocean during a storm to escape further beatings and rapes from Sean Combs. And they can see him at a distance, pacing back and forth and back and forth like a tiger on the beach.

Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I wanna thank you for being with us. Diddy was menacing, threatening, intimidating. Because of a power need. Three guns across his lap. He gets angry and says, quote, I should kill you.

And he told his manager, I don't like this back and forth. I prefer guns. Because that's what criminal enterprise bosses do. He needs to go under the jail. Joining me on All Star panel to make sense of what we are learning as the testimony pours from the witness stand. That's right. Sean Combs, AKA Diddy, AKA Puff, AKA Puff Daddy, AKA Love. It goes on and on. In court, battling

a multi-count federal indictment, including claims, charges of sex trafficking, bombshells pouring from the witness stand. On the stand right now known only as Mia, her passport has been shown to the jury so they know her real name but she is in such fear she doesn't want her name out there. No one else is allowed to say her name. Straight out to Kayla Brantley joining us, investigative reporter, reporter at large, DailyMail.com. She is the host of the wildly popular Daily Mail podcast, The Trial of Diddy. Kayla, thank you for being with us.

What do you make of Mia's testimony today? Yeah, thank you for having me Nancy So Mia has taken the stand. We know that she was his assistant working for him from 2009 to 2017 And one of the most shocking things I think that she said was that he sexually assaulted her Multiple times and not only that is that it was very sporadic There wasn't any you know rhythm to when he would come and, you know, sexually assault her. But she really described some awful, awful behavior, described a toxic work

environment and she had to stay awake for five days at a time, was not allowed to sleep, had to be on call 24 seven and wasn't even allowed to lock her bedroom door. OK, hold on. I allowed to lock her bedroom door. Okay, hold on. I want to follow up on that. Sydney Sumner joining us, crime stories investigative reporter who has been covering the child since the very beginning and before. Sydney, I want to follow up on what Kayla Brantley from Daily Mail just said.

So Diddy and his mansions would not allow women to lock the door. Explain. What he had testified to was that employees were not allowed to leave his property without his express permission. So they frequently stayed in staff quarters at his mansions, whether it be in LA or Miami. And Combs always instructed them to not lock the doors because it was his house. He was like, you cannot lock a door in my own home. You know, I want to go to Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us. I need to shrink big time. Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psycho analyst, joining us out of LA. She's the author of Deal Breakers.

You can find that on Amazon. She is starring on Peacock right now. She's at drbethanymarshall.com. I heard Sydney Sumner reporting and Kayla Brantley reporting about how he refused to let females and female staffers, Cassie included, locked their bedroom doors in his mansion. Can you imagine? After Mia was allegedly raped the first time, she kept working there and was not allowed to lock her door and just lay there in terror at night. You know, Nancy, she also was never allowed

out of his eyesight. She wasn't allowed to sleep. One time she was on her menstrual cycle and blood was dripping down her leg and he would not even let her go to the bathroom. So basically he set the stage for like a total raping environment by not letting them lock their doors. And so sadly, in Mia's testimony, she goes through all the things she told herself to rationalize and justify the abuse because she was so young, just a very young woman. She thought that maybe she was being tested for whether or not she would be a good assistant, or maybe he didn't really mean to rape her, or maybe he didn't remember it or even know that he raped her because he had had so much to drink. And on one occasion, his 40th birthday party,

he supplied her with two shots of alcohol, asked everybody else to leave the room. I believe they were in the kitchen. She drank the two shots, felt woozy, woke up in his bed and realized that she had been raped. So this to me, it's not even just sexual assault. This is just plain old slavery, Nancy. These people are enslaved in his house. They're not allowed to shut their doors. And each rape is one more attempt at dominance and control over them. You know, Dr. Bethany, you said something that I think a lot of people that haven't studied it or haven't been victims themselves is hard to understand. And there's no reason they should understand.

I'm glad they don't understand because if they did, that might mean that violent crime has touched their lives. But rape victims think, oh, did I encourage that? Was, did I, is that my fault? Did I flirt with him? Did he misread what I said? Or, oh, he's drunk. We already see Sean Combs, did he, claiming he's bipolar. That's new. Nobody heard that before, that he had substance abuse problems, drugs, alcohol that made him act out, in other words, rape and beat people. Did she think, oh, okay, he's drunk, he's not going to do that again, I'm just not going to say anything, I'll lose my job, I'll be blackballed?

They rationalize what happened. And I think part of it, and I'm not a shrink, you're the shrink, is because they don't want to admit to themselves, I was just raped. Kayla Brantley, joining us from Daily Mail, she is the star of podcast, The Trial of Deity. Kayla, you just heard Dr. Bethany describing what I think was Mia's first rape, alleged rape by Shawn Combs. What was her exact position. I've heard her described as being an assistant, but she had a lot of duties as just a measly assistant. Oh, absolutely, Nancy. I mean, you talk about a toxic workplace. This is completely next

level. One of her tasks, she said, was to crack Sean Combs' knuckles if he was writing too much. And it was anything from doing that. Okay, well, hold on, Kayla Brantley White, there must be something wrong with my earpiece because I swear I think you just said one of her jobs is to crack Sean Combs' knuckles for him and that can't possibly be right, okay? What did you say? Yeah, so her job was to crack his knuckles for him as if he couldn't do it himself. But another one that was really disturbing was that she would have to clean up after

what she described as a nightmare freak off. So you can only imagine what the hotel room, what the bedroom looked like. And before the cleaners came in and then potentially saw things that they shouldn't have and then reported that back to the papers, she would have to go in and clean up what she said was oils, stains, blood even. And so as an assistant, it ranged from small tasks to huge ones to things that you wouldn't even think of. Well, you're right, Kayla Brantley. I would never have thought that King Holmes had a nail, had a knuckle cracker. That's new. Okay, and I want to thank you for putting that mental image

up here, okay, because that's never going to go away. Just like that video that we dug up of him getting a facial. He's got all these people working on his body. Facial, the arms, the legs, getting his feet done. To me, it looked like he was getting facial on his feet. So now he has a royal knuckle cracker. Okay, that said, Cindy Summer joining me, Crime Stories Investigative Reporter. I know that she's titled as an assistant, but she had some pretty heavy duty responsibilities

in addition to all that. Knuckle cracking, all of comes as social media presence. That's a lot. Liaison with Hollywood, daily routine, keeping him on schedule, protect him at all times in all caps, staying in his eyesight. What? What? Yeah, that's a very odd requirement, but that was something that Combs demanded. If Mia was not in his eyesight while she was

working, he apparently had no idea what she was doing. So that list that you're reading came from when Combs angrily questioned, what do you do all day? So she wrote to another employee, here are all the things that I do. I'm with him from the moment he wakes up till the moment he falls asleep. I am doing a billion tasks at one time. I do one thing, and then he yells at me

that I'm not doing another while I'm doing something else. So this was kind of a, these are all the things that I do every single day. It's a lot. I'm not doing nothing. Also, I see that one of her duties, Keala Brantley, was anticipating his needs, whims and moods.

That's tall order. What does that mean? You talk about horrible bosses and micro managing. This is completely on a whole nother level. So anticipating his needs is basically asking her to be a mind reader and to know what he wants and to really know him so well and so intimately that she can just anticipate anything

that he could possibly want to really try to keep herself safe and keep him from blowing up. Her real title, as I understand it, Kayla Brantley, is with Revolt Films, Director of Development and Acquisition. Yeah, she held that position at Revolt TV, which of course was Diddy's company. But clearly her duties went far beyond that and far beyond that of a personal assistant. I honestly don't know what job would have stay in someone's eyesight as a duty. Straight out to the federal courthouse in Manhattan, standing by investigative reporter Lauren Conlon, star of Pop Crime TV. Lauren,

what happened in court today? Yes. Mia, who is Diddy's former assistant and director of development at Revolt TV, also Cassie's very good friend. She said they were like sisters and they still are. She finished finished her direct testimony today and then we started the cross-examination with Brian Steele. What she said towards the end of her testimony, I thought was really, really chilling. She described after Cassie's 2023 lawsuit dropped, she started getting text messages

from Diddy's former security, D-Rock. Now she testified that D-Rock didn't work for Diddy in 2023 anymore, but she knew that he had landed in Miami and said that he was going to take care of something in Miami that was pertaining to Diddy's son. So again, this is a few days after Cassie's lawsuit dropped. He called Mia, he said he wanted to talk to her, said, oh, you know, this stuff with Puff is crazy. Cassie and Puff were just fought like a regular couple.

And Mia described being very alarmed because she thought to herself, look, I want no part of this. And she was confused. She said, you know, D Rock was there. He witnessed a lot of this. So D Rock tried multiple times to get in touch with her. And then during Brian Steele's cross examination, he started by giving or the defense started by giving the jury binders and inside those those binders were social media posts, various social media posts from Mia throughout the years, you know, thanking him for everything, calling him her best friend, and then Mia would respond by saying, yeah, I, you know, that's that kind of thing. That's trauma. And it was clear to me that she had

been through therapy because she referenced her therapist. She referenced being a survivor. And she would say things like, you know, I will leave this up to the experts. Additionally, they pointed out some some birthday posts that she made for Diddy. And the birthday was significant November 4th because she told us during her direct testimony, this was one of the first times that he had allegedly sexually assaulted her. So Brian Steele kept bringing up, well, this is a really significant day for you in terms of trauma, but you continue to post year after year these loving birthday messages, you know, even though this day doesn't really signify anything great that happened to you. So that

was the extent of what we saw today and I believe her cross-examination may go until Monday. Lauren Conlon, they have saved Brian Steele for the cross-examination of a very important witness, Mia, not her real name, on the stand. Tell me about his demeanor as he cross-examined Mia today. Yes, Steele, he has great pacing. He continues to move things along. He's very polite to the judge and with, and He's very polite to the judge. And with, and he's always polite to the judge, by the way. I think he's one of the most well-spoken defense attorneys that I've seen in a very long time.

Sorry, you know what? I'm sorry I said that. That was kind of rude to the other ones. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. You'll probably cut that. Okay. Yes, thank you. Let me think.

Brian Steele's demeanor towards Mia is stern, but definitely not even close to badgering. He's really just reiterating what we are seeing in a lot of these images and he's having her read her own words. And it seems like he's just trying to understand And it seems like he's just trying to understand where or what her mindset was when she was posting these posts and when she was saying that she loved him but also felt traumatized by him. And by the way, Mia's response to a lot of that also was the fact that we're seeing these pictures on Instagram. And Instagram at one point was a place really where everybody seemed to lie about their life

wanted everyone to think that their life was so great and I think a lot of people could could relate to that but overall Brian Steele I think he's he's doing a good job again he's he's definitely got to be careful I think that there's a very fine line that he really can't cross so he doesn't come off as insensitive to the jury or he doesn't come off as a bully. So he's got to be careful but so far so good. He always has somebody else do his dirty work. He has his minions do everything. They've been known as dirty, ditty disciples. I'm not kidding when I use dirty, ditty.

They order their little minions to do what they want. And it's his power that controlled them. They are terrified of him. Because of intimidation, because of a power need. We are learning from the witness stand today, Mia, not her real name, on the stand, describing an incident where she and another victim go out on a paddleboard, a paddleboard out into the ocean in a storm

to escape further beatings and rapes when Sean comes as he paces the beach and they can see him like a tiger waiting on them to come back. Before I get to that, I want to go to Brian Fitzgibbon's special guest joining us, Director of Operations, USPA Nationwide Security. He leads a team of investigators. You can find him at USPASEcurity.com. Brian, I want to talk to you about, as I'm calling them, minions. All right?

Now, shortly we're going gonna hear from Troy Slate, veteran defense attorney, and he's gonna try to tear down everything you and I are about to say, just like Sean Combs' defense is going to do. But Brian, minions, it's important, it's important. Everything that Mia is saying that she was forced to do or coerced to do, at one point somebody asked her on the stand, well why didn't you say no? And she said, I was afraid to say no about

making him a sandwich, much less argue with him about a rape or anything else he told me to do. I mean come on, talk about minions, he even had a royal knuckle cracker. That said, Fitzgibbons, think about it. The reason the meetings are important is because they did his bidding and he was their boss. He ran Bad Boys Records Enterprises and he used his employees to commit crimes. Specifically with you, I'm talking about Frank Black, a pseudonym, a fake name

that comes with forces employees to go get, there's one of them right there, prescriptions under fake names. That's a crime and he used his employee to do it. Absolutely, Nancy. And what you're seeing here is the scope of this investigation and the scale of the number of people within Ditty's organization that they're bringing up onto the stand. And it's painting a picture and laying a foundation for the jury for this racketeering conspiracy charge. So, you're seeing what's delegated, what activities are these folks are carrying out on Ditty's behalf and the fear that they have should they not carry these orders out to his specifications. Kala Brantley joining us from DLA Mail, star of the Trial of Ditty podcast. I've learned, well, I have her reports that Capricorn Clark was shredded on cross

because at one point after all the abuse she went back and tried to get her job back. Now I've learned that she is the mom of an autistic teen boy that has to have special schools and has to have around the clock care if she's not there, that ain't gonna pay for itself, right? She needed that job. She needed not to be blackballed in the industry. Exactly, and that's what exactly what we're hearing from Mia is that she felt that Diddy's quote authority was above the police. And like you said, Capricorn Clark was a working mom. She needed this job.

If you're blackballed in the industry by someone as powerful as Diddy, you will never find a job in Hollywood again. And what I think is really interesting, Cassie was asked this, a previous assistant was asked this. And I believe Deontay Nash said this on the stand, is that none of them hate Diddy, that they don't have any hate for him. And I think what that is a testament to is kind of,

you know, I'm no psychologist, but that Stockholm syndrome feeling that even though someone may have done horrible things to you. I'll tell you what it is, Keela, you're so kind and gracious. It's, I don't hate Diddy. I hold him in high regard in case he gets out of jail. Yeah. Well, there's that too. Right. There is that too.

With his saying, I'm here under subpoena, I don't wanna testify against you, man. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. A founder and director of Lens Warriors committed to ending sex trafficking and abuse of girls and women. You know, this story is as old as time. Women who are willing to do anything, put up with anything to support their child, to hold onto their house, to hold onto their job.

I mean, the way they cross-examined Capricorn Clark—and I dread, you know, I've been dreading throughout the day I dreaded when Mia would be subjected to cross-exam, which you know, happened. But Capricorn Clark was cross-examined over—well, you went back. You crawled back and tried to get a job, didn't you? They didn't mention anything about her having to support her autistic son, about the round-the-clock care that requires while she's at work.

I mean, that's a whole job in itself. My 93-year-old mom lives with me, and when I'm at work, somebody's with her and I'm constantly juggling. Who's going to be here? Who's going to take care of mom? Right. She's got a young teen boy that she has to support. She would do anything, Lynn. Yeah. Moms will do anything to put food on the table, to get medical care for their kids, to take care of their children. We have to remember the public has to be educated. on the table to get medical care for their kids, to take care of their children.

We have to remember the public has to be educated. That's why I'm so happy we are actually talking about these issues in the media, in the public, Nancy. You know, when it comes down to being desperate and really desperate and also being part of, I'm gonna use the word brainwashed, when you've been involved in something like this, you will do anything. And if you don't have a job, you will go back to that job. Even if it's

abusive, we deal with the warriors with stories like this all the time. The women don't have anywhere to go. They go back to that abuser. But I really want to get real here about Triple D. I like to call him dirty, ditty, degenerate. I'm, you know, he's, he's has a lot of lot of characteristics of a pimp, of a trafficker. Force brought coercion is the definition of human trafficking. So he's got sex trafficking charges. But I'm hearing about it's like forced labor, forced into sex.

So I'm hoping, I'm praying because my heart is aching hearing about Mia today and what she's going through. I have heard this story a thousand plus times, okay, that this can really be laying the groundwork for a criminal enterprise and that those sex trafficking charges can stick. We need accountability and this monster must be held accountable. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, Dr. Bethany, Mia, not her real name, I believe was very meek and mild on the stand. And I could see her not fighting back and rationalizing and staying, enduring three rapes, thinking she was going to get blackballed in the business and she'd never work again,

that whole thing. It's so common. And each one of these women that we're hearing from had a lot to lose. Cassie Ventura had her whole career. She wanted to be a star, a singer, and she's talented, regardless of what everybody else is saying about her. You have Capricorn Clark, who needed to support that son. Now you've got Mia starting her job, right, starting out in the business. She thinks she's got the big break. They all had so much to lose if they crossed combs. They had so much to lose because they needed the jobs and they also knew that he

was going to blackball them if they ever tried to leave. They tried to get positive job recommendations he wouldn't get give them. So he was also a stalker. You can't get away from a stalker like this. And Nancy, the fact that Capricorn had this autistic son who needed full-time care, this is the sex traffickers raison d'etre. This is what they do is they choose victims where there is a power differential. Single moms, disadvantaged youth, people who are trying to go over state lines. Sean Combs on trial in the Monahan Courthouse, the federal courthouse in Manhattan facing a slew of charges and a multi-count federal indictment. Can he persuade a jury the way he's persuaded so many others to do his bidding, including

police, I'm sorry to say. Another incident regarding Mia, and remember, part of the significance of her testimony is that she bolsters Cassie Ventura, victim number one, that cracked this case wide open. Listen. Mia describes another violent incident between the couple on a trip to Turks and Caicos. Cassie burst into the room where Mia was sleeping, terrified and screaming that Combs was going to kill her. The women piled furniture in front of the door before running out through the back patio and down to the beach. Cassie and Mia took paddle boards out into the ocean

to escape. Combs ran back and forth on the beach, screaming at them as a storm rolled in and the women tried to decide if they wanted to face Mother Nature or Sean Combs. Sean Combs or death. Kayla Brantley Daily Mail, what happened? Yeah, well you heard there they were on a trip to Turks and Caicos in 2012 and Mia testified that Cassie came into the room, woke her up running and screaming, asking for help and saying that Diddy was going to kill her. What was interesting is that she said typically Cassie was always calm, cool and collected and she was really shocked to see her like this in such a state of panic and really with

fear in her eyes. As you said, they escaped on a paddle board and really chose mother nature. A storm was rolling in over going back to the beach and facing Diddy. Eventually, they did end up going back to the beach. So Sandy Sumner joining us, Crime Stories Investigative Reporter. What more do we know about that incident? The two women going out in a storm on a paddle boat, Turks and Caicos, and that water there, I've dived there, and the beach starts like this, before I had the twins by the way, the beach starts off like that, then it drops down. You can see

it in the daytime turn really dark blue very Very quickly, they were out in that deep water in a storm at night to get away from Shawn Combs. Yes, they were so terrified. Mia taking Kathy's demeanor, the level of fear she should feel, that they stood out on that water on those paddle boards for God knows how long, debating whether or not it was worth just sitting through that storm or going back to the beach to face Sean Cone. Again, joining me in all-star panel,, I want to go straight now, brace yourselves, to a veteran defense attorney. It's Troy Slayton.

He is based in LA at Slayton Lawyers. Troy, thank you for being with us. Mia did an amazing job on direct. But then, we've seen a lot of the defense team up there. They bring in Brian Steele to do her cross. Let me tell you what I know about Steele. He's very likeable. I bet you thought I was going to say something else. Steele is very, very likeable. I've seen him use, as I call it, the Andy of Mayberry cross-examination approach, which, when you've got a witness, it's not going to be a hostile witness. That's a term

of art under the law. When a witness will not respond to your questions, you can ask the judge to declare the witness a hostile witness, and you can then cross-examine your own witness if you have to. I've seen him be very, okay, harsh on cross. So he's got me on the stand. This is what else I know about Steele. He's very likable, likable to the other members of the Defense Bar and to prosecutors. He's always prepared because there's a big difference. Troy, as you know, I know all about you. You're always prepared in court, but there's a big difference in someone that's gregarious and has this big personality that doesn't prepare, right? Like Johnny Cochran,

my old co-anchor, he could carry the day in a courtroom just on his personality, and he wasn't He could carry the day in a court room just on his personality. And he wasn't grandiose. He was just likeable. He really was likeable. Same thing with Steele. I know he's a teetotaler, always been devoted to his wife. Doesn't cheat, that I know of anyway. He drinks practically nothing but water.

I know that—I'm pretty sure I've seen him do this in the courthouse, that he usually brings his own lunch, like he makes a sandwich. Anyway, those are just some tidbits that I know about him. I'm pretty sure about the sandwich, can't swear to it. The rest, I know. So he is a veteran trial lawyer, got a great reputation. I think he just got young thug off that said, why have they reserved steel for Mia's cross? Don't fight with me. I need your insight. Why have they saved steel? I mean, he's done

other things, but they need a special touch to cross-examine Mia, because this can go horribly wrong for them. NANCY, a case can be won or lost on cross-examination. And when you have a witness that is as sympathetic as Mia is, you can't go in with the hard-charging cross trying to discredit her at every step because then you will lose the white hat in front of the jury. You need the jury to like you as an attorney, to believe you, and so here he has to walk a very fine tightrope and just try and be her friend and point out some things, get her to start agreeing with

the narrative that he is going to present, get her to start nodding yes to things that he said. Like, you know, you like, there were other times that you liked working for Diddy. There were times that you enjoyed some of the benefits that came with working with all that lavishness, all that money. You enjoyed living in the mansion and being able to ride in the fancy cars and go on the yachts and take trips all over the world.

There were benefits to that. And you never went to the police department. You had an opportunity in 2011, 2012, 2013. So you're saying that to take the fancy trips and drive around in the fancy car, it was worth getting raped three times? Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. Because it sounds like it is. Absolutely not. But what he's going to do is say that there was a lot of great things

that happened. There was a lot of good things that happened during her employment. And maybe those good things in her mind outweighed the bad. For example, and the the the analogy that I was thinking about as you were talking earlier was Harvey Weinstein. There were women that were willing to sell their bodies in order to get a role on a TV show or a movie. And they in their mind thought they're digging really deep. Slayne, I just got to ask you a question. Do you ever hate yourself?

Yeah. Do I hate myself? No, I love myself. You're just like, oh, it's great. My tongue off. It's so taste bad in my mouth. So they're willing to what? Sell their soul to what? Drive around in Diddy's SUV. Are you kidding? To go to a white party or the freak, Freak Off goes on upstairs, they get to go buy Diddy's baby oil? Oh joy. There was a million opportunities to do other things, to work for other employers, to have other jobs, to do, This wasn't the only employer in the entire world. And so-

You're saying the same thing that rape apologists always say. Dr. Bethany- Not apologize for rape. No, look, Nancy, I wanna be clear. Everything that Diddy is alleged to have done sounds awful. Uh-oh, he's gonna let Bethany talk.

Okay, Bethany, hit it before he starts over again. The reason they don't leave is that the survival instinct is stronger than any other drive we have. And when you believe you are going to be killed, you will not leave a perpetrator. Also, domestic abuse is a crisis of boundaries, meaning the victim often blames themselves for the aggression of the perpetrator. So there's this confusion about, well, is it your fault? Is it my fault?

And then everything becomes calamitous and breaks out into terror, like when they were out, you know, paddle boarding into a storm. And that also when the amygdala is very activated, when the fight and flight is activated, you can't think. When we are anxious, we cannot think. So their capacity to even strategize in a basic way was compromised. Mia, not her real name, under cross examination on the stand.

Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Straight out to special guests joining us, Irv Brandt, former senior inspector with the U.S. Marshal Service. He has traveled around the world hunting down the bad guys with the DOJ, attache to embassies around the world, and he's the author of a series of Jack Solo mysteries. Wow, I wonder who they're patterned after on Amazon. Irv Grant, thank you for being with us. Do you ever get just exhausted hearing what victims endure in this case? Rape, working ungodly hours. As a matter of fact, I want you to hear this about Mia getting her arm slammed in a door allegedly by Combs. Combs wasn't just violent with Cassie.

Mia describes an incident at the Revolt production office when Combs asked to borrow her phone, then ran off with it. Mia chased Combs and tried to snatch it back, so he ran into a restroom. Mia's arm was in the door, but Combs continued to slam the door shut so hard, Mia thought her arm was broken. When Combs finally came back out, he told her he sent himself her compromising photos so he had something on her, in case she had something on him. It's like he's got something on everybody. Do you ever get tired? It's like second verse,

same as the first, and Mia has been on the stand on a cross exam all afternoon. Yes, Nancy, it is exhausting. And it's because my adult life in law enforcement, I've investigated cases like these, just countless cases like these. And it's all the same. He is a pimp. And this is what pimps do. They destroy people psychologically to keep control of them. And I'm sure Lynn Shaw and Dr. Bethany can talk more on that subject, more of an expert than I am. But I've seen it and I've interviewed these victims countless times and we've gone to trial countless times and it's all the same. People like him, the pimps, they punish the people to keep them in line. I've heard pimps

talk about working their girls and they would intentionally put them out on the street in the rain, in the cold, just to teach them a lesson. And this is what they do. And he is no different. I don't like anything you're saying. I hate everything you just said, although, Urbrant, sadly, it's all true. And now out of nowhere, we get special trial advice from, who else, Suge Knight, the convicted killer. Listen. I feel if he do tell his truth, he really would walk. He'd probably go out there and say, hey, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't in control of

my life at the time, or myself. That from our friends at CNN. I feel like if he tells the truth, he really would walk. Obviously he's not been following the trial. If Puffy goes up there and says, hey, I did all the drugs, I wasn't in control of my life at the time, or myself. Troy Slayton from the expert trial advice from Suge Knight, who's behind bars for murder. His trial strategy didn't work out that well for him.

If Combs tries to say, when I commit when I committed all these acts, I was high on drugs or alcohol, that's not a defense under the law. No, that's not going to do it. But what will do it for his defense attorneys is showing that all of these things were just, if they were done, they were acts of an eccentric rock star, an eccentric billionaire, but they were not all related to a criminal enterprise. They were not related. They were not related

to advancing his business interests. I heard him say, he didn't rape anybody. He didn't beat anybody. He's just eccentric. Did I hear that? He'd, okay. You said that. You just said that. You're going to try to explain away all of these felons by claiming he's eccentric. Look, he may have done these things, but he hasn't been charged.

He wasn't charged with rape. He wasn't charged with, he was charged with sex trafficking, but he was not charged with rape. He was not charged with tomato. I say tomato. When people out into the ocean to paddle board, when Shaw is going to do a backflip, he wasn't charged with a battery of smashing someone's arm in the door. All of these things have to relate. The prosecution have to tie it together and do your bidding. In order to advance his business. His bidding, she didn't want her arm broken.

How does that advance his business interests? That they haven't tied that bow together yet. So I think all court watchers are trying to watch and see how they tie together all these disparate acts to show that it was advancing his business. Okay, listen to more trial advice from convicted killer sitting behind bars, Suge Knight. He can humanize his own self and a jury might give a shot. But if they keep him sitting down, it's like he's scared to face the music.

That from our friends at CNN. Of course, there's a Fifth Amendment. He doesn't have to take the stand. But I will say this, Suge Knight's right about this, Suge Knight, very talented, still a convicted killer. He looks like he's scared to face the music if he doesn't testify. Okay, Lynn Shaw, did you just hear veteran trial lawyer Troy Slayton refer to Sean Combs' behavior as just eccentric. I'm almost silent, but I'm never a silent person because I can't believe what I had to hear. I'm going to say this. This is the problem we have here with a lot of lawyers with these cases.

This is sex trafficking. He's beating people up. This isn't fetishes or a weird lifestyle rock star. This isn't just having sex orgies and stuff like this. This is drugging people allegedly, you know, feeding them drinks. They don't know what's in it. It's shoving people against walls. It's threatening them. If they leave, they can't lock their doors.

They're paddling out in the ocean. This is a little bit more than eccentric rock star style lifestyles. This is a pimp. This is a human trafficker. He's going to go down. He puts people in these positions. They can't find their way out of. And you know what?

I'm going to say it again. Force fraud, coercion, laying the groundwork for sex trafficking and also for a criminal enterprise. And he can't everybody just keep thinking about that Cassie video. He cannot be humanized in any way shape or form. Mia on the stand all afternoon enduring cross-examination at the hands of a master trial lawyer Brian Steele. We remember American hero sergeant Daniel Baker, Dixon County Sheriff's Tennessee, just 32 years old, shot down in the line of duty, served LA law enforcement for 10

years, leaving behind grieving wife Lisa and daughter Meredith. American hero Daniel Baker. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye friend. This is an iHeart podcast.