Even during weedy portions of testimony, trial attendees have remained engaged, if not invested. Riding the elevator to the courtroom on the 26th floor of the federal courthouse, a woman wore a wristband that said “not guilty.” She flipped the bracelet inside out when asked by a reporter about it.

The jury is back after the lunch break, and Mia, a former assistant to Sean Combs, is back on the stand for what has been a lengthy cross-examination.

At the start, Mia, a pseudonym, was asked whether she had any photos of Cassie Ventura’s bruising from Combs. Mia said she wasn’t sure.

Members of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s family have been a regular presence at his trial, which is now in its fourth week. Today, Combs’s mother, Janice, and sons Quincy Brown (whose biological father is the artist Albert “Al B. Sure!” Brown) and Justin Dior were photographed outside Manhattan’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse.

The judge has dismissed the court for lunch. It seems that when we return, defense attorneys will again focus on Mia’s meetings with prosecutors. Before exiting the courtroom, Mia was given a stack of papers to help her recollection.

Defense attorney Brian Steel claims that since January, Mia, which is pseudonym, met with prosecutors on 27 occasions. “I don’t remember how many times but I definitely met with them quite a bit,” Mia said.

It is not uncommon for defense attorneys to probe these kinds of meetings, and it has been fruitful for Steel. In his Young Thug trial, a judge was dismissed for improperly meeting with a witness, though these types of discovery instances are incredibly rare.

“He views these lawsuits as a money grab,” his lawyers have previously said, arguing that Combs’s accusers are trying to extort him for a quick payday.

The phrase was deployed again Monday morning, with Combs’s attorney Brian Steel asking Mia, a woman who said Combs sexually assaulted her during her tenure working for him, if she was joining “the #MeToo money grab against Sean Combs.”

Prosecutors objected to the question.

The line of questioning has been contentious. Defense attorney Brian Steel has had around 10 objections sustained against him in just as many minutes.

Judge Arun Subramanian has ordered Steel to move on after he implied that Mia hired Shawn Crowley — who successfully represented E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump — to extort money from Sean Combs.

The judge has called a sidebar.

Mia did not make her allegations of sexual assault known to prosecutors until June 2024.

“That is seven months after Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit went viral,” said defense attorney Brian Steel during his cross-examination of the former Sean Combs employee, who is testifying under a pseudonym.

“Why did it take seven or eight months for you to tell the U.S. attorney’s office that Mr. Combs supposedly sexually assaulted you?” Steel asked.

Mia has said that she had not received sufficient guidance from her legal team.

After Cassie Ventura filed a sex-trafficking lawsuit against Sean Combs on Nov. 16, 2023, Mia said she still didn’t tell her friend about her own experiences with Combs.

Mia, who is testifying under a pseudonym, said she spoke with Ventura shortly after the singer filed the complaint, but kept quiet about her own allegations of sexual assault.

“Just because you find out something doesn’t mean you immediately snap out of it,” Mia said, adding that she was still “deeply ashamed” about the alleged assaults. “I wanted to die with this.”

Defense attorney Brian Steel is asking Mia why she didn’t accuse Combs of sexual assault during mediation after she was fired from Sean Combs’s media empire.

Mia, who is using a pseudonym, said she originally asked for $10 million, but settled for $400,000, which she split with her attorneys, in 2017.

At the time of her dismissal, Mia said she was not aware that sexual assault could be used in settlement negotiations.

The #MeToo movement was launched in late 2017 and gained widespread public attention in 2018, when Harvey Weinstein was arrested.

Pressed to explain why she never told Cassie Ventura to leave Sean Combs, witness Mia said she was scared of her old boss and that, had she stepped out of line, “he would have taken me away from [Ventura].”

“He’s stolen my phone many times,” Mia said when defense attorney Brian Steel asked her why she felt she couldn’t tell Ventura negative things about Combs, even in private.

“He’s stolen Cassie’s phone many times,” Mia added. “He’s put tracking devices on her car.”

A former Sean Combs assistant said she was “not allowed” to tell Cassie Ventura the truth about Comb’s whereabouts or actions.

Mia, a former Combs employee, testified last week that she considered Ventura a “sister” and that the two remained close. She reaffirmed those statements to defense attorney Brian Steel under cross-examination Monday morning.

Federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James B. Comey, came back from the break with a scathing rebuke of Sean Combs’s legal strategy. She objected to Brian Steel’s line of questioning, accusing the defense attorney of being argumentative, sarcastic and “suggesting to this jury that he believes that [Mia] is lying.”

Halfway through the morning, defense attorney Brian Steel has accused Mia, who is testifying under a pseudonym, of lying twice. She responded that she would never lie in court. As our colleague Shayna Jacobs pointed out last week, survivors of abuse often mask, block out or operate in erratic ways as a result of an abusive relationship.

We are entering a brief break after watching a video Mia had made for Sean Combs for his 44th birthday. Mia, who is testifying under a pseudonym, has kept her head down throughout the trial, her bangs hanging over her face. By contrast, the video clearly displayed Mia’s visage to members of the media who are following along in a secure room.

Mia has mostly kept her head down as she answers defense attorney Brian Steel’s questions about her relationship to her former boss after she left his company.

The former Sean Combs assistant, who is testifying under a pseudonym, is wearing a beige blazer and pants with a white blouse, her blonde hair pulled back.

Sean Combs’s behavior has been consistent throughout the trial, and he continues to appear unmoved by any particular testimony. The former media mogul swiveled his head from defense attorney Brian Steel to witness Mia throughout the morning’s testimony. Sitting back in his usual seat at the defense table, Combs propped his elbows on the arms of his chair.

In case you missed it: President Donald Trump on Friday said he would look into a possible pardon for Sean Combs if the music mogul is convicted on federal racketeering and sex-trafficking charges. Trump was asked about the possibility at a White House news conference, where he noted Combs used to like him.

As our colleague Shayna Jacobs pointed out earlier in this trial, several witnesses who have worked for Sean Combs have expressed a cultlike adoration for him.

Mia, a former employee testifying under a pseudonym, just said she was “brainwashed” after being at Combs’s beck and call for years.

Another former assistant, George Kaplan, previously likened Combs to “a god among men.”

Defense attorney Brian Steel’s line of questioning is exhaustively granular. He is picking out positive interactions between Combs and his former employee, Mia, who is testifying under a pseudonym, and asking her to explain how a tormented victim could also be affectionate. She has now read out more than 50 messages between the pair over two days of testimony. This morning the prosecution pointed out that Steel had submitted nearly 30 additional exhibits. This was the same line of questioning he followed Friday.

Mia, who was Sean Combs’s assistant, testified that he would often make her follow him around and write down the funny things he said in her Notes app.

“Did you ever produce any random notes that showed Mr. Combs was anything but professional with you?” asked defense attorney Brian Steel. “Do you have any notes that Mr. Combs was violent toward you?

“It’s not true, is it?” Steel pressed.

“I will not lie in this courtroom,” Mia responded. “I will never lie in this courtroom. … I was still brainwashed.”

Former Sean Combs employee Mia is now being asked to review text messages she sent to her ex-boss in 2018.

Mia, who is testifying under a pseudonym because she has alleged that Combs sexually assaulted her, read aloud a text from 2018 wishing him a merry Christmas. “I love you,” she wrote, “so so much!”

Mia left Combs’s company in March 2017.

Defense attorney Brian Steel is asking former Sean Combs employee Mia (who’s using a pseudonym) pointed questions, like whether she was a “leader” or “spoke up for herself.”

Mia is getting visibly uncomfortable. She is reading from a résumé that portrays her as strong while describing a job that demanded subservience.

“And you have a thick skin,” Steel said, reading off a résumé from nearly 20 years ago.

“I thought I did,” Mia said.

Brian Steel has begun his cross-examination of Mia, a former assistant to Sean Combs who claims he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. Steel began by asking Mia, who is testifying under a pseudonym, about where she went to college (James Madison University), when she graduated (2005) and what her GPA was (objection, sustained).

“I wanted to be in the entertainment industry,” Mia said.

Since the start of the trial on May 12, mornings at the Sean Combs trial have included lengthy “housekeeping” discussions that take place before the jury enters the room.

Monday morning, the court spent a bit of time debating what the government believes to be “one of the most important pieces of evidence” in the case — video footage of Combs attacking ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.

We are getting foreshadowing of what could come up in Mia’s cross-examination Monday. Defense attorney Brian Steel said he would like to make an argument that Mia was let go from her employment with Sean Combs due to alcohol abuse. She is currently out of the courtroom.

Steel is hoping to enter evidence that shows the personal assistant, who is speaking under a pseudonym, taking shots and drinking. The judge has ruled at least one piece of evidence inadmissible, calling it an effort to embarrass the witness, who has testified that Combs raped and physically abused her.

Friday’s lengthy cross-examination of Mia, the former Sean Combs employee using a pseudonym in court, centered on years of social media posts that the defense believes contradict her direct testimony.

The court can expect more of the same Monday morning, according to defense attorney Brian Steel.

“We’re not going to have 30 more Instagram posts?” Judge Arun Subramanian asked, pointedly.

“I can’t say that,” Steel replied.

Brian Steel, a popular defense attorney who has risen to fame in the hip-hop world, will pick up where he left off Friday, with the cross-examination of Mia, a former assistant to Sean Combs speaking under a pseudonym.

Steel saw a meteoric rise to fame in the legal community after his successful defense of Young Thug on racketeering charges in Atlanta. He has also defended NBA stars, and Drake recently titled a track after the attorney. Steel spent most of Friday trying to paint the relationship between Mia and Combs as mutually affectionate.

Despite weeks of heavy testimony, public interest in this trial remains high. Around 30 members of the public formed a line to snag a seat inside the main courtroom. Many are dressed to the nines for the event, wearing ties, hats and even a cape. There are a similar number of spectators outside with cameras on selfie sticks, hoping to live stream the arrival of witnesses and Combs’s family.

Today, jurors will hear from Mia, an assistant to Sean Combs who is testifying under a pseudonym and has alleged rape and sexual assault at the hands of the music mogul.

Sean Combs’s trial, underway at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse in New York, is not being publicly broadcast. The government is currently arguing its case against Combs and bringing forward an array of witnesses, including celebrities, hotel workers, male escorts and Combs’s former assistants.

Combs, meanwhile, has been bolstered by a sprawling defense team and a small but constant corps of supporters.

Here are the major players at court — including attorneys, witnesses and relatives.

This is an excerpt from a full story.