When a male erotic dancer first met Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2012, the hip-hop mogul was unconvincing in how he described his career, the man testified Monday.
The dancer, Daniel Phillip, told Combs’ federal sex-trafficking jury that he would then go on to be paid to have sex with R&B singer Cassie Ventura.
“He told me he was in importing and exporting,” Phillip, the ex-dancer, said on the witness stand, giving the Combs jury its earliest firsthand account of what happened at a “freak off” — the elaborate performances at the center of the sex-trafficking case.
Prosecutors say that over the course of two decades, Combs coerced four girlfriends into participating in these staged sex shows, which the indictment describes as commercial sex acts because of the involvement of male strippers or escorts.
Combs has countered that the encounters were consensual.
“The government has no place in his private bedroom,” defense lawyer Teny Geragos said in opening statements Monday morning.
On the witness stand in the afternoon, Phillip told rapt jurors that he believed he was called to Manhattan’s Gramercy Park Hotel that first night in order to perform as a dancer for a bachelorette party.
“I was expecting to do a little strip tease and that’s it,” he testified.
Instead, “Cassie opened the door and asked if it was OK if it was just going to be us,” he told the jury, describing her attire as red lingerie, red high heels, and a red wig.
“She said her husband wanted to do something special for her,” he said Ventura told him.
Phillip testified Ventura told him his assignment would be to rub baby oil on her — and more, if he was up to it.
Combs, meanwhile, sat in the corner of the darkened room, wearing only a bathrobe and the bandana that covered his face from the nose down, he said.
“He wasn’t going to try to touch me or anything,” Phillip said Ventura told him of Combs. “I said that’s good, because I wasn’t with that.”
In the room, Phillip said he saw velvet couches and a table topped with lit candles, bottles of baby oil, and Astroglide lubricant.
Phillip testified he expected to be paid $200, and that he recognized Combs “as soon as he spoke to me.”
“I complimented the room, the hotel that we were in, and I asked him what he did for a living,” Phillip testified. That’s when Combs said his job was in imports and exports, he added.
“We ended up having sex,” Phillip told jurors of his encounter with Ventura.
Prosecutor Maurene Comey asked Phillip, “Before you and Ms. Ventura had intercourse, what, if anything, did you rub on each other?”
Phillip responded, “Baby oil.”
He told the jury that during the encounter, Combs sat in the corner and masturbated.
At the end, “Cassie gave me more money. I think a couple thousand dollars more,” he said.
Phillip said they had several more similar sexual encounters, including in hotels across Manhattan, in Combs’ personal residence in Midtown, and in Ventura’s home on Manhattan’s west side.
He testified that he would be paid anywhere from $700 to $6,000. The encounters could last half an hour or over 10 hours, with breaks in between.
“I would be sitting there waiting for hours,” while Ventura and Combs retreated to another room, he said.
At one point, during an encounter at JW Marriott Essex House, Combs stopped wearing a mask, Phillip said.
“This was the first time that Sean Combs opened the door as himself. You know, dressed in a suit,” he said, adding that these encounters went on until late 2013 or 2014.
As the encounters continued, Phillip said he saw an angry side to Combs.
During one, Combs threw a liquor bottle at Ventura because she did not immediately come over when he said, “Babe, come here,” Phillip said. Phillip said Combs then dragged Ventura into a bedroom, and that he could hear Combs slapping her.
Several jurors smiled when Phillip described what he called the few encounters where he agreed to take drugs.
“He offered me a Cialis once or twice,” Phillip said. Once, he accepted what he believed was a “Molly.” It made him “euphoric,” he said. “I went out to Times Square and I handed out $100 bills to every single person I saw,” he said, referring to the cash he said he’d received as pay from Combs.
“I handed out every single dollar he gave me,” he said.
Combs is on trial for sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He faces up to life in prison if convicted on all counts.