Dans la salle d’audience du tribunal fédéral de Manhattan, l’un des avocats de P. Diddy a tout fait pour miner la crédibilité de Mia, une ancienne assistante du fondateur du label Bad Boy Records, dont le témoignage a été marquant.
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«Et si vous n’aviez pas subi de violences sexuelles ?» La défense de Sean Combs, aussi connu sous les noms de Puff Daddy et P. Diddy, a accusé, vendredi 30 mai, son ancienne assistante d’avoir menti en racontant son «cauchemar» devant la cour du tribunal fédéral de Manhattan, à New York. Le magnat du hip-hop y est jugé depuis lundi 5 mai pour trafic sexuel.
Dans la salle d’audience, l’un des avocats de P. Diddy, Brian Steel, a tout fait pour miner la crédibilité de Mia, dont le témoignage jeudi a été marquant. Cette femme, qui témoigne à visage découvert devant le jury mais avec un prénom d’emprunt pour protéger son anonymat, a raconté comment son travail, entre 2009 et 2017, était devenu un «cauchemar». Il lui fallait protéger la compagne du rappeur, la chanteuse Cassie, de ses accès de rage ou la soigner quand il la frappait.
L’assistante elle-même a dit avoir subi de nombreuses violences, dont des viols de P. Diddy. Elle a rapporté ces épisodes, tête baissée, dans un récit douloureux.
Close to the couple, she recounted, her voice sometimes breathless as if she were reliving the events, how the artist «threw objects» at her. «He threw me against the wall. He threw me into a pool. He threw an ice bucket at my head. He slammed my arm against a door. He also sexually assaulted me,» she listed.
«He was the boss, the king, someone very powerful,» she whispered, describing a trap behind closed doors. «We were years and years before social media, MeToo, or any other moment when someone successfully stood up to someone as powerful as him,» she pointed out.
She also reported several episodes of violence suffered by the singer, her swollen lips, bruises, or the black eye that needed to be treated, or at the very least hidden to make a good impression at a Hollywood premiere. Guided by the prosecutor’s questions, the former employee confirmed, like other witnesses before her, that hotel rooms had to be prepared for the sexual marathons during which Cassie had to offer her body, under the influence of drugs, to paid men.
In New York, during cross-examination, Brian Steel confronted Mia with the much more positive image she portrayed on social media. On a screen in the courtroom, posts on her personal Instagram account paying tribute to the star and affectionate messages on each of his birthdays scroll by. «Are you putting aside the fact that he sexually assaulted you?» «Are you putting aside that he did the unthinkable?» «Are you putting aside the fact that you lived in fear?» the lawyer asks. «He is your rapist,» he insists.
Without ever seeming flustered, Mia answers in the affirmative, even reading her messages from that time with a cheerful tone. «Instagram is a place where you show how great your life is, even if it’s not true,» she explains. «Of course, we post the good moments.»
At the end of the debates, which will continue in June and possibly early July, the jurors will have to decide whether the artist and producer with multiple Grammys has, since at least 2004, used his fame, wealth, and influence to further a criminal enterprise and sex trafficking. The rapper has pleaded not guilty. His defense acknowledges episodes of violence against Cassie, but claims she willingly participated in the sexual encounters with other men. During her testimony, the singer insisted that she had no choice.
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