[Source: AP]

A former personal assistant who accuses Sean “Diddy” Combs of rape testified Monday that she continued sending the hip-hop mogul loving messages for years after her job ended in 2017 because she was “brainwashed.”

The woman, testifying under the pseudonym “Mia,” pushed back at defense lawyer Brian Steel’s suggestions that she fabricated her claims to cash in on “the #MeToo money grab against Sean Combs.”

Mia was on the witness stand for her third and final day at Comb’s federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan, which is in its fourth week of testimony.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers concede he could be violent, but he denies using threats or his music industry clout to commit abuse.

Steel had Mia read aloud numerous text messages she sent Combs. In one from 2019, she told Combs that he’d rescued her in a nightmare in which she was trapped in an elevator with R. Kelly, the singer who has since been convicted of sex trafficking.

“And the person who sexually assaulted you came to your rescue?” Steel asked incredulously. He rephrased, asking if she really dreamed of being saved by a man “who terrorized you and caused you PTSD?” Prosecutors objected and the judge sustained it.

It was one of many objections during a combative and often meandering cross-examination that stood in contrast to the defense’s gentler treatment of other prosecution witnesses. Several times, the judge interrupted Steel, instructing him to move along or rephrase complicated questions.

In an Aug. 29, 2020, message to Combs, Mia recalled happy highlights from her eight years working for him — such as drinking champagne at the Eiffel Tower at 4 a.m. and rejecting Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger’s offer to take her home — saying she remembered only “the good times.”

In the same message, Mia mentioned once feeling “bamboozled” by a woman. Steel asked why she didn’t say Combs had bamboozled her as well.

Stream the best of Fiji on VITI+. Anytime. Anywhere.