Ghanaian Witness Puts Smoking Gun in Hand of Puffy's Protege

NEW YORK ( Court TV) — Sean "Puffy" Combs emerged from the courthouse Thursday as untainted as the white silk handkerchief in his blue-checked suit.

On the third day of the rap mogul's bribery and gun possession trial, the prosecution called three eyewitnesses, and while they provided damning evidence against Combs' protege, rapper Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, they left the rap mogul himself unscathed.

A Ghanaian nightclub bouncer told jurors, Barrow opened fire in the jam-packed bar, and a gunshot victim claimed he saw the 22-year-old literally holding a smoking gun, but neither they nor another clubgoer who took the stand Thursday put a gun in Combs' hand.

Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos is just opening his case in a trial expected to last six weeks, but he apparently isn't moving fast enough for music bigwig and Combs supporter Russell Simmons. The founder of Def Jam Records breezed into Judge Charles Solomon's Manhattan courtroom for the first time Thursday morning and was holding a press conference by lunch to denounce the district attorney's office for targeting Combs.

"The prosecution is trying to get Sean. Every other question is 'Where was Sean? What was Sean doing?' They're trying to demonize him," said Simmons, who sported a black baseball cap from Combs' Sean Jean clothing line. "They're playing to the headlines."

Combs, the CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment, has never suffered from a shortage of news coverage, and his arrest following a Dec. 27, 1999, shooting at Club New York, a disco near Times Square was no exception.

He was at the club with Barrow, girlfriend Jennifer Lopez and bodyguard Anthony "Wolf" Jones for a weekly hip-hop party when an altercation broke out. Combs is accused of firing a gun into the ceiling and then bribing his chauffeur to take the rap for a gun later found in the SUV the four sped away from the club in. He faces 15 years. Barrow is accused of shooting three people and faces 25 years in prison for attempted murder.

Except for occasionally crossing himself, Barrow has shown little emotion during the trial, and he was stonefaced Thursday as bouncer Hassan Mahamah and gunshot victim Robert Thompson pointed the finger at him. Mahamah, a 6-foot-tall man who spoke with the lilting accent of his native Ghana, testified that he was summoned to a "confusion" — club lingo for a potential fight — just before 3 a.m.

He said he saw another security guard with Combs, Lopez and several other men. The guard, he said, was shouting for them to "cool it down." Mahamah said he saw a stack of money — an perhaps a sign of disrespect to Combs — thrown into the air, and the crowd began to surge forward. Moments later, he testified, Barrow ran into his line of sight from the other side of the room.

Mahamah said Barrow bent down as if to open a bottle of champagne — a beverage freely flowing that night — but when he stood up, he was wielding a gun.

"The next thing I saw was fire right across my face," Mahamah said, adding that he was just "three steps from Barrow.

He said that, after the three shots rang out, Jones ran over to Barrow and shouted, "What is wrong with you? What is going on with you?"

Thompson, a Connecticut chemical engineer who was standing near the dance floor at the time of the shooting, testified that he saw Combs and his entourage snaking their way single-file out of the club. Thompson, a 6-foot, 2-inch 270-pound man who once moonlighted as a bouncer at clubs including Club New York, said he watched as the musician's group encountered a circle of people standing near the bar.

An argument and then pushing ensued, he said. When one of the circle tossed a wad of money, the crowd jumped back. Moments later, he said, he heard a shot and felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. He dropped to the floor and heard three more shots.

When he looked up, he said, Barrow was the only person still standing and he "had a gun in his hand and smoke came from the gun."

Neither Mahamah nor Thompson was watching Combs at the time of the shooting, leaving his defense little work to do on cross-examination. Benjamin Brafman, Combs' lawyer, did point out that by Mahamah's description Barrow was actually firing in the direction of Combs and Lopez, hardly a coordinated attack. The defense also repeatedly reminded jurors that Thompson has a $50 million civil suit pending against the defendants and the club.

Faced with an uphill battle, Barrow lawyer, Murray Richman, concentrated on the civil suit and the quality of the eyewitnesses' identification of Barrow. He pointed out that Thompson stands to gain financially if Barrow is convicted, and noted that, although Thompson did not go to the hospital after the shooting, he now claims substantial injury.

Richman also suggested that both men were certain Barrow was the shooter, although they had never seen him before the night of the shooting. He implied that the men were influenced by press coverage or police suggestion and that Barrow might not be the shooter at all.

Also testifying Thursday was Gavin Marchand, a 24-year-old rapper who records as "Pretty Boy." Marchand, who said he is professionally "close" with Combs despite his contract with rival company Interscope Records, testified before the grand jury that Combs and a man he knew only as "Scar" were arguing just before the gunfire, but on the stand he seemed to pull back from his earlier story. Bogdanos confronted him with his grand jury testimony, and he grudgingly acknowledged seeing what appeared to be a disagreement.

Marchand, who wore baggy jeans and a leather bomber jacket, told the jury Combs was standing on the other side of a crowded room and his own memory was fuzzy because he consumed two bottles of Cristal champagne before the shooting.

He seemed to go out of his way to help the defense during a friendly cross examination. Under questioning by Brafman, the club wasn't just dark, it was "very dark." He was not only drinking, he was drunk. The club wasn't just crowded, it was so crowded that police had to shut down the block.

"Was Mr. Combs having a good time?" Brafman asked.

"He's always having a good time," Marchand replied.