NEW YORK — Sean "Puffy" Combs pulled a gun in a crowded disco after another patron threatened to kill him, a man shot in the melee testified Wednesday at the music executive's weapons possession and bribery trial.

"I couldn't believe it," said Julius Jones of the moment he saw Combs brandish a black semiautomatic. The 28-year-old Brooklynite who sprinkled his testimony with salty language recalled, "I thought, 'What the f***? Damn!"

Jones, who was struck in the right shoulder with a bullet the prosecution says was fired by Combs' co-defendant Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, was the second victim to contradict the rap mogul's claim that he was unarmed during the 1999 shooting.

While Jones, who admitted smoking marijuana and drinking malt liquor at the club, was not as poised or articulate as victim Natania Reuben, who testified Monday, he was just as adamant about his account. Despite hours of tough cross-examination, he maintained that he had clearly seen Combs and Barrow with guns.

"I saw my shooter, and I saw another man with a gun," Jones repeated several times.

Combs showed no signs of concern during the second day of damaging testimony against him. While his lawyers Johnnie Cochran and Benjamin Brafman craned their heads around him to confer, he read his ever-present miniature edition of the New Testament and later paged through a book of short stories.

The CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment faces 15 years in prison if the prosecution proves its claim that he fired a gun into the ceiling of Manhattan's Club New York and then bribed his chauffeur into taking the rap for weapons charges. His bodyguard, Anthony "Wolf" Jones, faces similar charges, and his protege, Barrow, is accused of pumping three shots into the nightclub crowd and is charged with attempted murder.

While previous witnesses have described the altercation as it appeared from across a crowded bar, Julius Jones said he saw the whole fight unfold.

He testified that he was standing against the bar in a leather suit, looking for "pretty girls" — an attraction that made him a regular at the club's Sunday night "Hot Chocolate" parties. He said he saw Combs, his girlfriend Jennifer Lopez and their entourage moving through the crowd toward the exit. Combs, who had been drinking and dancing in the VIP area, was greeting fans and shaking hands as he moved along. But when he extended his hand to a man standing at the bar, Jones said, the man refused to shake his hand.

"He didn't smack him five. That's what started it," said Jones. Instead, the man hurled profanities at Combs, yelling, "I'll kill you" three or four times, Jones said. Some witnesses have identified this man by the street name "Scar," but Jones said he did not recognize him. As the man continued shouting, Combs looked shocked, Jones said.

"He looked like he couldn't believe what was happening," he said.

While Combs' group and the man who insulted him began tussling, a second man in front of Jones reached onto the bar and picked up a bottle of champagne. Fearing that he was about to be hit with the bottle, Jones said he forced it back down on the bar.

Moments later, a third man standing directly to the left of him pulled a wad of $10 and $20 bills from his pants pocket and launched them at Combs, Jones said. Combs hardly needed this money, considering how much cash he was later found to be carrying. Almost immediately, Jones said, he noticed a black gun in Combs' right hand.

"I was getting ready to f***ing run, but it was too crowded, so I turned to the right," he said.

To his right, Jones said, Barrow was holding a gun level and pointed toward the bar. "Fire" came from the gun, Jones said, and he immediately felt dizzy and dropped to the floor.

"I was shot and I couldn't move and people were surrounding me," he said.

Emergency room doctors discovered a bullet lodged against Jones' spine. He said he continues to suffer numbness in his right arm from nerve damage and has not worked since the shooting.

The defense seized on Jones' $700 million suit against Combs, his co-defendants and a host of others. The questioning did not appear to add much to Combs' criminal defense, but might ultimately help with at least one of the many civil suits he is facing from the shooting.

At first, Jones defended his suit saying, "I want somebody to be responsible for my being hurt."

But Cochran got Jones to admit he knows little about who the suit names, what its basis is and why it is for so much money. Jones even acknowledged that bodyguard Anthony Jones, who he is suing for $100 million, had nothing to do with his injuries. The witness seemed to hurt his civil case further when he said he felt ambivalent about suing, saying he did not want to "bring a black man down."

When Cochran pushed more, Jones said that if someone would just pay his $17,000 medical bills, he would drop the $700 million suit. This left Cochran, whose firm specializes in civil suits, flabbergasted.

The defense suffered another blow Wednesday morning when an emergency room doctor testified that Reuben identified Combs as her assailant minutes after she arrived at the hospital.

Dr. John Perotti said Reuben "said something to the effect 'I was shot by Puffy.'"

Combs' defense had suggested that Reuben conferred with friends and fabricated Combs' involvement before talking to police, a scheme at odds with her statement to the doctor so soon after the shooting.