NEW YORK — When shots rang out in a crowded nightclub, Sean "Puffy" Combs did not have a gun, a surprise defense witness testified Friday in the hip-hop mogul's bribery and weapons possession trial.

"I was facing him," club patron Christopher Chambers told a hushed courtroom. "I did not see a weapon."

The 30-year-old auto mechanic said he and Combs were standing just three feet apart when the gunfire erupted. They both ducked for cover, Chambers said, and as they went down, he could see the music executive's hands were empty.

Christopher Chambers

Five defense witnesses testified Thursday they never saw Combs with a gun inside the Times Square disco Club New York on Dec. 27, 1999. But Chambers was the first to testify that, at the exact moment of the shooting, Combs was unarmed.

The 31-year-old head of Bad Boy Entertainment could face 15 years in prison if convicted of carrying a 9mm semiautomatic during the nightclub fracas and subsequent police chase, and of bribing his chauffeur to take the rap.

His fate may well turn on whether the jury finds Chambers a credible witness. Chambers stuck to the key points of his account through two hours of meticulous cross-examination, but he also displayed a selective memory of the evening and repeatedly said he "didn't notice" what other witnesses have described as obvious events.

Chambers, for example, easily demonstrated for jurors how Combs had flinched and crouched down at the first shot, but he claimed he saw nothing of a shoving and screaming match that led to the gunfire. He also testified that he had a clear view of Combs from a corner of the bar but never saw gunshot victim Natania Reuben, who said she was standing in the same corner when she was struck by a bullet and fell to the ground screaming.

Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos, scrambling after being caught off guard by Chamber's testimony, suggested it was odd that the witness knew in detail what Combs was doing but was unclear about the rest of the crowd.

"Do you look at anyone else except for Mr. Combs when shots went off?" Bogdanos asked.

"Didn't notice anyone else," said Chambers, a goateed man with a shaved head and a lilting Caribbean accent.

Combs' defense countered that, as a regular patron on a normal night at a club, Chambers had little reason to pay close attention to the doings of others. Only after the gunshots was there any reason for careful observation, and at that point, Chambers could only see Combs, lawyer Benjamin Brafman implied.

"Was he directly in front of your line of vision?" Brafman asked.

"Yes," Chambers said.

He told jurors that he and his brother took his cousin, who was visiting from Florida, to the club on the night after Christmas. Under questioning by the prosecutor, he said he could not remember who drove there, what car they took, where they parked or if they waited outside the club's velvet rope.

Once inside, he, his brother and his cousin split up, he said. Just before 3 a.m., he saw Combs' entourage exiting the VIP area and moving toward the door. He wanted to leave and decided to follow the large entourage because it was cutting a path through the packed dance floor.

As the group approached the bar, however, it stopped moving and Chambers tried to go around them, he said. He then saw money falling from the air — according to several witnesses, a thrown wad of cash precipitated the fight — and noticed Combs standing against a wall near him. He said two large men were standing in front of Combs, but he could not see their faces.

Moments later, he said, three or four gunshots were fired and Combs hunched his shoulders, bent down and put his hands up around his face.

After a pause, he said, Combs got up and ran out of the club. Other witnesses have said Combs' bodyguard, co-defendant Anthony "Wolf" Jones, grabbed his boss and pulled him out of the club, but Chambers said he "didn't notice" anyone else with Combs.

He said he remained in the club for a half hour, waiting in the coat check line and looking for his brother and cousin. He never talked to police, he said, but told "everybody" about what he had seen.

Irked, Bogdanos observed, "You told everybody but the police and the district attorney's office."

The prosecutor's minutely detailed cross-examination moved too slowly for some in the defense camp. When Bogdanos later objected to a repetitive question during Brafman's redirect, the defense attorney reminded the prosecutor, "We just listened to two hours of every second of this man's life."

The zinger angered the prosecutor who later complained to Judge Charles Solomon.

"I'm not famous, I'm not rich, my cross isn't very good, but I'm doing my job," he said. "I don't expect to be heckled inside the courtroom by people I respect."

The defense will continue putting on its case Monday.