NEW YORK — Testimony in the Sean "Puffy" Combs weapons possession and bribery trial wrapped Wednesday with stunning evidence of extensive phone conversations between the rap mogul and some of the defense's strongest witnesses.

Phone records introduced in the closing minutes of the prosecution's rebuttal case suggest two of the four people who testified that Combs was unarmed during a 1999 nightclub shooting were in contact with him before taking the stand. Both witnesses told jurors they did not know Combs personally and had never discussed their testimony with him, and when he took the stand, Combs himself specifically denied talking to one and never mentioned calls to the other.

The phone evidence was among the last the jury heard. Lawyers will deliver closing arguments in the six-week long case Monday with deliberations scheduled to begin Tuesday.

The 31-year-old music executive is facing 15 years in prison in part for allegedly offering his chauffeur $50,000 to take the rap for a gun charge. Throughout the case, prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos has claimed some defense witnesses — and even some prosecution witnesses aligned with Combs — perjured themselves to aid his cause.

"I know this is a shocker, your honor, but some people in this case are lying," he told Judge Charles Solomon last month during an angry tirade outside the jury's presence. And just two weeks ago, Bogdanos accused Combs of trying to buy the silence of Matthew Allen, the man who instigated the nightclub fight, and his family.

Until late Wednesday, however, the jury had not heard any evidence of the prosecutor's charges. The records show six calls in January between phones owned by Combs and Christopher Chambers, a Long Island auto mechanic who said Combs' hands were empty as gunfire rained down on Manhattan's Club New York.

Vagueness was the hallmark of Chambers testimony. He could not recall, for example, how he got to the club or its layout, but was positive he had seen the hip-hop impresario without a weapon. After he left the stand, Bogdanos told the judge he doubted Chambers was even in the club on the night of the shooting.

The records also reflect one three-minute call between Cherise Myers, a female bouncer who said she fell on top of an unarmed Combs during the shootout, and Combs' cell phone in January 2000. On the stand, Myers denied ever speaking to Combs, adding, "Not that I know of anyway."

The prosecutor noted that he was unable to analyze the records of the two other witnesses who said Combs was unarmed. One gave a home number registered to a church and the other claimed he had no home phone and could not remember his old cell phone numbers.

In addition, Bogdanos highlighted 22 calls between Combs' security guard Paul Offord and Glen Beck, another bouncer and defense witness who testified that Combs' hands were empty as he stumbled down some stairs after the shooting.

Combs seemed eager to review the records, leaning over his lawyer's shoulder and pointing to certain lines. But on cross-examination of the paralegal who introduced the records, defense attorney Benjamin Brafman could do little more than point out that there is no way to know the substance of the conversations, nor who actually placed the calls and answered the phones.

The dramatic phone records came at the end of a long day of rebuttal testimony, which included the decidedly undramatic reading of Allen's statement to police. Allen, a Brooklyn felon who was a fugitive for several weeks during the trial, was supposed to take the stand and testify that Combs and his co-defendant, Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, fired guns during the fracas, but last week lawyers reached a backroom deal under which he would not take the stand but his statement would be admitted.

NYPD Detective Joseph Sweeney, whose main responsibility in the investigation was to locate Allen, delivered the three-page account of machismo and gunfire in the flat, halting voice of someone reading product instructions aloud.

"At that point, Puffy had a gun in his right hand as I was running out. I could see both Shyne and Puffy firing guns," Sweeney read.

The jurors, however, seemed rapt by the account of Allen, a mystery figure whom numerous witnesses have referred to by his street name "Scar."

On cross-examination, Sweeney acknowledged that prosecutor Bogdanos had actually written the statement as a summary of Allen's words. The defense noted that Allen had been jailed at the time of the statement and neither his lawyer nor defense counsel was present for the interview. But Sweeney insisted the statement was Allen's account alone.

"Did we in any way suggest to him what to say?" asked Bogdanos.

"No," Sweeney replied.

Two of the prosecution's rebuttal witness seemed to backfire. Combs' former attorney Harvey Slovis, who represented him immediately following the shooting, told jurors that he had a sinking feeling about chauffeur Wardel Fenderson, who provided the most damaging testimony against his former boss, from the moment he first spoke to him in jail.

Slovis said he warned his client to steer clear of Fenderson who he felt was up to no good.

"Did you tell Mr. Combs in words or substance he should not meet with Mr. Fenderson because of your concern that Mr. Fenderson might try to set him up?" Brafman asked.

"That was one of my concerns," the lawyer said.

The prosecution noted that Combs had ignored that advice, calling and meeting with the driver in what the state alleges was a bribery plot.

A ballistics expert, Anthony Tota, also caused problems for the prosecution. Tota testified that it was impossible for clubgoers who only heard the gunshots to pinpoint the location of the weapons. But he also implied that gunshot victim Natania Reuben's account of seeing the muzzle flash and hearing the blast of the bullet that struck her was highly unlikely.

Using himself as an example, he said, "I'm probably going to get hit by the bullet before I hear it."