NEW YORK - A driver for Sean "Puffy" Combs testified yesterday that he agreed to lie to police that he owned a handgun found inside the rapper's Lincoln Navigator because he was promised $50,000.

Wardell Fenderson, 42, a key prosecution witness, said that Combs - fearing for the reputation of then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez - asked him "easily over a dozen times'' to say the gun belonged to him.

"It was repeated constantly; it was a verbal assault, a verbal barrage,'' said Fenderson, who admitted he knew he was breaking the law by accepting the offer.

Fenderson testified that he agreed to lie to police and agreed to accept the alleged offer in part because he thought $50,000 was a good amount of money for a day's work.

"The plan was for me to hurry my admission so that all of them could be released,'' Fenderson said. "He didn't want Jennifer Lopez to be hurt by this.''

Actress-singer Lopez does not face any charges in the case.

Combs, 31, and his bodyguard, Anthony "Wolf'' Jones, 34, are charged with two counts of gun possession. One count pertains to a gun police found in the Navigator, and the second involves a gun allegedly flung out of the SUV's window as police pursued the vehicle.

The four people in the Navigator, including Combs and Lopez, 30, were fleeing Club New York, just off Times Square, on Dec. 27, 1999.

A Combs protege, rapper Jamal "Shyne'' Barrow, allegedly shot three people at the club. He is charged with three counts of attempted murder.

Combs and Jones were also charged with bribery for allegedly offering $50,000 to Fenderson to claim he owned the gun in the Navigator.

"I was not in a rational state of mind,'' Fenderson said. "I was a deer in headlights; I didn't know which way to go.''

On cross-examination by defense attorney Benjamin Brafman, Fenderson admitted there was a $32,000 lien against his salary because of his failure to pay child support.

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