Key moments from the fourth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial

Associated Press

16 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — The fourth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs ' sex trafficking trial featured testimony from the second of two ex-girlfriends who are crucial witnesses in the government's quest to prove sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against the hip-hop mogul.
Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, has pleaded not guilty in the trial, which resumes Monday.
Here are key moments from the past week:
Hotel worker says Combs sought video of Cassie beating
Fearing career ruin, Combs delivered $100,000 in cash to a security guard for a Los Angeles hotel in return for assurances that he was given the only security footage of Combs' 2016 attack on then-girlfriend Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, the security guard testified.
Eddy Garcia, 33, recounted how the deal came to be, saying he first heard from a fast talking, stuttering and 'very nervous' Combs on a phone call seeking to obtain the video of him kicking and dragging Cassie from the hotel's elevator bank into a hallway because 'if this got out it could ruin him.'
Days later, Garcia said, he was the nervous one when he was greeted in an office building by a smiling Combs who called him 'Eddy, my angel' before Garcia turned over a USB drive containing the security footage. Combs then made him sign a nondisclosure agreement promising it was the only copy of the video and that Garcia would never speak of it, he said.
Then, Combs, with a bodyguard at his side, fed stacks of cash from a brown bag into a rectangular money counter machine until it reached $100,000, Garcia said. He said he pocketed $30,000 and gave $50,000 to his boss and $20,000 to another hotel security guard. Garcia testified under immunity.
A recording of the hotel attack on Cassie aired on CNN last year and security footage along with clips of the security tape recorded by a guard on his personal phone so he could show it to his wife have been shown repeatedly during the trial.
Judge threatens Combs with trial expulsion
Minutes after a prosecutor complained that Combs was seen 'nodding furiously' as his lawyer cross examined a witness on Thursday, Judge Arun Subramanian took a look himself and said he saw Combs 'nodding vigorously and looking at the jury' and doing the same later when the lawyers and the judge were having a sidebar discussion.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey said prosecutors were concerned because the gestures amounted to 'testifying by nodding affirmatively' while his lawyer asked questions.
During a lunch break, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo promised to speak with Combs and ensure it wouldn't happen again after the judge told him it was 'absolutely unacceptable.'
The judge sternly responded: 'If it happens again, if it happens even once, I will hear an application from the government to give a curative instruction to the jury, which you do not want. Or I will consider taking further measures, which could result in the exclusion of your client from the courtroom.'
Mia says she was 'brainwashed' to send Combs loving texts after rape
A former Combs personal assistant who testified under the pseudonym 'Mia' told jurors that Combs had sexually assaulted her multiple times over her eight-year career, though the attacks were 'random, sporadic, so oddly spaced out' so that she thought each was the last.
She said he first molested her and forcibly kissed her at his 40th birthday party before raping her months later in a guest room at his Los Angeles home.
On cross examination, defense lawyer Brian Steel's suggested that she fabricated her claims to cash in on 'the #MeToo money grab against Sean Combs.'
Steel confronted her with loving texts she sent Combs long after her employment ended and asked how she could tell him, as she did in a 2019 text, that she had imagined Combs rescuing her from a nightmare in which she was trapped in an elevator with R. Kelly, the singer who has since been convicted of sex trafficking.
'I was still brainwashed,' Mia explained.
Defense has success with questioning of Cassie's friend
The defense had one of its most successful moments of the trial when attorney Nicole Westmoreland cast doubt on the credibility of a graphic designer who says Combs once dangled her from the balcony of a 17th-floor apartment in Los Angeles.
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan, a friend of Cassie who is suing Combs, had taken a cellphone image of a softball-size welt on her leg that she said occurred when Combs held her over the balcony for 10 to 15 seconds and then threw her into furniture.
After it was shown to the jury, Westmoreland showed the jury cellphone metadata revealing that the photograph was taken while Combs was on tour in September 2016, staying at a Manhattan hotel.
'You agree that one person can't be in two places at the same time?' Westmoreland asked.
'In, like, theory, yeah,' Bongolan responded.
'You're not sure?' Westmoreland asked.
'Hard to answer that one,' she said.
Later, Bongolan said she did not recall the exact date, but she had no doubt the balcony episode happened.
Woman recalls sex performances during three years as a Combs' girlfriend
A woman testifying under the pseudonym 'Jane' fought through tears and sobs to recount frequent sexual performances she participated in with male sex workers to please Combs and keep their three-year relationship alive until his September arrest.
Jane's testimony, which is likely to continue deep into next week, is identical in many ways to the four-day testimony in the trial's first week by Cassie. Jane said she never wanted to have sex with other men but did it to please Combs because she loved him.
Cassie described having hundreds of drug-fueled sexual performances known as 'freak-offs' in which she had sex with male sex workers for days at a time while Combs watched, sometimes directed the activity, and pleasured himself.
Jane described having nearly the same experiences from 2021 until last August, though she called them 'hotel nights.' She said her relationship with Combs began with romance but later became reliant upon the sexual performances, especially after Combs began paying rent for her apartment.
Defense attorneys have insisted that Jane and Combs only engaged in consensual sex and that Jane's protests to Combs in text messages were fueled by jealousy.