“Is baby oil and lubricant a federal crime? NO”- Diddy’s Defense | Day 1
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Monday, opening statements for the Diddy trial.

There are no cameras allowed in federal courtrooms. So I know you guys often like to watch live streams of trials that you guys are following, but there's no cameras. So I have two Rotten Mango researchers inside the courthouse with me. We are all individually witnessing and experiencing everything that's happening during the trial, individually taking notes. And then every single night we'll come home and regroup and try to find all of the things that we all saw and felt and noted down because I'm

I thought that was the best way because sometimes we notice things that the other person doesn't notice and maybe it's like in our heads. We don't know. So these are all the things that we noted on Monday. If you guys are just here for the actual trial and like maybe some of the transcript stuff, skip ahead. This is like the energy inside the courtroom. So Monday morning we sit down, the press is sitting on the right side again. So we are behind diagonal Diddy. So like we can see the side profile of his face and the back of his head mainly.

So we're sitting there and I feel like the minute, the minute that the defense attorneys start walking into the courtroom, it's already so tense. The energy, everybody expected it to be a lot more tense on Monday because it's the last day of jury selection. They're finalizing a jury. They're going to start opening statements. Two witnesses are going to come to the stand to testify. There's going to be cross examinations. It's going to be tense.

But it was really tense. Brian Steele walks in holding Tenny's bag as well as his own bag. And I feel like the minute that Brian walked in, we were all taking notes because we have discovered this new thing at Rotten Mingo, which is the fact that we can kind of predict what's about to happen in court next based off of Brian Steele's eyeglasses. There's something about this man's reading glasses. You look at his reading glasses, if they are on his nose bridge, I feel like whatever is coming next in court is about to be very serious.

Or he's reading something. But usually, something very serious is going to happen. When they're off, I feel like he's relaxed. I feel like it's about to be lunch.

That's the feeling that we all gathered and they're just staying on his nose. They're not coming off. He's like buried inside of his papers first thing in the morning. Usually he likes to do his little posing, not posing, but he likes to do his little stance while he greets people. But he's just like buried into the papers. Mark, the lead defense attorney, also stressed that

I feel like he had a very approachable, almost like a teddy bearish quality that just keeps declining rapidly day by day. And we don't really know what's going on, but like seemingly they're very stressed. The whole defense team, they just look like they're cramming for some sort of finals on the other side of the courtroom. And we're just in the back watching, kind of stalking them is the feeling and like taking notes.

And then the prosecution team walks in. This is the team that Mark Garagos, lead attorney, Tenny Garagos' famous celebrity attorney father, has called a six-pack of white women. They walk in. And I will say, I don't know if it's the fact that we heard him call them a six-pack of white women on a podcast or...

If they just look so cool. They looked so cool. Really? Yeah. The six of them, they walked in together and they are just no business. One of us wrote down, if this was a soundtrack, it would be a very depressing, motivational anthem. Depressing? So depressing. They look so powerful and it's so motivating and inspiring. And I'm like, that's the look of justice, right? Question mark?

But they all look so sleep deprived. I feel like they're sleeping under their desk. I feel like they're being held hostage inside of the courthouse. They look less tense than the defense attorneys, but they look so sleep deprived. All three of us wrote down that the lead on this case, which is Maureen Comey, she was the lead on the Maxwell case as well. She was assigned the Epstein case, but he...

Self-exited in jail, said nobody ever, right, debated. But she went to Harvard Law School. She had really intense eye bags on her. And we say that with a lot of respect because those could be the dark circles of justice. But it is worth noting, by the way, that the prosecution...

Yes, maybe it helps us sleep better at night to believe that they are in it for the sole motivating factor of just insatiable hunger for the justice of the people. Clearly, it's a huge stepping stone for a lot of people. Diddy's own successful defense attorneys have worked for the DA's office at one point. Mark Agnifilo, Alexandra Shapiro, Xavier Donaldson. It's like a pipeline of

Oh, they all worked in the... Is it the same office? I don't think SDNY. So I know Xavier Donaldson worked in the Bronx. I don't think that... So they were kind of colleagues at one point, right? Oh, Alexandra Shapiro did work SDNY, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes. So they were ex-colleagues or... But I don't know if their timelines overlapped, but it is a pipeline. So former prosecutors have a lot of knowledge of how evidence is evaluated, charging decisions are made. I mean, they're pretty good at anticipating the weaknesses in the government's cases. So just having even that relationship with the DA's office is probably successful, which is very interesting to note. That's another thing that's so bizarre is that I think

Logically, it makes sense when we walk in there, but every single morning we see the lead prosecutor, the lead defense attorney, and all the defense attorneys and prosecutors mingling, chit-chatting, having a good time. You would think that they're just like in the coffee room at Meta.

At Google, like they're working for a corporation together as best buds on the same team. Or like maybe half of them are in marketing and then the other half are in engineering. They just chit chat like they're good old pals. And then the minute that the judge walks into the room, I feel like they want to kill each other.

And it's just like a really weird shift of energy. And logically, it makes sense. It's a job. They're doing their job, but it's still very jolting to experience because I don't know. I feel like that's fascinating. Yeah. Like even after the opening statements today, the two attorneys that did the opening statements immediately after they were like chit chatting. And I was like, what's going on?

Now, side note, just to put this out there, I believe the prosecutors make around $150,000 to $200,000 a year. I researched it. That's the number I found, right? It is believed that Diddy's attorneys could be making tens of millions of dollars on just representing Diddy. And I think that's like one...

of the attorneys and he's got many attorneys. One TMZ clip, which I think TMZ is a very interesting source for this information because Mark Garagos seemingly has a very close relationship with the outlet, even hosting a podcast on TMZ. So to clarify, Mark is the father of Tenny Garagos. Now, Mark Agnifilo...

Okay, let me give you a brief recap on the law. Mark Agnifilo is the lead attorney with Tenney Garagos. Mark Agnifilo and his wife, Karen Agnifilo, are representing Luigi Mangione. So if the name sounds familiar, that's where it's familiar, okay? And then Tenney Garagos is working with Mark Agnifilo, but her dad is Mark Garagos. He represented Hunter Biden, Chris Brown. He's representing the Menendez brothers, Scott Peterson,

Yeah, he is a very famous attorney. A lot of people call her the nepo baby of the defense side, but then like some people argue that there is a nepo baby on the prosecutor's side. It's a whole thing. So Mark, he's not formally representing Diddy for this trial.

But he has a very seemingly long-term close relationship with Diddy, and he has a podcast on TMZ where later, without Mark in the room, TMZ, the outlet, they talk about how one attorney turned down representing Diddy for this case, but the number that they wanted was $10 million.

and that's just for one attorney. Some of the attorneys working on the case right now, it is suspected that they asked way upwards of 10 million dollars to take the case. So let's just say these prosecutors are making like 200,000 dollars, the defense attorneys could be allegedly be making like 10 million dollars at the very least. Side note, the lead prosecutor Maureen Comey, her father is James Comey, former FBI director,

So she's kind of, I guess if you really want to call her like the nepo baby of the prosecutor side, technically because there was a little bit of a scandal that she got the Epstein case assigned to her really early on into her career at SDNY. But I don't even think that means anything because when I'm in that courtroom, I feel like both of them could just run miles around me in terms of just cognitive function. It's like not even a question.

But I do feel like I could do a deep dive episode lore on every single person working on this case because the water is deep every single area. The defense attorneys come in, the prosecutors come in, and I think the next notable people, I mean, the pews start filling up, like these rock-hard church pews start filling up with people. And I think the next notable people that everybody was anticipating to come into the courtroom were the family, Diddy's family members. They...

They practically walk in birth order, except Christian and Justin are swapped, and they're all holding hands. So it's Quincy, Christian, Justin, Chance, and then the two twins. And I will say...

They're all so tall. I don't know why that was like my first impression. That was like my first note. They're all so incredibly tall and they all do have a presence about them and they come in dressed like they're going to a gala or something. Not overdressed, but everything was just so sharp and tailored is the feeling. Now, I will say Christian Combs, who also has allegations against him, he walks in kind of more nervous than

Is what we wrote down. He seems to have his jaw clenched. There is this one moment where this could be nothing. This could be a coincidence. This could be me overthinking it. But he's walking in at a later point during the day and he sees one of the sketch artists in the front. She's sketching the family. And he looks not particularly happy about the sketch. Really? Yeah. Is what all three of us noted. Yeah.

And then the three daughters, they also walk into the courtroom holding hands. And this is where we, the whole RM team had a whole debate all weekend of who's going to do opening statements for the defense because Monday is opening statements. And we thought it was going to be Tenny. We're like, it's going to be Tenny. It doesn't make sense. It can't be anybody else because you're dealing with a lot of female victims and she's

kind of like the lead female attorney on the case. Like if they don't do Tenney, it wouldn't make sense. But then later, Karen Agnifilo, Mark's wife, walks in into the courtroom and I will say, everybody was looking at her.

So I think everybody knows her. Everybody recognizes her. And there's this moment where Mark looks back and he's smiling at her across the courtroom. She's like sitting in the very, very back trying not to disturb anybody. And then we had this brief moment where we're like, wait, is Mark doing the opening statements? Because why is Karen Agnifilo here? And we just like went into orbit. And then eventually the door opens and Diddy walks out.

This time he did switch up his wardrobe. He's wearing gray pants, gray sweater, white collared shirt underneath. He does smile discreetly at his family. He's blowing them kisses. He does throw up a heart with both of his hands. The sketch that we saw shows kind of upside down heart. But all three of us were like, no, I swear it was a regular heart.

So I think it was a regular heart. To the family? Yes, and it was pretty discreet. I will say I didn't want to harp too much on his interactions with his family. I think he has relatively normal reactions with his family. But there was this one moment on Monday where he turns around and he just nods at his sons. And then they nod back.

But it's like a very intense nod. I mean, maybe I was mistaken. Maybe they're just like a family of nodders. But it was a lot of nodding. And I'm like... This is like first thing in the morning? No, this is like later in the day. He just has this moment where he's like nodding very intensely at them. And it's like he's not smiling. And they're nodding back. And like the nodding lasts a second. And then there's another point where he whispers what we think sounds or looks like my son's.

And then he's just like nodding. So it was very intense. But I know that some of you guys come for trying to feel like the camera is there. Because I feel like there's a lot of things, a lot of moments that happen that you could maybe capture on camera that you're not going to get in a court transcript. Yeah, personally, I love it. It helps me picture like everything really.

And like the energy and I feel like even the energy shifting throughout the day, you can kind of sense it. So we tried our best to collaborate on our notes and make sure these are the ones that all three of us felt. So it's very consistent. So with that being said, those are the things that we noticed on Monday. But Monday is a big day. So we're just going to get started.

A few disclaimers regarding content warnings. There's themes of essay and DV. And secondly, certain portions and quotes have been shortened and condensed and or combined for brevity. This is a very quick disclaimer, but everything reported on in this episode and throughout the trial is public information. But any descriptions or observations regarding the defendant or anybody else in the courtroom are personally noted by myself and my two researchers who

who are present most of the times in the courtroom in person, seeing all of these things happen in real time with our own eyes. However, just because we see something and feel something does not mean that our experiences and statements are valid reflections of the truth. Our interpretations of these random things that we see in the courtroom

could mean nothing. Like it could be completely inaccurate. They have no weight or bearing obviously on the verdict of the trial, but it should also not be a definitive source on how you feel about a defendant, about a victim, a witness, or really just the case in general. And this case right now, Diddy is considered innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is the responsibility of the prosecution and all the crimes that he has been charged with are alleged until a verdict is reached.

We did four deep dives into Diddy's case in 2024 after his arrest. So if you want to know the whole, the backstory on everything, it's going to be in four different videos that I'm going to link below. And now we are on the opening statements of his trial that started Monday, May 12th. We're going to be doing daily updates on Diddy's trial. He is facing one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking, two counts of transportation across state lines for the purpose of sex work.

He's rejected a plea deal and he is facing a maximum of life imprisonment if found guilty. This is a federal case. So like I said, no cameras. We can't even bring our phones in. Like we're just taking handwritten notes. So with that being said, let's just get started.

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The first part of Monday starts with selecting the jury. So the both sides still have to get rid of all of their strikes. Basically, they have a number of strikes that they can get rid of jurors for technically no reason at all. And the minute that these strikes start occurring, I

I feel like I don't know what's happening. Okay, we were all writing this down. It seems very hectic on the defense side. There's an order in which they have to go. The order behooves me, but it's like the prosecutors strike one, the defense will strike one or two. There's like a very specific order.

And there's clearly a pattern that they need to follow. And Mark Agnifilo is not following the pattern. He's reminded by prosecutors like, I think you were only supposed to strike one at that point. Linda Moreno, who is the jury consultant for Diddy's team, she's a little bit more involved today. Like the whole morning before they even got started, she's been turning around to Diddy, talking more intensely to him. She was a lot more social prior to this.

I feel like in the mornings before court really started, she would talk to other attorneys. She did not come to play today. She looks like she's on her game. She's wearing a gold swirl brooch on her jacket and she looks very serious. I mean, she's clearly the jury consultant. They're doing the strikes on the jurors. Mark Agnifilo will keep going to her to verify and she'll go through her papers. And I feel like it's,

it's not that well organized is the feeling that I got as the press. Like it just seemed a little bit, and that all three of us wrote this down. Like we had different variations of hectic, right?

Like, just like, what's happening? And then eventually, Mark Agnifilo states, Your Honor, I note that the government has struck seven black people out of nine strikes. By our count, the government struck seven black people, which we believe amounts to a pattern. And it's our request that the government give neutral reasons for these strikes.

So, okay, side note by this point, like while it was very hectic before they got to this point, I don't want to look too into it, but we all did write it down. It does feel like every time the defense attorneys are confused or are slightly underprepared or are maybe not on their A game over the top,

Doing things before the judge even asks for it Did he will look at them and it's not a menacing way. It's not like a sinister way He's not staring them down. He's not nodding at them. He just will look at them like hello. It's like to us It's kind of intense. Yeah, like hello. He'll just look at them while they're stressing and

Like what's going on is the vibe we get. Okay. So it felt like maybe they were freaking out because they wanted to say this statement and they were all trying to agree because there's like seven different attorneys and they all have to agree on the statement. I guess. I don't know how it works. Now, the lead prosecutor on this case, Comey, she comes out swinging. I think this is the first time I hear her voice.

The whole jury selection, she was not the one doing most of it. Her voice reminds me of, there's a TV show called Bones. It's like a forensic anthropologist played by Zooey Deschanel's sister. This is so random. It's not that important, but she is known to be this extremely logical and rational person that obviously in the show, it benefits her professional life.

It doesn't benefit her love life. It's a TV show. I'm not trying to say that's Comey, but she has a very similar way of communicating. Very straightforward, very matter-of-fact, to the point where her voice is almost monotone. But it's not boring. It's monotone, but it's not boring. It's monotone, but it feels powerful. Maybe she has a pace? Yes, she has a very low register and energy.

I feel like a lot of times when someone has a very low register, it's raspy or it's smoky. It's not that. It's very clear. It's very direct. I was reading up on her this morning before going to court. And I guess when hearing her voice, it just clicked. Her voice carries such a presence and people say she's intense. I would say her voice might be more authoritative than even Mark Agnifilow's. Yeah, she barely does facial emotes. When she starts talking, she's not talking. She's swinging. I don't know how to describe it.

She doesn't even do many filler words. She doesn't have moments where she's looking down. Like other attorneys will have moments where they're looking down and they're like, okay, hold on. Nothing. She just comes out. The government has conducted itself completely neutrally throughout the course of jury selection. We have not demonstrated any sort of bias, whatever. In addition, I would note that the jury itself is composed of a very diverse group of jurors, including a number of non-white jurors. I don't believe that a case has been established.

I am however, for the sake of the record, prepared to offer neutral reasons and reasons that far exceed Batson's bar for why we struck the jurors that we struck.

Like that fast? Yeah, like pretty fast. Wow. Her cadence is pretty addicting to listen to. Yeah, the energy that she carries is very intense. So she starts going through all of the jurors that they struck that maybe there might be questions about, which the Batson's challenge is basically saying, yeah, you have a certain number of dedicated strikes that you can strike potential jurors for no reason, but you can't strike them for their race. Like you cannot discriminate, right?

So now the defense is saying, wait, there are so many black jurors that you guys just struck out. So maybe, maybe we raise the Batson's challenge. And Comey is just listing them off one by one. And she does not stutter. She does not miss a beat. She does not even throw in a singular filler word. OK, I don't think that's factually correct. I'm sure that there's filler words, but barely any.

And she begins, and this is condensed. Jura 51 knew 17 names out of the list of people that were provided to her. She knew all the defendant's children, and she knew the names of one of the witnesses we expect to testify at this trial. She explained that she knew many of those names from watching a television program. Comey argues that the juror likely watched Making the Band. It's a reality TV series, if you guys remember, where...

Some of the members on the show have filed lawsuits against Diddy or they've spoken out against Diddy accusing him of inappropriate touching and or predatory business practices where some of them have even accused Diddy of threatening violence but also cannibalism to some degree. One former participant in the making of the band went on a documentary that is called The Making of a Bad Boy. They accused Diddy of threatening them saying things along the lines of, you make me so mad that I want to eat your flesh.

I could go get a crackhead and pay them $20 to smack the shit out of you. Now, to be fully transparent, Diddy and his attorneys have filed a $100 million lawsuit against NBC and Peacock for that very documentary, but take that as you will.

Comey continues, "We expect there will be testimony about this during the trial and she appeared to have favorable opinions of all these people. That raised us to have concerns that she would bring outside knowledge into her deliberations in this case." They also note that she has a fiance that served four years in prison with Comey saying, "There might be some unconscious bias in favor of a defendant who risked incarceration given that close relative had spent some time in prison. There were the neutral reasons which far exceed the Batson requirement of any reason, not even a good reason, but these are good reasons that we exercise that strike."

As for juror number 216, she states, we had moved to strike that juror for cause, as your honor might recall. To summarize, he had been arrested three times, including for harassing a police officer. He also said that his sister had reported to him that she had been abused in a domestic violence situation, but he had said that he had not been there, so he couldn't know who was right and he couldn't know whether to believe her.

That also raised red flags for us about how he would evaluate potential victim testimony in this case. Side note: he also did refer to the police as assholes, which he continues. So again, that very easily clears the bar of any reason. There are good reasons why we exercise that strike. Our fourth strike was a juror whose ex-husband had spent 21 years in prison for attempted murder and she had not broken the relationship as a result of it. She remained close with him.

Comey also mentions that that juror said that she worked with people with bipolar and manic disorders. She said that she believed that everyone with bipolar or manic disorder have some sort of trauma. Now the prosecutors state that there will be some text message evidence where the defendant's behavior is described colloquially as bipolar or manic. So they are concerned that that juror might bring those outside experiences and infer that the defendant is traumatized.

Then the fifth strike, the juror has two brothers who did time in prison for felony convictions. Also, he admitted that he watched news about the case the morning of jury selection, which concerned the prosecutors. They said it was strange. OK, so this juror wanted to be on the jury, but he said if he serves, he's going to lose 30 percent of his income. But that's OK. And they felt like he expressed no concerns about losing that much money.

She says, quote, that made us worry that he has an agenda and is trying to get on this jury. Again, easily clears the bar of any reason. Those are good reasons to exercise that strike. Then another strike, she says, I believe we moved to strike this individual for cause given his English language difficulties. He also had a nephew who he said was a gang member who had been in prison for about two years, I believe, for being involved in shooting a police officer. Then another alternate they struck for being in the same high school as Diddy or having gone to the same high school for not the same time, but just in case. Mm-hmm.

And she states, so the totality of those reasons, in addition to the reasons that we moved on for cause with that juror, again, easily clears Batson's bar for of not just any reason, but good reasons. Which, side note, I do think that there's a lot of room for healthy debate on jury selection, including or and or excluding jurors based on their bias against police officers. I feel like a lot of people have been talking about in today's age, how do you even force

find a jury where people have not had somewhat negative or fully negative interactions with police. So I do believe that's a larger conversation that I don't necessarily know I'm the most qualified for right now or the most well-versed in. However, in terms of the law, it does appear that the prosecutors came forward

just ready for whatever the defense was about to put out because even Judge Arun says, "So the defendant's challenge under Batson's is denied. The defendant has failed to show purposeful discrimination as required by Batson, so the application is denied." And with that, the jury is set and they are sworn in.

A few side notes. Judge Arun becomes very friendly when the jury comes into the room. Like there's this very noticeable shift in his energy when it's just all of the attorneys. He's very firm. He's very professional, but he's very firm. He doesn't play games. But then when the jurors are in the room, he's usually very like a lot more approachable, a lot more accommodating, a lot more friendly. Yeah, I think he does take the jurors serving eight weeks as like a very high thing.

Like he's all about getting them out on time every single day. He's all about making sure that the trial finishes in a week so that they can go back to their lives. Yeah, he's like very intense about it. And I kind of love him for that. So I will say that as the jurors are getting sworn in,

Diddy is like kind of nodding. Maybe it's coincidental. All three of us did write it down. It's not like a scary nod. It's just like the nod that he did every time that they walk into the courtroom. I don't know what kind of nod that is. I'm not really a big nodder, so I can't say for sure, but he's kind of nodding and he is looking at them. And another thing that we noticed, and again, maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's opinion, maybe my eyes are deceiving me, but there's this moment where, okay, well the whole day,

Actually, Brian, Steele and Diddy, I feel like they used to have best friend necklaces cut in half type of energy. And I feel like this, they were a little bit more stressed today.

But there's this part where the jurors are getting sworn in. Brian Steele pushes his chair back and it's carpet. So he has to kind of lift his chair and then push it back. So it's not an easy process. It's not like you just scoot it back. He moves his chair all the way away from the table. He sits with his hands in his lap showing and he's watching the jury get sworn in. And Diddy almost instantly mirrors Brian. Like it was almost instant. Like moving the chair back? Yes. And then sitting with his hands in his lap.

I wouldn't say it was like identical mirroring, but moving the chair back on the carpet was like pretty instant. Yeah. And I have just never seen someone more on their best behavior than Diddy on Monday. I would say the most notable things about Diddy, he was asked if he has enough water and he reaches into the mic and he says, I could use a little more if you don't mind. And his voice is slightly raspy, but his tone is, it's like...

I could use a little more if you don't mind. It's like very sweet, very accommodating. It's like if you were to go to your very wealthy aunt's twice-removed house and you just know everything is so expensive so you can't even like sit on the couch and you just sit on the edge and you just hope that your jeans don't stain the white couch.

like i guess if you have some more water like i could i would love some it's kind of that vibe even when tenny the lawyer on his right has to sit back down after a statement he full on both arms like a moving company mover is pulling out her chair onto the carpet but it's just like it's like the brian steel jacket lapel thing it's just like it feels like too much i feel like i don't know if the

if the queen, rest in peace, got this type of treatment when she wanted to sit down on a chair. It was a lot. And then once the opening statements start, Diddy is a literal statue. We wrote down, two out of three of us wrote down statue because his eyes will move, his eyes will dart about, but other than that, this, like, he's...

He's a marble statue. He's a wax figurine. I don't know how else to explain it. I did a comparison that honestly should not be taken seriously at all. Don't take it seriously. But I took it seriously because I don't know why I was taking these notes. I could not necessarily time it perfectly. So I don't know how long this was. And time warps in the courtroom. I don't even have my phone. But I did a comparison of the physical moving body of Brian Steele. And I know I'm not like...

I'm not like singling out Brian Steele. The way that I always end up sitting, I feel like I mainly just see Mark Agnifilo and Tenny's the back of their heads. But I get like a and I think because they move around a lot more, I get a better view of Diddy and Brian Steele. And then Alexandra Shapiro is on Brian Steele's other side. But she's usually very low key.

Yeah. And so I did a comparison of the physical moving body of Brian Steele and Diddy. And in the span that it takes Brian Steele to look up, and he's not doing this weird, like he's just doing this as he's moving his neck, he's looking up, he

He kind of rolls his head side to side, he kind of lulls it. He looks down, he kind of purses his lips, then he looks back up, he lifts his chin, then he purses his lips again, and then he sucks in his cheeks, looks away, and then he puts his index finger near his eyes, then he kind of like flexes his face, and then he kind of moves his neck around. And in all of that, Diddy has not moved but his eyeballs inside of the sockets. Like, he is rigid, and his back is not even to the back of the chair.

So his back is erect and he's like statue rigid. Wait, this is during opening statement? Yes. During opening statements, very rigid. Now, opening statements, the podium where the attorneys are going to be speaking directly to the jurors is literally facing the jurors. I would say the first row of jurors, you could reach out and caress their hair.

You would not be able to do that. I think you would get kicked out of court, but that's how close it is. And usually opening statements, they say it's a very good way for the defense and the prosecutors to build rapport with the jury, build credibility, sell their story, shape the jurors' perceptions.

And I'm going to try and describe everything and be your camera. The prosecutor start. Diddy is focused on the prosecutor. His back is straight. His head is up. He's he scooted the chair all the way up. So his stomach is touching the table at this point and his posture is insane.

good, well erect, and his elbows are resting on the table and he is just watching in full focus. Later he will readjust where he leans into his chair but he's still watching the prosecutor intently during the opening statements. Emily Johnson is from the prosecution. She starts the government's opening statement and she starts with, and I'm going to try to do it in the tone that she does, this is Sean Combs. To the public, he was Puff Daddy.

or Diddy, a cultural icon, a businessman larger than life. But there was another side to him, a side that ran a criminal enterprise.

Okay, going into opening statements, I think the content of the opening statement matters, right? But also the delivery, because the jurors are the ones hearing it, and they're the ones either getting moved, shaped, not moved by it. I think the opening statements were kind of disappointing. I know that the opening statements, I looked it up, they're not supposed to be overly passionate. You don't want to come off as you're trying to sell someone or something or an idea. But it just felt so flat.

The opening statement from the prosecutor goes, "During this trial, you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant's crimes, but he didn't do it alone. He had an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees who helped him commit crimes and helped him cover up kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery, and obstruction. These are just some of the crimes that the defendant and his inner circle committed again and again. You are going to hear about all of them during this trial. Let's start now with just one night."

The prosecutor states the defendant was on the hunt for his girlfriend, a woman named Cassie. For years, the defendant physically abused Cassie. He also sexually exploited her, forcing her to have sex with male escorts while he watched and recorded it. She also doesn't make a lot of eye contact with the jurors we noted, and she seems to be more so reading.

But that night, the defendant learned that he had lost control of Cassie. He found out that Cassie was seeing another man. Furious, he set out to find Cassie and that other man, but he couldn't do it by himself. So he took his gun and he took his bodyguard, one of his most loyal lieutenants, to wake up one of the defendant's employees in the middle of the night.

So she goes on to state that after finding Cassie, he quote, "When he finally found her, he did what he had done countless times before. He beat her brutally, kicking her in the back and flinging her around like a rag doll."

So she tells the jury he threatened her. The defendant told Cassie that if she defied him again, he would publicly release the videos of her having sex with male escorts that he kept as blackmail souvenirs of the most humiliating nights of her life. She continues, this was just one in the defendant's two decades of crime. And as you will learn, this was just the tip of the iceberg. These are not the only crimes the defendant committed. That's not the only time he kidnapped someone. And Cassie is not the

So at this point, Diddy did shake his head a tiny bit, no?

About the 20 years. I don't know if it's about that. Maybe there's a fly. I don't know. Maybe it's coincidental. I will say, though, the opening statement did not evoke any emotions considering how emotional I feel like a lot of the allegations are. And I feel like even listening to some of the press and like listening to some of the public talking about it, everybody is like ready to cry nonstop when Cassie hits the stand, you know? So it just felt very flat. Flat.

Considering how emotional people already feel about the case, it just felt kind of... I mean, all the words used were slightly vague. I mean, we did have a whole debate about it. So we were thinking maybe it's vague because it resonates more with the larger audience or maybe it's vague because...

I did notice that the jurors were taking notes, so maybe she's talking in a note-taking speed? I don't know. If you guys are attorneys, let me know in the comments. But she'll say things like, "You'll learn that the defendant was a musician who created an empire. He had a record label, Bad Boy Records, and other businesses that he ran or controlled. Those businesses made the defendant rich, and he used money and resources from those companies to build his reputation and to feed his every desire."

It just felt kind of like, like not passionate, you know, but maybe the words are more easily digestible. He sometimes called himself the king and he expected to be treated like one. He expected his inner circle to cater to his every desire, including his sexual desires. Now, at this point, we did note that I don't know if this is like in our heads, but we did see Diddy's cheeks kind of perk.

So we don't know if maybe he's like clenching his jaw or maybe he's hiding a smile. I don't know. Or maybe his cheeks just go up because our facial movements do weird things.

She continues, "Let me be very clear on this next point. This case is not about a celebrity's private sexual preferences. The evidence will show that the sexual conduct at issue in this case was coercive and criminal because the defendant made women have sex when they did not want to because he threatened them, he drugged them, he lied to them, and he even used violence to make them do it." She does mention the freak-offs, but she mentions that later he called them "king nights" or "hotel nights" allegedly.

Right. And the defendant had particular demands for freak offs. She states that he would get his staff to come into the hotel room. And we kind of already I feel like a lot of the public already went through this type of information, but he would control the lighting. He liked extra linens, lubricant. His staff would remain on call to allegedly refresh anything in that room, including drugs and cash for the male escorts there.

She says, "The hotel rooms are dark. The defendant instructed Cassie and Jane," which is another victim who's going to testify, "how to dress in lingerie, wear tall platform high heels, and have manicured white nails. The defendant selected drugs for Cassie and Jane to take, usually MDMA, also known as molly or ecstasy."

She says, So she talks about how Diddy and Cassie met when they were 19 years old. Well, Cassie was 19 years old. Diddy was 17 years older. And he signs her to a 10-album deal with his label. They're on and off dating from 2006 to 2018. They're on and off dating from 2006 to 2018.

The defendant starts abusing Cassie early on. Initially, Cassie fights back. This is like through the prosecutor. The prosecutors allege that Diddy was incredibly violent with Cassie. So these are a lot of the allegations that I feel like the public already knows about. But then they also state, the defendant also introduced Cassie to freak-offs early on. Soon, the defendant made it Cassie's job to find and book escorts for freak-offs. Freak-offs that were happening as often as once a week for days at a time. Meaning that for almost half of every week,

Cassie was in a dark hotel room, high and awake for days performing sex acts that she did not want to on male escorts. Wow.

Cassie will tell you how she felt like she was choking when the defendant made an escort urinate in her mouth and how she overdosed at a freak-off when she still had an open wound on her face from the defendant's most recent assault. The prosecutors state that if Cassie didn't do what the defendant wanted, the consequences were really severe. They say that...

He would beat her when she didn't answer the phone when he called. He beat her when she left a freak off without his permission. He beat her when she took too long in the bathroom. The defendant taught Cassie that defying him could and often would end in violence. The prosecutors state that Jane went through similar things that Cassie went through and that that started around 2020. Diddy and Jane started spending time together in 2020.

and that the prosecutors state that Diddy asked Jane for a freak-off, and then it snowballed into similar allegations and violence. The prosecution does state, Jane tried twice to make it through these nights without drugs. The first time, she broke down and had took ecstasy to finish performing for the defendant. The second time, Jane vomited after having sex with an escort. How did the defendant respond? He told her to hurry up and get back into the room where another escort was waiting.

The prosecutors go on to detail that one night Jane and Diddy get into this altercation where Jane is upset that she's doing all these freak-offs while Diddy is vacationing and taking his other girlfriends on trips. And quote, Jane hit the defendant and threw things at him. The defendant became enraged. So Jane tried to get away from him and hide. She ran to her bedroom and locked the door. He kicked it open. She ran to her bathroom and locked the door. He kicked it open. She ran to her closet and locked the door. He kicked it open.

She ran to the guest bedroom and locked the door. He kicked it open. She tried to run out the front door, but he grabbed her in a chokehold, lifted her off the ground by her neck, and kicked her to the ground.

Later that night, they fought again and just as he had with Cassie, the defendant viciously attacked Jane. He punched her in the face, kicked her while she was curled up in a ball on the ground, dragged her by her hair and her arm and slapped Jane's face so hard she fell over. And when all of this was over, the defendant still did not let Jane be. Instead, he told Jane, you're not going to fuck up my night.

The defendant instructed her to put on an outfit and call up an escort for a freak off. He made Jane cover her black eye and bruising and take an ecstasy pill and perform for the defendant with that escort.

The prosecutors also state that an employee that worked for Diddy, Mia, will tell the jurors about the years that Diddy would force himself on her sexually, putting his hands up her dress, unzipping his pants, forcing her to perform oral sex, and sneaking into her bed to essay her. Wait, this is a different Mia, you said? Yeah. So that's another victim, the third one. Yes.

And so the prosecutors state, Mia will tell you how she could not talk about what happened to her until recently, how she wanted to take the secret of what the defendant did to her grave.

And just

Preemptively, I think the prosecutors are stating you will learn that some of these witnesses and victims, including Cassie, have already received financial settlements from the defendant or have filed lawsuits against the defendant. But these witnesses will tell you that they trade any money from the defendant for not having been abused.

She ends the statement with, first, please pay close attention to the evidence. Second, please follow the judge's instructions on the law. And third, please use and trust your common sense. If you do all that, you will reach the only verdict that is consistent with the law and the evidence in this case. That is, the defendant, Sean Combs, is guilty. It was not as powerful as I think what it could have been, but I don't know. Like, I don't know if...

I felt like we had this whole conversation about it of, I feel like we've heard a lot of other opening statements in other cases that had a lot more emotion. I don't know if maybe this is so high profile that they tried to keep it as professional and unemotional as possible. I don't know. If you know, let me know. The whole time near the end, Diddy is in what we thought in our notes, eyeing Tenny, his attorney on his right, like her paper as if he's copying her homework.

And then immediately after, Tenny Garagos gets up to do the opening statements for the defense. She's wearing a white turtleneck, a black pantsuit that's completely pleated in the back. She is, I would say, much more in control when she walks up. She doesn't look like she's reading as much as the prosecution did. She's looking at the jurors more often. She seems a lot more prepared than the prosecutor did during the opening statements. One thing that I did notice that a lot of people noticed...

Where I was sitting is that it appeared that she had white nail polish on. I know like in the last one I was like, "I feel like it was pink." In her interview, it looked pretty white and I was like, "I don't know if it's me." But then like both my researchers were like, "No, it looks really white." That's a choice she made. I guess, yeah. If it's white, it's a choice. Yeah, yeah. So let me read you parts of her opening statement. Good morning.

Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity, and money. This case is about voluntary adult choices made by capable adults and consensual relationships. This case is about real life relationships and the government is trying to turn those relationships into a racketeering case, a prostitution case, and a sex trafficking case. It will not work.

I think given the circumstances of the allegations, the accusations, even just the hotel footage, I think a lot of people can't think of many other ways that many, like maybe Tenny Garagos could have done an opening statement. But yeah, she continues. You will hear the evidence. You will get the truth. You will see the witnesses and evaluate them one by one. And finally, finally, the story about this case can finally come out.

Why do I say that? I say that because this case is not about what you've heard on the news, read in the news, or have seen on social media for the past year and a half. This case is not about what civil attorneys looking for a payday are trying to make my client out to be. There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case for the past year and it's time to cancel that noise and hear and see the evidence that will be presented in this courtroom. The story of Sean Combs is a fascinating one, but it is a human one.

We are going to tell you a story over the next two months in this courtroom. So by now, you've heard the government say a lot of things about my client. It's time for me to introduce you to him. His name is Sean Combs. And at this point, I almost peed myself because Sean Diddy stands up and it's like kind of abrupt. Like I wasn't expecting him to stand up.

It feels, okay, so there's two ways that we are trying to describe it and we don't know which one's more accurate. So the first way, it almost feels like maybe because he was so statuesque the whole day, he forgot how his limbs move and then he just shot up out of his chair like a little rocket heading into space. Or it feels kind of like a military roll call. Just shoots up, back straight, posture straight. And I do think it's awkward because it's not like he can, I don't think he can just wave at the jurors.

That comes off very high, right? So he just stands up. Okay. Okay, and she's like, his name is Sean Combs. You may have heard of him by Puff.

Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Puffy Diddy, but standing in this courtroom at 55 years old in the same place he was born and raised, he's going by the same name he was born with, Sean Combs. My name is Tenny Garagos and I am one of the attorneys honored to represent him. By this point he sits back down, his hands are folded in his lap. The prosecution will bring in those same employees and others into this courtroom and have them testify that Sean Combs has a temper and when he drank or when he did the wrong drugs, he would get violent.

My client is not proud of that, but it is one of the many things we are going to own and fully admit right up at the front of this trial.

Sean Combs has a bad temper. He sometimes gets so angry or so jealous that he is out of control. You will see evidence and you will hear some testimony that does not portray my client in a good light. You will hear some text messages, some voice notes, and some witness testimony that may make you think, I don't think this guy is a great guy. I don't like how he just lied to his girlfriends. I don't like the things he just said in that text message. I want to tell you now, there may be one point, there may be multiple points at this trial where you think

I think he is a jerk and I think he is kind of mean. But he is not being charged with being mean. He's not being, he's not charged with being a jerk. He's charged with running a racketeering enterprise. I did peek at people in the courtroom. Okay. Like the press or are you talking about the families? Public. Okay. Yeah. And I will say, I don't think a lot of women were happy with some of these things.

Statements. Like they're visually showing some like. Yeah, like I'm going to try to reserve my own personal feelings, although I feel like I make my personal feelings very clear throughout the years. I'm going to try to reserve them because I'm trying to be like the camera, you know? So but yeah, I did see some people that were either doing like slight look aways or like kind of face.

But it's to be expected. Like, I think this is what everybody expected from the opening statement for the defense. And she continues, and though there was violence that you are going to hear about, you already have. That violence is not part of any RICO. That violence is not connected to sex trafficking and that violence is not prostitution. There was a name in criminal law for the violence that we will hear about and we will see at this trial. It is called domestic violence. It is called assault. It is called assault.

Domestic violence is a very serious matter. I want to say that now. It is a bad, illegal problem and it is something that the law addresses. We take full responsibility that there was domestic violence in this case. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking. I want to say it again. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.

Had he been charged with domestic violence, had he been charged with assault, we would not be here right now. We would not be sitting through an eight-week trial. However, he has been charged with different crimes: sex trafficking, prostitution, racketeering. These are federal crimes with their different statutes. They charge different elements and he is simply not guilty of those crimes.

One of the central themes of my statements to you will be personal accountability and personal responsibility. As the trial goes on, we will see that with each witness, we are going to take that on ourselves. We will not shy away from the things Mr. Combs did, but we will not deny his personal responsibility or own the things that he did not do. We are telling you right now that he is physical, that he is a drug user, and I'm telling you he had a bit of a different sex life.

For example, you may have not heard any evidence in this case, but the prosecutor has already told you about lubricant and you may know of his love of baby oil.

Is that a federal crime? No. You will hear that he got IVs after ingesting drugs. Is that a federal crime? No. He will be responsible, he will be accountable for the things that he did. But we will fight for his freedom throughout the next eight weeks for what he did not do. And he cannot be the only person in this case who accepts personal responsibility and accountability for his actions. The alleged victims who will testify in this case are capable, strong, adult women.

They are all getting something each of them wanted from him and from being in a romantic relationship with him.

and those adult capable strong women will have to take on the same level of personal responsibility for their lives that he is going to take on for his. When any person in life makes an adult choice, that is a free choice, a free choice has pros, it has cons, you may think there are better choices, you may think there are worse choices, but that does not eliminate the personal responsibility behind those choices.

And each of the women you will hear from, they all had the personal responsibility and the freedom to make the choices that they made. You will hear from these women, you will see these women, you will meet them, they will sit in that witness chair a few feet away and you will evaluate them for yourselves. You will see that they are capable, you will see that they are strong, you will see that they made free choices every single day for years.

As you are listening to the evidence and you listen to them testify, I want you to ask yourselves, what are all the ways that this individual had the ability to make that choice? Ask yourself, what are they getting from being with Sean Combs? They are not with him because they are stuck or because they are without a choice.

The government will try to show you that Sean Combs is the only one getting something from each of the alleged victims who testify in this case. But with each of these individuals, ask yourselves, what is this person getting? They are with him or they are working for him because they are getting something they want from being with him. Now with each person, that something may be different and it usually is. But with each person, they are all getting something.

Combs is one of those men that I'll submit to you. We all know. The evidence is going to show that he is somebody who never married, but he needed to always have a woman around. He's a many-woman man. He has seven children by four different women, and he is the kind of guy who is always in relationships. In fact, he was always in multiple relationships.

But critically, he was not always honest about the fact. And you'll find that even when he was, even when women knew he was in multiple relationships, this would drive a primal jealousy in people. It would drive a lot of the choices you are going to see in this case. You will see that these women are strong, capable, and that they were in love with him. You will see that breaches of trust, infidelity, and jealousy are what drove the domestic violence you will hear about.

You will see that alcohol and drugs played a major role in his temper, and the evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual, but it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker, or somebody transporting for prostitution.

So as we've said, you're going to hear from two women, Cassie and Jane. This case is in large part about his sexual relationships with these two women, and you're going to hear that they went to private hotel rooms to engage in what I expect some witnesses at this case to call the "swingers lifestyle," which is essentially just a fancier terminology for threesomes by adults.

You might hear about his kinky sex or his preferences about sex that may make you uncomfortable and may not be what you like to do in your own bedroom. But you are not here to judge him for his sexual preferences. You are not here to judge him for all purposes. You are here to evaluate whether the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt what they actually charged him with. They cannot.

But as you evaluate the evidence in this case, remember that he is not being charged with being a flawed individual or having a flawed relationship. The defense states that Cassie started dating Diddy while he was still in a relationship with Kim Porter, the mother of his four children.

They state,

Regarding the hotel video where Cassie is seen in the hallway being assaulted, they say, this assault happened almost 10 years ago on March 5th of 2016. I expect that we are all going to see this video many, many times throughout this trial. You are going to see it later today, and I expect you to see it many more times throughout this week. You're going to see it a lot. But I want to start by saying two things.

First, what Combs did to Cassie in that videotape is indefensible. It is horrible. It is dehumanizing. It's violent. It's virtually every bad word you can think of. And while it's dehumanizing and violent and terrible, the second most important thing is that it is not evidence of sex trafficking. It is evidence of domestic violence. You will see that it's also evidence of the central theme in this case, which is jealousy. That's what the videotape will show you.

So the defense states that what Diddy really wanted that day was the phone and that the DV is over the phone and not because of sex trafficking. Further asking, what causes a fight about a phone? We can all use our life experiences to show us that. Phones keep the secrets of infidelity. And you will hear that there was another fight even later that year, again, about a phone.

The defense states that the two of them stayed together for two years after that hotel footage and the real reason that Cassie and Diddy break up, according to the defense, is that they were on and off for years. Finally, they break up because, according to the defense, Cassie was very jealous and broke up with Diddy and then started dating her now husband. And then eventually Kim Porter passes away and the defense states,

Then in November of 2018, Kim Porter tragically passed away from pneumonia. Knowing that Combs would be distraught and wanting to be there for him, she did everything she could to be there. She came to his memorial service at his home. She flew to Kim's home state of Georgia to be at the funeral. Don't lose the sight of the fact that amidst a breakup all the way at the end of 2018, she flew to a funeral service to be there for him and support him and his family during this trying time of their lives.

And at the service, at their home, Combs to a group of loved ones, former employees and others, and to many people who on social media were paying respect said, and I quote, Kim was my soulmate. In Cassie's presence for everybody to hear, he said, she was my soulmate. The end of the relationship between Cassie and Combs is important and I want you to focus on the evidence of how and why it ended. When Combs publicly stated Kim Porter was his soulmate to all the people around him who were there, for the first time maybe ever, Cassie realized that

all the things she would not be. I expect many witnesses at this trial to tell you she wanted to be Combs' wife. I expect even she may tell you that. That is what she spent 11 years trying to get, and in one day it became very clear to Cassie she was never going to be that. And if she was never going to be Combs' wife, if she was never going to be the love of his life, then she would leave. And that is what she did on her terms, her choice, for reasons that for her were the right reasons.

The defense does state when she made the decision to leave, there were no repercussions, as the government hinted. She made the choice to leave. She communicated it to him, and then she ran into the arms of another man, which a lot of netizens felt like that part was...

Very interesting, but continuing. Oh, and side note, the defense states that the freak-off videos that they found were not on Diddy's electronics, but on Cassie's, saying, you will hear that the government raided two of his homes. You've already heard that over a year ago. They seized countless electronic devices. The only freak-off videos you will see or hear about at this trial came from her devices that she kept for five years. So when the government talks about power and control, who had the power? Who had the control? Who?

I guess they're hinting at maybe Cassie has the power because she has those videos and could blackmail Diddy? Again, I'm gonna try to leave my personal opinion out of it even though I feel like you guys already know but they continue. After Kim's funeral, they never saw each other again. The very first time that this former couple will see each other after six and a half years of a breakup is in this courtroom later today or tomorrow.

We are all going to witness their closure and that is because she moved on with her life and he moved on with his. You will see that she married the trainer, she had two children with him and she's pregnant with her third. And Combs also moved on with his life. As for Jane, the defense states that you will see her jealousy on full display at the trial and you will see that she was willing to engage in these nights with Combs and then she would be on social media after and she would see that he was with another one of his girlfriends either out at dinner or traveling and she would send messages of regret afterwards.

They state these were born out of jealousy, which was the root of their troubles. And regret does not mean that she was coerced. Her jealousy drove her to make the moves that she made. They also go on to allege and state that Cassie was living in her parents' home when she filed the lawsuit against Diddy. They're kind of insinuating that she had financial troubles and that's why that she didn't go to the police and went to sue him instead.

They state, "Cassie, for example, will tell you that she first made a demand on Combs for $30 million. Another witness will tell you that in a breach of contract case she made a demand for $22 million. And as you listen to these witnesses, and there will be many, as the prosecutor told you, who made civil demands against him, I want you to ask yourself, how many millions of reasons does this witness swearing to tell the truth and nothing but the truth have to lie? How many hundreds of thousands of reasons does this witness swearing to tell the truth and nothing but the truth have to lie?"

So in closing, I ask you once again to listen very carefully to all of the evidence. You are not here to judge or impose your moral beliefs onto this man. You are here as a jury of his peers to determine whether the government can meet its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he has committed these crimes.

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Prior to all of this, like prior to opening statements, Mark Agnifilo and Comey, so the lead prosecutor, they were in the robing room with the judge. So this is not in the courtroom, but it's still on the court transcripts as public record. But Mark is requesting on the record that he...

To summarize it, he wishes and hopes and is requesting that Cassie is already seated at the witness stand before the jurors come in.

And he- Like, they don't want Cassie to walk in front of the jurors? Yes. This is a quote. "Only because of her physical condition." "I mean, there are certain things we can't control about a juror who is 8 and a half months pregnant." I think he means witness. "But I think there is a quality to her walking in front of the jury that I think is easily avoidable." "I'm not making an application for any of the other witnesses."

So there was a whole back and forth between the judge, the prosecutor was like, "That doesn't even make any sense. Why would we be doing that?" The prosecutor says, "Your Honor, we would object. If Your Honor is considering it, I would like to be heard on that. I don't think there's any basis to treat any witness differently because of a medical condition, most notably pregnancy. I think that would be deeply inappropriate." The judge says that he will think about it, but he does think that Ms. Comey makes a very good point.

And he says that we wouldn't treat people differently based on any other sort of medical condition or physical impairment or any other attribute, right? Why would we treat this differently? And Mark says there is a prejudicial quality. Pregnancy is a beautiful and wonderful. It also is a source of potential sympathy.

And the judge is just like, they're going to see the witness, you know, like they're going to see the witness. Like, what do you mean? That doesn't make any sense. Like, what are we trying to achieve? So at this point, I think Mark might try to find support to plead his case to make sure that Cassie is not like walking to the witness stand in front of the jurors. That's so interesting, right? They're playing on, hey, we don't want people to see the visual of her and feel some type of way. It's a long walk.

Okay, so the defendant comes out the door right next to like the defendant chair and then the jurors come out the other door Right and it's they all stay in that side of the courtroom the witnesses They come in from the door that we come in from the double doors behind us So it's like a mo not saying that I agree with this. I think Cassie should do whatever she wants to do, right? No, we should follow the law. Okay, that's what I meant by that and

But also maybe both okay, but the double door is open and like everybody is just staring and then you have to walk Down the aisle and like there's press there's family. There's everybody yeah, and then you like she's a month pregnant Yeah, and then you walk past the jurors and then you sit right next to the judge at the very opposite end of the room Yeah, so it's definitely an intense Yeah

Yeah, so that was requested. Now with that being said, the witnesses are starting. Like they just went into it. So the first witness gets called onto the stand.

And there is a longer hotel video of Didi and Cassie that was shown in court today. So you're going to see this the next day. So this is you're seeing this probably Tuesday. It was on Monday. OK. And the first witness to testify is a security guard, former assistant director of security at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles, Century City, by the name of Israel Flores.

I've never taken the time to like truly think about what a security guard looks like in my head but if I did take the time to picture and draw him out it would probably be this witness. I thought he was gonna rip out of his suit. If he was the security guard in any establishment I just can't imagine someone not following the rules. He's very built.

very built, very tall. But like the way that he's built, I know that in Korea we have like the saying, I don't know if it's like the most appropriate in this setting, but like to give you a visual picture. They call them like the fridge body, right? I think that he, I've never seen someone that built. Okay. Yeah. No, his shoulders were incredibly broad.

And so he walks in as the prosecutor's witness and he's there to recount the events of March 5th, 2016. This is the infamous hotel video footage. He says,

Basically, the hotel has like each floor has a phone. So if you pick it up, it goes directly to them and it pretty much you don't have to dial anything. You just pick up the phone. It goes to instant services and she pretty much directs a call. So like if you need housekeeping, if you need security, she will direct the call.

So he says he gets a call to the sixth floor. A woman is in distress before he even goes. He doesn't know what he's getting into. So he says he checks the cameras and sees a black man just pacing back and forth on the sixth floor. He doesn't rewind the footage. He just sees a man pacing back and forth. He says, I got the call saying that there was a woman in distress. I look at the camera. I see a man walking back and forth. There was no woman in the video. So I'm thinking something happened because I didn't see any. I didn't see a female in the footage. So I wanted to get there as fast as possible to make sure that nothing was going on.

When he gets to the sixth floor, he responds to the call. He says, when I got out of the elevator, I observed a male and a female in the elevator lobby of that floor, like the elevator area. He says, quote, Mr. Combs in a towel and some, like, colored socks, sitting down further away from me on my right side, and I see Miss Cassie in the corner kind of, like, covering her face and bundled up in the corner. He describes Diddy as, quote, it was so...

He was on the chair, slouched down, and he was like, it was like a blank stare. And yeah, as soon as I walked out, it was the best way to describe it was he had a devilish stare. He was just like looking at me. So when I got out of the elevator, I kind of was stuck because I'm looking at him. He's looking at me with like no movement. And then he starts to move. And Cassie, well, she was in the corner and she was, she had her hoodie on. She was pretty much covered up. I couldn't see her face. And she was just, you know, pretty much in the corner.

On the floor he sees a destroyed flower vase just glass shattered everywhere which clearly something is happening but the security guard states I advised them obviously like first I was like hey what's going on obviously they were arguing so I told them like hey if you guys are going to argue you guys have to take it back to your room and then I told them the mess that was there it was going to be charged to their room.

He says Cassie tells her that she just wants to get her phone in her bag and she wants to leave. So he starts escorting them back to their room, likely to grab her stuff. But even as he's escorting them, he states that they're arguing. He says, and we were walking towards the room. And then he eventually started, he like tried to re-engage and I was pretty much like reminding him like, hey, there's other guests in the hotel, just out of respect for them. Let's get back to the room.

He states that he hears Diddy tell Cassie that she can't leave, that she's not going to leave. To which he's like, well, if she wants to leave, she's going to leave. Like, that's pretty much it. They walk into the room. He says, I put my foot in between the door. Again, she wanted to leave. He said that he had mentioned, I don't want her to leave. Well, I don't want you to leave. So I knew if I let the door close, something could happen. So I put my body in between the door before it closed. And I watched her get her stuff.

He says he never fully entered the room. He's just kind of like half in, half out at the door. And then he does see majority of the room. And he does notice that there is a man in dark clothing sitting on the corner of the bed in the room. He doesn't recognize him. He's clothed. He's doing nothing. He's not talking. So he says, you know, he's fully clothed, male, black. He wasn't engaging in any conversation with either of them. And he was just sitting on the corner of the bed.

He says, while he's standing there, there's a lot going on between Diddy and Cassie. He says, so they were going back and forth. First, she was like, you can't leave. Then he was telling her to leave. So it was just like back and forth between the both of them. Ultimately, Cassie leaves the room. Quote, so after she left, I told him like, hey, stay in the room. Again, everything is going to be charged to your room. As I started walking away, he called for me and he said, hey, turn around. He said, hey, I turned around and with...

He's pretty much holding like a stack of money. Pretty much. I don't know. That's the best way I can describe it. He was just pretty much telling me like, hey, take this. Don't tell anyone. Pretty much. The witness says he felt like this was a bribe to not tell anybody. And as for the cash itself, okay, I did the math.

He describes it as being like he holds up his pinky and his thumb. So then I stuck my pen that I was using in between my pinky and my thumb. And like this man has ginormous hands. This is a pretty big dude. So I imagine it's actually bigger than my pinky and my thumb. But I measured the pen and then I calculated how much it would be. So he describes the top bill was $100 bill. And the rest he doesn't know because he didn't go through it. He didn't accept the money. But...

I did the math. If it was a stack of all hundreds, that's $120,000 to be what he described. If it was all 50s, $60,000. All 20s, $25,000. 10s, $12,000. 5,000, $6,000. And if maybe it's just $100,000 on top in all dollar bills, it would be $1,200,000. So he just pulled out like $120,000 of cash. Just like, whoop, here you go. Yeah.

And regardless, well that's what the witness claims, right? Now, the witness turns it down. He says, "I told him I don't want your money. Just go back into your room. Everything is going to be charged to your room and stay in your room." And I left. He says after declining a mortgage, he just goes downstairs to find Cassie where he notices her in the valet area. He says that he hasn't seen any footage.

So he only knows that there's a broken flower vase. There's some sort of disagreement happening between the couple. He starts asking her what happened. He notices that she has a purple eye. And then he says, I asked her, did he do that? Do you want me to call the cops? And all she kept saying is, I just want to leave. After speaking to her, she didn't respond to any of my questions. She was just saying, I want to leave. I want to leave. And when I offered her like, hey, the cops can go to the back of the building. Nobody's going to see. She just kept saying, I want to leave.

So there was no victim there. Obviously, nobody was pressing charges. And then by the time I did draft up the email, nobody, I mean, everybody was gone because Mr. Combs had already left. So when she leaves from the valet area, he goes back up with his manager to talk to Diddy.

And he claims that he goes into Diddy's room and the way that his friend manager talks, he likes to hold his phone up to his chest, almost like he's recording. And he claims that Diddy starts freaking out, thinking this man is recording him. So he's like trying to grab the phone. He's like, are you recording me? He's like reaching for the phone. The security guard pins him up against the wall and he's like, what are you doing? Eventually the whole situation deescalates because he's like, I'm not recording. Like I can show you my phone.

And it deescalates. In the incident report that was entered into evidence, it states that after he was shown that there was no recording, Diddy deescalates and that he just felt scared.

Like, I guess that he was going to lose everything was the general consensus. So then he states, quote, just told him the same thing I told him. The security guard is saying, I just told him, like, everything that happened in the lobby is going to be charged to your room. And he reminded, and we reminded him that it was checkout. So he needed to check out by 3 p.m. I've never seen someone so more diligent about charging damages to somebody's room. But one thing to note is that the guard says he never sees that mysterious man from that hotel room ever again.

Like he wasn't there when they went back. So they leave the room, they take pictures of the broken glass, the broken lace on the sixth floor. The guard will eventually send those attachments along with his incident report to the hotel staff and security. Now there are a few things that he leaves out of his incident report, like the random man in the room, to which he explains he was irrelevant. Like when I got there, he wasn't at the incident. Like when we got to the room, he didn't talk to nobody. He was just not someone, he was just someone that was there.

Which, side note, the incident report, when they showed it to the press, there is a part where, oh this is the quote, where Diddy says, "I just don't want to lose anything and I could lose it all." That's the alleged quote that was written back in 2016 by the security guard into the incident report. So Diddy say that to him? Allegedly.

Now, he does take videos of him arriving on the sixth floor. The security guard takes videos of him arriving on the sixth floor to see Diddy and Cassie. So at this point, he hasn't seen the actual assault footage because that would require him to rewind. He just wants to see when he starts interacting with Diddy. He said that he wanted to take a video of the camera monitor because he didn't think that his wife would believe him.

He said, "Again, I was going home and if I had told my wife, 'Hey, this is what happened,' she wouldn't have believed me, so here's a video." The video of him is like, it was played in court and it was pretty uncomfortable because it's clearly just for his wife, but he's giggling when he sees himself exit the elevator. And then at one point he zooms in on his dress shoes and goes like hella shiny shoes or something along those lines.

Oh, he's videotaping the recording on his phone. And he saw himself on the camera. He's a hell of shiny shoes. Yeah. Now, there is more to the hotel footage, but it's generally like the same stuff that we saw, just different angles. I do think that this situation, the security guard could have handled it a lot worse. But yeah, I guess I just...

Yeah, that just makes me sad for Cassie, I guess. Because after he takes these videos, he just kind of moves on. And his whole thing was, you know, Cassie didn't want to file a police report. She didn't want to press charges. What could I do? Did he already left? It's not like this isn't really my hotel that I'm running. I took these videos for my wife. And then the incident just kind of left his mind for a little bit. Yeah.

Now, the cross-examination starts because the direct examination was done by the prosecutors because he's the prosecutor's witness. But Brian Steele walks up to the podium in his candy cane colored tie. This is like his very first cross-examination. I will say that he does have a presence when he cross-examines.

He has kind of like a southern flair. It's not overly southern. It's not like, because I know a lot of southern attorneys, they can fall into the southern religious leader category.

trope that a lot of attorneys talk about but apparently he is not one of those. The first question that he focuses on with the security guard though is on the incident report you said that you have to cover who, what, why, where, when, what and Brian Steele says and the reason that you do every detail is because or significant detail is because it's important because later other people who did not witness what you witnessed may want to review your notes. That's fair to say? Yeah the hotel staff yes.

Brian Steele argues that the incident report is to memorialize the incident because it's been nine years. Now, I would like to ask you a couple of things about that report, that incident report that you did. Just explain, if you don't mind. You mentioned that when you got off the elevator the first time, you get off the elevator approximately 11.14, 11.15 a.m. Pacific time that day. Okay, you described Mr. Combs as having a devilish, scary look on his face. Do you remember saying that to the jury?

Yes? Where in the report do you describe Mr. Combs like that? It's not, it's, that's my opinion, so it had nothing to do with the incident. Okay, that has nothing to do with what happened that day, is that what you're saying? Yeah, with the incident. That is just your opinion now, correct? No, it was my opinion then and now, but you didn't put that in your report. Again, it was my opinion. Answer my question if you don't mind. It's not in the report, true? No. No.

So Brian Steele then brings up the next thing that was not included in the incident report. Now you say that the young lady, Cassie, has a purple eye. Do you remember telling the jurors that? Yes. Tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury where in your report, if you need to see it, it's no problem, you wrote that she had any type of discoloration in her eye. I don't recall that on my report. They bring up the incident report. Point to the jurors and where you say that Cassie has a purple eye.

It doesn't. He's like, I couldn't hear, I apologize. It doesn't. It doesn't. Now, that would be significant, wouldn't it? Yeah? Because you have to know if somebody gets injured on your property, that's important for not only you, but your coworkers to know, true?

Correct. Then he has the guard read through the second paragraph of the report, which reads, and then when we went, so he's saying that when he took Diddy and Cassie back to the hotel room, he quote, Miss Cece was told to leave by Mr. Combs, so she did.

And so Brian Steele is like, do you see that? Yeah, at that point, I didn't believe it was a significant fact because again, they were just going back and forth. So I'm not going to put something like he told her off. I'm not going to say that. Like he said leave eventually and then she left. So you wrote down what you just said that Mr. Combs told Cassie to leave. Yeah, and she left. But you didn't write down that Mr. Combs told her that she could not leave.

Yeah, because it's not important. That's him just telling her don't leave and me telling him she's going to leave and then he says you're going to leave. So of course I don't put he told her that she needs to leave. Officer, if it's not important, we're talking about nine years later. Yeah. You remember the unimportant detail nine years later, but it's not important enough? I remember most of the incident, sir.

He also tries to briefly bring up the idea that perhaps maybe the bribe or what the guard thought was a bribe was perhaps just Diddy paying for the damages of the hotel room through cash. And then he's like, we don't accept cash, basically. Brian Steele also gets the guard to talk about how he pinned up Diddy up against the wall for freaking out about that alleged believed recording, right, that his manager was taking. And he says that he put his forearm up to Diddy's chest and then pushed him up against the wall. But the incident report reads that

When I grabbed him, when I grabbed his hand, I told him to back off as we took his hand away from the MOD, like the manager. So Brian Steele is trying to argue that he doesn't remember clearly or making stuff up or just challenging his credibility? Okay, you know, I think the jurors are under a different set of rules than everybody else is, right? The court of public opinion is always different from the court of...

I think that Brian Steele is probably doing the best with what he's given. But I think after, like we watched that footage like five times in the hotel room or the hotel lobby. I don't know. The security guard could have lied that Pikachu was falling from the sky. And I don't think that it would have, at least in a lot of public opinion, I don't think that it would have changed much. Got it. Yep.

But I know, like, technically it's the charges that's being argued, not the domestic violence in the video. But it was just, yeah, it just felt like not as serious after watching that video to be like, but why didn't you put it in the incident report? But again, I think that he was doing the best that he could. However, yeah, they also kind of have a back and forth about the hotel room itself. The security guard is stating that it's,

a room where he saw the man on the bed. Brian Steele is stating that it's a suite with the living room, so he wouldn't have been able to see a man sitting on the bed if he was only half into the room because there's another door that leads into the bedroom. The security guard is saying it was a pull-out sofa then. And it's just like this back and forth. And then eventually Brian Steele is like, did you realize that this was a presidential suite in that hotel? And it felt like a very big moment where I was like, oh my gosh.

It's a presidential street like sweet something's about to happen and then the security guard just hits back like just quip Presidential suite on the sixth floor on the corner. I don't think so. I

And then we just like never go back to the presidential suite. It irks me so much. I tried calling the Intercontinental Hotel. They're closed because I'm like, I need to know now if it's a presidential suite. I don't I don't think it was from what I can tell. I don't know. But it does seem like there's lots of suites in the Intercontinental Hotel. It's very complicated, but they're closed. They're being renovated.

But eventually it is redirected with prosecutor Slavik where the guard explains that he didn't include every single detail in the incident report. And so I guess that explains the purple eye, the other things that he didn't include. But not only that, he also explains that he did not believe that Diddy was high or on drugs at the time. He states that he seemed pretty sober and they start playing that hotel video footage again because I think the one, one of the bigger arguments with Brian Steele's cross is that he just kept

not kept, but he was trying to argue that the incident report says that Diddy told Cassie to leave, right? And the prosecutors, they go up, they start playing the video, the hotel footage, where Diddy grabs Cassie by the hoodie, slams her down, stomps on her,

And then at 31 seconds, going to 56 seconds during that time frame, the prosecutor asks the guard, Officer Flores, towards the end of that snippet, did you see Mr. Combs dragging Cassie? Because I don't know if you recall, but he was dragging her. Yes, ma'am. What direction was he dragging her in? To the room. And she states, nothing further, and steps away from the podium.

And that is the first witness. So I know you guys are probably hearing about the second witness that went up and testified. He was someone that participated in the so-called freak-offs with Cassie and Diddy, and he's been testifying. And there's been a lot of salacious stuff that's been coming out and a lot of headline snippets of his testimony. We're going to do that tomorrow because his cross-examination hasn't been completely finished, and I feel like it's only fair to show both.

if possible at the same time. Because then you're like, I'm trying to be objective. Okay. Yes. So I'm trying to show both at the same time. I think it would be better, more clear. And then I also know that Cassie is testifying. So yeah, stay tuned for that. Let me know in the comments, what are your thoughts on the first witness? Do you think that it really mattered much? And also the opening statements. I do think a lot of people are upset by

Both parties. I feel like the internet is upset by the defense's opening statement, which was to be expected. I think a lot of people inside the courtroom kind of expected that, but then were kind of disappointed because a lot of people had high hopes for the prosecutor's opening statements. I don't know. What are your thoughts?

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