Security officer: Diddy ‘gave me $100,000’ after handing over Cassie video

Summary

Diddy On Trial: Episode Summary
"Security officer: Diddy ‘gave me $100,000’ after handing over Cassie video"
Release Date: June 3, 2025
Host: Anoushka Matanda Doughty
Reporter: Cheyenne Roundtree, Senior Investigative Reporter, Rolling Stone Magazine

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Diddy On Trial, hosted by Anoushka Matanda Doughty from BBC Sounds, listeners are taken deep into the heart of the Southern District of New York Court in Lower Manhattan. The episode explores the controversial allegations surrounding hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, focusing particularly on a new revelation involving a substantial monetary transaction linked to the suppression of a damaging video featuring his ex-partner, Cassie Ventura.

Courtroom Drama Unfolds

The episode opens with a dramatic incident in the courtroom where a Diddy supporter was escorted out due to their outburst. This individual voiced strong emotions about the ongoing trial, expressing frustration over how the case was being perceived and discussed publicly.

Courtroom Witness (02:15):
"I told Diddy, Diddy, everyone thinks this is a joke. And I don't think it's funny for people to laugh at a black man going through what he's going through right now."

The witness further emphasized the gravity of the situation:

Courtroom Witness (02:31):
"Laughing at black man. Legacy being destroyed. Black American man. To be quite honest, the press, the grassroots people, everyone has been laughing. I don't care if it sounded funny. It's not funny."

After the disruption, Anoushka Matanda Doughty steps into the courtroom to report on the day's proceedings alongside Cheyenne Roundtree.

Eddie Garcia's Testimony: The $100,000 Bribe

A significant portion of the episode delves into the testimony of Eddie Garcia, a security officer at the Intercontinental Hotel. Garcia provides a detailed account of alleged attempts to suppress unfavorable video footage involving Diddy and Cassie Ventura.

Cheyenne Roundtree (04:12):
"Eddie Garcia... testified, and there's been a lot of talk about this $100,000 alleged bribe that made that video go away, but then it didn't go away because we've all seen that video by now."

Garcia recounts receiving persistent phone calls from Christina Karam (KK), who was seeking access to the video. Initially skeptical, Garcia was approached directly by Diddy Combs, who pressured him to comply.

Cheyenne Roundtree (05:00):
"Eddie says that after he left work for the day, he got a call from a New York area code on his personal cell phone and he picked up. It was KK... and then KK passed the phone to Combs, he said. And Combs began playing on his sympathies about I need your help. I think you can help me. And wanted to see that video."

Despite Garcia's initial reluctance and recommendations to follow official channels, an arrangement was reportedly made. He handed over the video after a FaceTime call with Cassie Ventura, who expressed her desire to remove the footage due to an upcoming movie premiere.

Cheyenne Roundtree (06:05):
"Eddie says he was given an address after he got the videotape. He met up with Diddy, KK and a member of Combs Security's team... Eddie says that Diddy asked him a couple times, is this the only copy?... And he signed some paperwork that had Combs Enterprises on the top of it and did."

Garcia describes receiving $100,000 in cash, which he details how it was distributed:

Cheyenne Roundtree (06:54):
"Eddie said that 50k went to his supervisor who actually downloaded the tape and then he kept 30 for himself. And then someone else there that gave over his ID for Combs to collect was given the other 20k."

Prosecution's Narrative: Unveiling a Criminal Enterprise

The prosecution utilizes Garcia's testimony to paint a broader picture of a potentially criminal operation orchestrated by Diddy Combs. By highlighting the collaboration between Garcia, KK, and Combs, they suggest a systematic effort to suppress damaging evidence.

Cheyenne Roundtree (08:01):
"So the reason why this is important is because you have KK, you have a security member all working together to try to obtain this tape and then paying for the security members to make it go away. And the prosecution's building a full picture of how this alleged criminal enterprise operated in real time all around this one specific event."

The involvement of Combs Enterprises in these transactions adds weight to the prosecution's claims of an organized effort to manipulate the situation.

Derek Ferguson's Testimony: Financial Insights

Another pivotal moment in the trial comes from Derek Ferguson, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Diddy's companies. Ferguson provides an in-depth look into the financial operations, outlining the separation between personal and business accounts and detailing the organizational structures within Combs' enterprises.

Cheyenne Roundtree (09:16):
"Derek broke down a lot of the ideas and themes around running a company and business disclosures and bank records... He worked for Diddy from 1998 up until 2017, so a good chunk of time. And he said, yes, these are the bank accounts associated with Diddy, these are personal accounts, these are business accounts."

During cross-examination, prosecutor Mark Agnifolo challenges Ferguson on the lack of direct evidence linking Diddy to violent activities, central to the racketeering (RICO) charges.

Cheyenne Roundtree (10:27):
"The most powerful moment of the cross examination is when Mark went through basically the indictment and the accounts where it was alleging racketeering... Each answer Derek said, no. However, at the end, Mark did ask Derek, is there anything about Sean Combs personally that makes you not like him or makes you have a negative opinion of him? And Derek paused and he said, I don't know how to answer that."

The December 2011 File: Money Trails and Threats

Ferguson's testimony also touches upon financial transactions from December 2011, shedding light on an incident where Cassie Ventura's mother sent Diddy $20,000 under duress.

Cheyenne Roundtree (11:22):
"Prosecutors showed bank statements from one of Combs' bank accounts... around December 13th, 14th, there was a payment from Combs account to Cassie Ventura, and it was for $20,000... Cassie's mom testified that Combs said that this was for business expenses, that he needed it right away... she took out equity on her house to pay that $20,000."

This transaction, juxtaposed with millions flowing through the account, suggests manipulation and coercion, reinforcing the prosecution's case against Diddy's alleged involvement in illicit activities.

Looking Ahead: Upcoming Testimonies

As the trial progresses, listeners are given a preview of the next day's proceedings. Frank Piazze, an FBI video specialist, is set to explain the intricacies of the CCTV footage from the Intercontinental Hotel, providing technical insights into how the video was compiled from multiple camera angles.

Additionally, Brianna Buncolen, who filed a $10 million civil lawsuit against Diddy for allegedly threatening her over a balcony, is expected to testify. Her testimony is anticipated to further support the racketeering charges by illustrating a pattern of threatening behavior.

Cheyenne Roundtree (13:16):
"Vaughn is expected to testify tomorrow. And she alleged that, in a fit of rage, Combs dangled her over Cassie's 17th floor balcony... So again, is speaking to that racketeering charge."

Conclusion

This episode of Diddy On Trial meticulously dissects the layers of the case against Sean "Diddy" Combs, presenting compelling testimonies that suggest a coordinated effort to suppress damaging evidence through financial inducements and intimidation. Through detailed reporting and incisive analysis, Anoushka Matanda Doughty and Cheyenne Roundtree provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding the trial, setting the stage for the unfolding drama in the courtroom.

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Note: For those interested in further details about the case and previous testimonies, revisiting earlier episodes of Diddy On Trial is recommended to gain a complete perspective on the ongoing legal battle.

Transcript

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

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[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello and welcome back to Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds with me, Anoushka Matanda Doughty. Now it is all kicking off here at the Southern District of New York Court in Lower Manhattan. Inside the courtroom this morning, we had a Diddy supporter who had to be escorted out because she was upset by how people were talking about the case when there were breaks. Here she is speaking to me afterwards.

[Courtroom Witness]

I told Diddy, Diddy, everyone thinks this is a joke. And I don't think it's funny for people to laugh at a black man going through what he's going through right now.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And that's what you shouted out in the actual courtroom.

[Courtroom Witness]

In the actual courtroom. It's not funny.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

What's not funny?

[Courtroom Witness]

Laughing at black man. Legacy being destroyed. Black American man. To be quite honest, the press, the grassroots people, everyone has been laughing. I don't care if it sounded funny. It's not funny.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

How did Diddy react?

[Courtroom Witness]

Well I heard he had his mouth open and shaking his head. Yeah, and I heard that he did. Like he was proud to hear me say it or to hear those words, regardless of who it was coming from.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

So that was one of the people who disrupted court proceedings this morning. Now, I'm about to head into the courtroom, which means relinquishing anything I've ever owned remotely related to technology. But I'll be back out later with Cheyenne to fill you in on what happened today. Okay, so court's finished. It's four o' clock. I'm here with Cheyenne Roundtree, the senior investigative reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. Today was filled with a little bit of drama with someone getting kicked out.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

First thing, before the jury was even brought in, we heard about someone in the courtroom that leaked Mia's name. And they're banned from court now.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And so Mia, who testified under a pseudonym as one of the prosecution's main witnesses. Somebody's leaked her real name to the public.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Yeah, and there's an order of protection right now for Mia because the court wants to protect her identity. And so therefore, someone being in the courtroom and then disclosing that violates that.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

So that's a pretty big start to the day. But then we had a really interesting witness first up that provided another side to the story of the 2016 CCTV footage.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

So a man named Eddie Garcia, who was a security officer at the Intercontinental Hotel, testified, and there's been a lot of talk about this $100,000 alleged bribe that made that video go away, but then it didn't go away because we've all seen that video by now.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And he tells a story of these repeated phone calls that he was getting, but not from Diddy initially.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Eddie says that he was first contacted by a woman named Christina Karam, who everyone has been referring to as kk And Eddie that it was KK who began calling him and asking to see the footage or to get the footage.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And did Eddie provide any context for what Christina thought was on the footage and how she explained what she thought was on the footage?

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Eddie says that KK began by saying that Combs was intoxicated, that he didn't really know what happened. And basically they just wanted to see what happened on this tape. And Eddie disclosed to her off the record, it's bad. So Eddie says that after that, KK seemed a bit desperate to get her hands on that video.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And then there's this phone call where Diddy actually speaks to Eddie directly.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Eddie says that after he left work for the day, he Got a call from a New York area code on his personal cell phone and he picked up. It was kk. He didn't know how they got his number, so he's a bit nervous. And then KK passed the phone to Combs, he said. And Combs began playing on his sympathies about I need your help. I think you can help me. And wanted to see that video. Eddie kept telling them, I feel you, but you need to contact the general manager of the hotel or get a subpoena. At least that is until there seems to be this floating of an arrangement that could be made.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

But didn't Eddie tell the court that he was still a bit nervous about Cassie's role in the whole thing?

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Eventually he said that his fears were relieved because he got on a FaceTime with Cassie after he handed over the video. And she said, yeah, yep, I want this video to go away too. I have a movie premiere coming up. And kind of signed off on this agreement. Eddie says that he was given an address after he got the videotape. He met up with Diddy, KK and a member of Combs Security's team. They handed off the thumb drive which had the video on it. Eddie says that Diddy asked him a couple times, is this the only copy? Which he then called someone else and they confirmed. And he signed some paperwork that had Combs Enterprises on the top of it and did. Eddie left the room, came back with a paper bag and a cash counting machine. And Eddie says that he watched as 100k was counted out for him.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

The paperwork that he says he signed, was it a non disclosure agreement?

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Eddie says he signed two different forms. One was a form that guaranteed or confirmed that this was the only copy of this video. A second was a agreement that had a million dollar clause tied to it.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

So Eddie's then given in his recollection $100,000. Does he keep all the money?

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Eddie said that 50k went to his supervisor who actually downloaded the tape and then he kept 30 for himself. And then someone else there that gave over his ID for combs to collect was given the other 20k.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

So somebody else who worked in the hotel who's seen the footage. Yeah, so there are a few different things here. We keep hearing about the same event over and over again and lots of people are quite confused because they feel it depicts an instance of domestic violence, which is a narrative that the defense have offered to the jury. Why is it so important for the prosecution to have Eddie tell the jury that it was Christina who called that he signed papers with Combs Global on it. What charge does it speak to?

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

So the reason why this is important is because you have kk, you have a security member all working together to try to obtain this tape and then paying for the security members to make it go away. And the prosecution's building a full picture of how this alleged criminal enterprise operated in real time all around this one specific event.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

Right. Because Christina was employed by Combs Enterprises. And he signed Combs Enterprises paperwork. And then the government at saying Combs Enterprises was actually a criminal organization. I mean, the defense team have said that he was just trying to retrieve his phone from Cassie.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Yeah. And they're saying he's a celebrity. This is embarrassing. And yes, it would have been a big headline thing if this came out. So of course he doesn't want it to come out. But prosecutors are saying take a step back and don't look at these incidents as isolated. Put it together in a bigger picture. And what does it speak to? Prosecutors say it speaks to sex trafficking, it speaks to. Speaks to racketeering, and that is what they're charging him with.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And we had somebody else, a second witness in the latter half of the day. There was a lot of talk about business and economics, and he did speak in a lot of business language. But Derek Ferguson, who was the CFO at Diddy's companies, he took the stand as well. What did he have to say?

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Well, Derek broke down a lot of the ideas and themes around running a company and business disclosures and bank records, et cetera. He worked for Diddy from 1998 up until 2017, so a good chunk of time. And he said, yes, these are the bank accounts associated with Diddy, these are personal accounts, these are business accounts.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And they went through lots of different organizational structures, pointing out who's the CEO here, who's the COO there. Lots of names that we haven't necessarily heard before. None of them.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Diddy Combs ran a lot of successful businesses. And there were a lot of people involved. There was HR, there's CFOs, there's CEOs, there's a lot of different entities and a lot of different people pulling these businesses together. That it wasn't just Combs at the top. There was a lot of executives and people as part of these businesses and that these were legitimate businesses in the cross examination.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

I mean, tricky to follow, actually, if you don't have a business degree. Some of the language that was being used, there was a lengthy sidebar in the middle. And then Mark Agnifolo came back with some really rather direct questioning that spoke directly to the RICO charge.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Yeah, the most powerful moment of the cross examination is when Mark went through basically the indictment and the accounts where it was alleging racketeering. And he asked Derek directly, did you see anyone commit violence? Did you see anyone be coerced? Did you see X, Y and Z? And each answer Derek said, no. However, at the end, Mark did ask Derek, you know, is there anything about Sean Combs personally that makes you not like him or makes you have a negative opinion of him? And Derek paused and he said, I don't know how to answer that. And so then Mark dropped the question.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

They did also use Derek's direct testimony to patch up the bit of another story that we've heard about that December 2011 incident that Cassie's mom spoke about sending money because Diddy was threatening to release sexual tapes of Cassie. She says she sent over £20,000. Derek filled in a different part of that story.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Yeah, so prosecutors showed bank statements from one of Combs bank accounts. And in this period of December 1st to December 31st of 2011, there was $3.2 million that passed in and out of this one account, which, seeing these numbers was like, wow. In that disclosure, around December 13th, 14th, there was a payment from Combs account to Cassie Ventura, and it was for $20,000. And then on December 23rd, the same day that Cassie says that he, Combs went to Cape Cudi's house, that he's threatening her, you see a incoming wire transfer from Cassie's parents to combs account for $20,000. And if you remember, Cassie's mom testified that Combs said that this was for business expenses, that he needed it right away. And so she took out equity on her house to pay that $20,000. To see that amid the millions of dollars sitting in that account already, it's kind of pennies in comparison. And then a couple days later, you see that that money was sent back to Cassie's parents. So it completes the paper trail of what happened there.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And we wrapped up with Derek today. We did get a little bit of an insight into who's coming tomorrow. We've got Frank Piazze, who's an FBI video specialist.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

He's there to explain a little bit more about the Intercontinental Hotel, where we see Combs running down the hallway, him attacking Cassie. He's going to be explaining a little bit more about how the video actually was compiled because it was taken from multiple camera angles. So we're in for more of that discussion. Tomorrow.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

And then we have a familiar name to people who've been with us since the beginning of the podcast, Brianna Buncolen or Barna. She's going to be taking the stand. If we think back, we know she's got a $10 million civil lawsuit against Diddy and for allegedly dangling her over a balcony. Now, he denies all those allegations.

[Cheyenne Roundtree]

Yeah. So Vaughn is expected to testify tomorrow. And she alleged that, you know, in a fit of rage, Combs dangled her over Cassie's 17th floor balcony, which we've seen many pictures of in the lead up to her testimony. So again, is speaking to that racketeering charge.

[Anoushka Matanda Doughty]

Yeah. So if anybody wants to get ahead of that, you can go back and listen to that episode where we did cover it in quite a lot of detail. And we have heard a lot about this 17th floor apartment throughout the trial. Shen, thank you so much for filling us in on that today. That was Cheyenne Roundtree, senior investigative reporter with Rolling Stone magazine. And that's it for this episode of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Mutanda Doughty. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing. And if you're in the UK and would like support about any of the issues we've talked about in this program, if you're you can go to BBC.co.uk actionline.

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