← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
WARNING: Graphic Testimony | Witness Destroyed On Cross & Jane Doe Takes The Stand | United States vs. Sean Combs Day 17
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Ashley Banfield
Foreign. Hey, everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead serious. We're back inside the federal courtroom where Sean Diddy Combs is facing sex trafficking and RICO charges. And day 17 was intense. We started with the final blows in a brutal cross examination. And when I say brutal, that is not hyperbole. This was an evisceration. And Diddy's lawyer, Rachel Westmoreland, proved once again that she is a viper when it comes to cross. She drilled into every detail of that infamous balcony dangling allegation, the one where a witness says that Diddy held her over a 17 story ledge. Westmoreland went after the timeline and the injuries and even some hotel receipts. And I'm going to have all of that in just a second because we were also introduced to a second sex trafficking accuser. A woman testifying under the name Jane Doe. Her voice in court was barely a whisper. Like, barely. It was really hard to even hear her. But what she said was proof again that Sean Combs P. Diddy is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad boyfriend. But when it comes to sex trafficker, well, that's hard to say because when it comes to this witness, she's really only halfway through. And I am so far not seeing it. Not yet anyway. From luxury hotel setups dripping in baby oil to what she called hotel nights, better known to us now as freak offs, those things she said stretched for 30 hours straight. Jane described a relationship that started with affection and spiraled into full blown control. So let's get right into it. Before the jury ever entered the room, the judge kicked things off with a round of housekeeping. And it was in the form of a warning. Any attempt to sketch or publicly share Jane Doe's image, even in chalk in that main courtroom or even in the overflow room, that would come with serious consequences. And with that warning on the record, court got underway. And the day opened with Brianna Bungolen, better known as Bana Bana, was back on the stand for a second day of cross examination. And yesterday was rough, right? Today was way worse. The defense wasted no time and they went straight to Bona's drug use. Diddy's lawyer, Nicole Westmoreland, brought up what she called an eight hour ketamine day. When Bona and Cassie and Diddy went on a marathon drug binge. Westmoreland asked Bona if it happened after Diddy had allegedly dangled her over that 17 story ledge. And Bona said, yes, it did. So obviously then came the natural question. Why would you do drugs with someone that you were so afraid of. And Bona told the jury, quote, I felt like we were trying to get along, but I tried to keep my distance. Bana told the jury, it was complicated. And that's when Diddy's lawyer came out swinging, armed with photos and receipts and a single goal to prove that the entire balcony story was absolutely impossible. And she started by going after the bruises that Bana had photographed on herself after Diddy allegedly threw her into the patio furniture right after dangling her over that 17th story balcony. Yesterday, the prosecution showed metadata, metadata that confirmed the photo of the bruise was taken on September 26, 2016, in Los Angeles. But here's the problem. Diddy's lawyer had receipts from the Trump International Hotel in New York from September 24th to September 29th. Two days before and three days after Bana says Diddy was dangling her off a balcony clear across the country. The New York hotel was booked under Frank Black, one of Diddy's aliases. And according to records, the person who was in that room had ordered nearly $2,000 worth of breakfasts on the 25th, the 26th, and the 27th. Okay, well, maybe it was somebody else, right, in the hotel. Maybe Diddy just let somebody spend all that money on a hotel and all those breakfasts. Then came the haymaker. Diddy and Cassie were actually out publicly on the east coast during that time frame. On September 25, they were at the Prudential center in Newark, New Jersey, for a performance, and they showed up together at a charity event in New York on September 26, the day of the alleged balcony incident in LA. That's when Diddy's lawyer asked Bona, quote, so you agree with me that one person cannot be in two places at the same time. And Bona's reply was, in theory, yes. In theory doesn't apply here. This is what you call a mic drop moment for these defense lawyers. They are earning their millions. And I got to tell you, this is also a moment where a juror was smirking. It's not just one moment where a juror was smirking. It's a big enough moment that the juror was smirking at that point, because, I mean, come on, you literally were just caught in a lie. The receipts, the public appearances of Diddy in New York. But you're saying on the very same day this is happening in la? It's impossible, even with the private jet. But what's important here is not how you and I feel. What's important is how the jury feels. And if a juror was Smirking at that moment, that ain't good. And here's what's worse. That same juror reporters say they've caught this juror smirking several times on several days and only, only when a prosecution witness seems to be losing ground under a ruthless grilling by Diddy's lawyers. It's become a bit of a pattern. And so that's the kind of thing you don't want to hear. Now, does everybody on the juror feel that jury feel that way? I don't think so. Not all of them are smirking, but this one guy is. And his smirk has gone to a full blown smile on this day. And I want to tell you something else about this. And if you look at the polls TMZ has been conducting some, a lot of reporters have been conducting informal polls. What you typically are hearing is that men feel very differently about these witnesses than women, generally speaking, that men think these women are gold diggers and that they're liars. Women, generally speaking, tend not to feel that way right away. And I remind you again, the juror who's smirking is a dude. So the cross did not end there with that blistering moment, the mic drop moment. Ms. Westmoreland dug into a claim made by Bona's former lawyer that a sexual assault had happened. Right? That was an allegation that Bona herself, she didn't claim that, that her lawyer had sort of thrown into the claim. And then Bonna, you know, fired the lawyer. And Westmoreland asked why she didn't walk that claim back after she fired the lawyer. Another moment for the smirking juror. And not just a smirk. I told you he smiled today. This was the moment when he started really fully smiling. Right? That's not good for the government. It's very good for Diddy. Diddy's lawyer continued with the withering cross examination, asking this witness, quote, ma' am, you came in here and lied to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Do you agree? Banner replied, quote, I can't agree with that. Westmoreland asked point blank, quote, sean Combs did not cause the injuries you showed in court, did he? Banna did not answer, but instead asked for the question to be repeated. And so the lawyer did, quote, you came in here and lied to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, didn't you? And Bona stared back and said, again, I cannot agree with that. And then Westmoreland asked Bona outright, are you using this lawsuit as a way to become a millionaire? Bona stayed calm and told the jury that she was focused on speaking truthfully and would accept whatever outcome, the judge decided. But Westmoreland kept pushing, questioning whether Bona was motivated by money. Bona insisted she wasn't, that her goal was justice, not a payday. And that, mercifully for her, was the end of Bona's brutal cross examination. And by the time she stepped off the witness stand, Bona had said, I don't recall or I don't remember more than a dozen times just this morning alone. This was definitely a big win for Diddy's side today. But then, did he seem to grab defeat from the jaws of victory? The judge zeroed in on the defense table and specifically one Sean Diddy, Puffy Puff Daddy Combs. The judge looked right at Puff Daddy's lawyer, Mark Ignifolo, and said that his client was, quote, nodding vigorously towards the jury despite clear instructions not to engage with the jury at all. This is a big, big no, no in a trial. Judges look at that as influencing a jury, and this judge was not having it. If you have been listening to my recaps of this trial, every single day, Diddy sits at defense table and nods along when there's a witness on the witness stand that he agrees with. You know, the people who say, oh, Diddy was like a God. I learned so much from Diddy. Diddy worked so hard. They were really good times. Diddy was such a great guy at times. That's why I said these messages that I love you. Diddy would nod along like, yeah, yeah, that's me. But the minute the witnesses on the stand started saying things he didn't like, you know, like the freak off stuff, I wasn't into it, and the money changed hands and all those things, Diddy would start to shake his head like this, furiously, and he'd push himself out from defense table like he was mad. Well, in the last, you know, little bit, he's been doing his head shake right at the jury, right? Looking right at them, going, no, like that. You can't do that in court. You can't do that in court. You cannot look off towards a jury, lock eyes with them, and start shaking your head like the witness is lying. And Judge Subramanian said if this happens again, he's going to have to issue a curative instruction to the jury, essentially telling them to disregard Diddy's behavior. And that is never good for a defendant to be characterized in that way by the judge, because the judge is the guy who doesn't take sides in a case, Right? Judge says, if what he's saying, don't do this again. If what he's saying doesn't work. Judge says if Diddy starts doing this again, the head nods and the. The head shakes. The judge said he could be barred from the courtroom. Diddy could be barred from his own trial completely. Like, just think about this for a second. Diddy, I have said before, seems to suffer from a king complex, right? I am the king. Everybody do as I say or I am going to get pissed. And we've seen him get pissed in the hallway at Cassie because Cassie was leaving. And we've seen the wrath. We've seen it with our own eyes. The king complex seems to be showing its ugly little head with his small reactions. And his small reactions seem to be getting bigger. So who knows if what the judge did today is going to have any effect. Maybe it'll curb his behavior for a little bit. But I have a feeling with a guy who's got a personality like Diddy, I think it's gonna come back. Or maybe it'll start showing itself another way. I don't know. I'm willing to wait, I'm willing to look, I'm willing to keep an open mind. But the next witness called to the stand was a guy named Enrique Santos. And I was all excited because I really didn't know much about who he was gonna be, but thought, ooh, has he got something to corroborate? Turns out he's an investigative analyst for the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York. Woohoo. How exciting. Data analyst. His job is actually diggin through data. And he walked the jury through the process of extracting information from iPhones step by step. And yes, it was technical. So think operating systems and recovery logs, metadata paths, the kind of stuff that make your eyes glaze over if you're not really fluent in digital forensics. But the long and short of this witness was that Santos had extracted data from three iPhones belonging to Cassie Ventura, plain and simple. So basically, he authenticated this data for the record. You do that. You have to do that. If you got data, you got to authenticate it for the official court record. And so they did that. And then came the cross examination, right from the defense. They only had one question. How many of those recovered messages were deleted? Santos told the jury that up to two thirds of the messages he found had been deleted. But, and this is key, they were not gone forever. You probably heard that, right? Deleting isn't really deleting. Santos explained that when you Delete something from your phone, it is not actually erased. It's just marked for deletion. And it sits there hidden in the phone's operating system, waiting to be overwritten when you have too much data. And it's got to push something out to make room for the new stuff coming in. Sometimes the messages do vanish for goods for good, but sometimes they. They stick around. And that is how the investigators in this case got two thirds of those messages back. And that was the end of this witness's testimony. And next up was the biggest name of the day, the biggest witness whose name we don't actually even know, because it's a woman testifying under the pseudonym Jane Doe. And here's what you need to know about Jane. She is the second alleged victim named in the prosecution's sex trafficking charges. She testified today very, very softly, barely above a whisper. She's a single mom, and she told the jury before meeting Sean Combs that she made her income through social media, doing modeling and brand deals and online content. She said she met sean combs in 2020 while on a girls trip to Miami, back when he was dating one of her friends. Jane said that while lounging by the pool at Diddy's house, one of her friends asked for drugs. And Jane told the jury that Diddy said okay and took Jane into his private home studio, where a man pulled out something she called, quote, pink powder. Jane remembers asking if it was safe and that both Diddy and the man looked surprised and then said, quote, yeah, it's the best. The next day, Jane said there was a pool party, and on the final night, Diddy invited the girls back for a movie night. On that trip, Jane's friend, the one who had been dating Diddy, apparently got pretty upset because Jane's friend suspected that something was going on between Jane and Diddy. And she had reason to be suspicious because Jane admitted that she and Diddy had been flirting during this Miami trip. During the movie night, Jane actually texted Diddy, quote, I'd like to take you out. And from then on, Diddy started pursuing her. Jane said that she was a bit hesitant at first, not because she didn't like him, because she still had some guilt there about her friend and all right, but then when her friend got engaged to somebody else, she figured it was fine to let Diddy know that she had feelings for him. And she said eventually they had a heart to heart. So Jane said that she was transparent about her past, including a previous relationship with somebody that Diddy knew and with whom she Had a child. She told the court that Diddy and her baby daddy did not get along, but that it seemed to be okay. Seemed to be okay. It didn't bother Puff at this point. And once they cleared all that air, Jane said the following quote, we made lots of love, end quote. By the time that January 2021 Miami trip wrapped up, Jane told the jury she was absolutely head over heels in love with Diddy. And from there, the relationship escalated. She said they were texting and calling and facetiming all the time. Jane told the jury that Diddy began showering her with gifts and with drugs. She described their relationship as intense, saying that Diddy love bombed her. Jane told the jury that after one of their fights, Diddy proposed something called a love contract and did so verbally with Jane. As part of the contract, Jane asked for $15,000 a month in allowance. Diddy decided to negotiate encountered with 10,000. Okay. Jane agreed. But rather than giving her the money, Diddy said he would pay her rent and her rent was $10,000 a month. Jane said that Diddy introduced pornography into their sexual relationship and that he'd show her videos, very graphic ones, and tell her that they were part of his fantasies. She said he then suggested they bring another man into their sex life and that Diddy called up a male escort right there on the spot. What followed was a description of what we have heard from the witness stand before. The typical night that Diddy's ex girlfriend Cassie described as a freak off. But Jane didn't use that phrase. Instead, she called them hotel nights. Jane said the hotel nights always took place in upscale hotel suites with dinner dimmed, red lights, music playing, alcohol flowing. But it was the setup that she said really stuck with her most sheets, blankets and towels draped over all the furniture to protect it from what she described as excessive baby oil. Jane testified that during hotel nights, they'd blow through more than a dozen bottles of baby oil. When asked how often baby oil played a role in these so called hotel nights, Jane didn't even hesitate. She said, quote, often, all the time, end quote. And she described the nights as being drug fueled. She said Diddy regularly gave her drugs, Ecstasy, mdma, ketamine, and cocaine. Jane testified that Diddy had preferences and that he gave suggestions and that he sometimes gave instructions. Jane said her role was always the same, that she'd wear provocative lingerie, quote, pretty high stripper shoes, end quote. And she said that some of the outfits she bought herself, but that ultimately Diddy chose what she would wear. Then the night would Begin. Before I continue with the description of what the hotel nights involved, you should know that they are quite graphic. As Jane laid it out on the stand, her voice actually cracked and she began to cry. But. But it was part of her testimony, so here goes. Jane said that she was expected to greet the person, her word for whichever escort Diddy had brought in. She was expected to greet him with a smile. She was told to be nice and sweet, end quote. And to make small talk and set the tone. Jane said these, quote, persons were entertainers, but she made it clear to the jury they were escorts. After welcoming the entertainers, Jane said she would undress and come out in a robe. Music would go on, and she told the jury that she would dance a little just to get the nerves out. Jane said that she would take her clothes off, and then the foreplay would begin, and that's when the baby oil came out. And while she and the escort were engaging in foreplay, Jane testified that Sean Combs would sit nearby, masturbating. And then she said, quote, it would be time for sex, end quote. She told the jury that it started with oral sex, always between Jane and the escort. She said that sometimes Diddy would tell her to start, other times she just did. Jane told the jury that oral sex could go on for hours, quote, because that's what Sean would prefer to see. Eventually, Jane said that she and the escort would begin to have sex. She said that usually she was the one to suggest it, not because she wanted to, but because she just wanted it to be over. She told the jury that she was trying to get through it quickly so that she could finally be alone with just Diddy in the bedroom. Jane said that sometimes Diddy would comment, saying things like, do you want to feel some of that? Or, quote, let him finish in you. She told the jury that sex could last quite a while and that when the escorts ejaculated, it was right outside of her genitals. And then Jane said that Diddy would excuse the escort, and without any cleanup, Diddy would, begin to, quote, make love to her. She said this entire pattern could play out all over again once or twice with the same escort that night, and it might even be repeated once or twice with a second escort, all on the same night, which is why she said these, quote, hotel nights could last up to 30 hours without sleep. Over time, Jane told the jury she began to understand the formula, the exact way that Diddy liked things done. According to Jane, the, quote, hotel nights ended up becoming the majority of their relationship, even though she said what she wanted was something traditional, just to be with Diddy. In fact, Jane told the jury that she made it clear, both verbally and in writing that she did not want to have sex with other men, but that Diddy just kept pushing it each time she resisted. Jane said Diddy would threaten to take away her apartment and take away her allowance. A terrible, terrible boyfriend for sure. But sex trafficking was this coerced sex? Because it sounded to me a lot more like a total pervert, a complete sexual deviant who likes his sex kinky. The kind of guy that isn't worth a ten thousand dollar a month apartment. But little about today's testimony seemed to me anyway that she was forced into any of this twisted sex. And that traveling over state lines voluntarily to be with your kinky boyfriend isn't sex trafficking. Until you are forced to do that against your will, your allowance was a perk and your apartment was a perk. You don't work for the guy. So stay tuned for day 18. This witness named Jane is just getting started. But day 17 is now done. And you might say it was a big, big day for Diddy's defense. A real win, I'm going to say, in their corner. Because so far at least, Jane may not seem to everyone to be the kind of witness the prosecutors had promised a woman forced into unwanted sex and taken across state lines to do so. Because that is sex trafficking. And she is the witness that the prosecutor said will outline the charge of sex trafficking. As for Bana, you know the witness who says Diddy dangled her 17 stories up over a balcony railing in Los Angeles. She said it happened on September 26, 2016. But Diddy's lawyers had the receipts. They showed that he was on stage and out at several public events on that day and in the days surrounding it in New York and New Jersey, nowhere near la. So that is not a good look for this government witness. One thing is certain though. The jury is still watching every single moment of this trial. The jury is still watching. Not just the headlines, not just someone's account, not just some reporters or some bloggers. The jury is watching everything. They have a front row seat. They are still deciding as well, but at least one of them is smirking and smiling. Tomorrow we pick back up with day two of Jane Doe's testimony and the judge says it is going to be a long one. So buckle up, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss a minute. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thank you so much for watching and please remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.