Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (1:27)

Yeah, that's right. Over the past two days, the jury has been hearing the testimony of another important prosecution witness. That's a woman named Brianna Bungolen, who is one of Cassie Ventura's close friends. In this episode, we're going to hear how she developed paranoia and suffers from night terrors after Diddy allegedly dangled her over a 17 story balcony.

Kayla Brantley (1:48)

How she claims he told her that he was the devil and could, quote, kill her.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (1:52)

And how she and Cassie became drug addicts, smoking marijuana, doing cocaine and ketamine together, sometimes for up to 8, 8 hours at a time every week. Welcome to the trial of Diddy. I'm the devil.

Kayla Brantley (2:10)

So on Wednesday, I went down to the courthouse and I actually went inside of the overflow room to see Briana Bungolen begin her testimony. So in the overflow room there's a screen where you're watching the live feed of what's going on. So you get to actually see and hear from the witnesses as it's happening. So I got to see Brianna on the stand as she took the stand on behalf of the prosecution. And it was pretty crowded in there. And while there were members of the press there, there were also members of the public and a lot of them seemed to be pro Diddy supporters. You could hear a lot of them reacting, especially during the cross examination of Brianna. A lot of them would turn around and mouth, she's a liar. While Bongolin was giving her testimony. So that was pretty interesting to see.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (2:56)

Yeah. And it's important to remember that's not supposed to happen in an overflow room. The judge reminded everyone today that they to act as if they were inside the courtroom itself. So this is very much inappropriate behavior in a trial.

Kayla Brantley (3:10)

Yeah, exactly. And even when there were sidebars between the attorneys, it got pretty loud and pretty rowdy and so much so that a guard had to tell us to quiet down multiple times and to act as if you are in the courtroom. So as I said, I was watching Briana give her testimony. She's a creative design director at her own art agency and also a close friend of Cassie's. And she spoke pretty softly for the most part. She said that she and Cassie met around 2013 or 2014 and that they're still friends to this day. We heard from prosecutor Madison Smizer who asked Bungolen about an incident in September 2016. It was the infamous incident when Diddy allegedly dangled her over Cassie's apartment balcony in la. We've already heard a bit about this incident earlier on in the trial. We know that Cassie included this incident in her lawsuit. So now we have actors who have voiced this exchange.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (4:04)

What did he do?

Brianna Bungolen (4:06)

I was held over a 17 story balcony.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (4:10)

What did he do after?

Brianna Bungolen (4:12)

Threw me onto the balcony furniture.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (4:14)

Were you injured?

Brianna Bungolen (4:15)

I had a bruise on the back of my leg and back and neck.

Kayla Brantley (4:20)

Pain.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (4:21)

Any mental effects?

Brianna Bungolen (4:23)

I had night terrors and paranoia and I screamed in my sleep.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (4:27)

So Bongolen said that the incident happened late one night when she was staying at Cassie's apartment with her then girlfriend. She said they were sleeping on the couch and Cassie was asleep in her bedroom. She said that Diddy came over and began banging on the door, quote, very loudly. They were scared. So she said she told her now ex to go hide in the bathroom and she went out to the balcony. She told the jury that she's only 5ft 1 inch tall. So the rail of the balcony came up to her waist. She described what happened next. Her words have been voiced by an actor.

Brianna Bungolen (4:58)

I was facing the view, but he basically came up from behind me. He lifted me up and then put me on top of the rail.

Kayla Brantley (5:06)

Bungolen said that Diddy was much bigger than her. He lifted her up by her armpits and her feet were on the rail.

Brianna Bungolen (5:12)

I was trying not to slip and push back on him because I was scared to fall.

Kayla Brantley (5:16)

She said Diddy was yelling at her and kept repeating, quote, you know what the F you did. She said that she had no idea what he was talking about and kept telling him, quote, I don't know what the f I did. But he carried on screaming at her until eventually she said, he just stopped.

Brianna Bungolen (5:33)

He threw me on the balcony furniture. It definitely hurt, but I think all the adrenaline, I just got up.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (5:39)

She then said that Cassie came out of her bedroom and quote, in disbelief, said to Diddy, quote, did you just hang her over the balcony? Bungolen said she left soon after that and just went home.

Brianna Bungolen (5:50)

I was shaking a lot and then I wanted to take a shower because I felt disgusted. And then I look over behind my leg and I see a bruise.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (5:58)

She said she wanted to see a chiropractor because she had pain in her back and neck, but she did not tell them what had caused her injuries. However, the jury was then shown photographs of these injuries. One showed Bungolen wearing a neck brace with bandages over her shoulders. Another showed the bruise on her leg and a puncture wound, which she said was caused when she was thrown into the furniture in the balcony. She says she didn't go to the police because she was, quote, too scared. And although the physical injuries have healed, she said the incident has affected her mentally until this day.

Brianna Bungolen (6:30)

I have nightmares and I have a lot of paranoia and I used to scream a lot in my sleep, but it's dissipated a little bit. If I go home to my apartment, I'll, like, unlock it and I'll, like, kick the door open and pee my head in to see if everything's clear.

Kayla Brantley (6:46)

Yeah. She said she filed a lawsuit last November against Diddy, demanding $10 million in compensation for what he'd done. In the lawsuit, she accused him of sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and other claims. But she insisted that her lawyer had come up with the 10 million dollar figure and that she would give any potential money back to turn back time and prevent it from happening in the first place. We'll be right back after.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (7:30)

Now, Bongolen was also asked about another incident a few months before the one on the balcony. In April of 2016, when she was visiting Diddy's Malibu home, she said she was doing a photo shoot on the beach with a photographer called Bad Boy, spelled B O I. When Cassie and Diddy came down to see her and he threatened her, he.

Brianna Bungolen (7:49)

Came up really close to my face and said, I'm the devil and I could kill you.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (7:54)

She said that she couldn't tell if Diddy was high, but she admitted that she herself had Taken cocaine, which gave her the confidence to just ignore him.

Brianna Bungolen (8:01)

I was terrified, but because of the cocaine, I had a little confidence to brush it off.

Kayla Brantley (8:08)

Spizer then asked Bungolen how she would describe Diddy and Cassie's relationship. She said it was volatile with a lot of ups and downs. She said Cassie sometimes received upsetting phone calls from him, and other times she had black eyes. She said she saw Cassie's black eye after the infamous Intercontinental hotel attack in March 2016, and also noticed her with other random bruises from time to time. In fact, she said it took a year for her to meet Diddy because she wasn't sure she liked the way he treated her friend.

Brianna Bungolen (8:36)

I wasn't really fond of what I was seeing, so I wasn't really wanting to meet him right away.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (8:42)

Bongolin said she would stay over at Cassie's apartment pretty often, and Diddy would typically come over in the middle of the night and just start banging on the door to be let in. But she insisted she personally only ever witnessed any violence between them once. On that occasion, she said Diddy came over in the middle of the night and was upset. She said she saw him throw a knife at Cassie, and Cassie then threw the knife back at him. She said the knife missed and he left soon afterwards. But again, she said she did not call the police because she was just, quote, scared of puff.

Kayla Brantley (9:13)

Yeah. She went on to say that she and Cassie did a lot of drugs together, including marijuana. They took ketamine and cocaine every single week. She said that on at least three or four occasions, Diddy was the one to give them drugs. But this is a good time to mention that before beginning her testimony, Bogolin asked for immunity. And this has happened pretty often in this case, where we've seen several witnesses ask for immunity, which basically stops them from being arrested for anything that they say on the stand. We saw it with Eddie Garcia, the security guard from the Intercontinental, who accepted a $100,000 bribe from Diddy to get rid of the surveillance tapes. But Bongolin has asked for immunity because her testimony involves a lot of talk of buying and selling and using drugs. She admitted that she bought drugs for herself and Cassie to take, and also one time she bought cocaine for Diddy. But she also admitted that at times she sold drugs to Cassie and to other people. And during her testimony at this time, she actually started laughing while she described how she and Cassie would try to do other things, like cooking together to make them stop taking drugs. But each time they went back to their habits. She said they Both, quote, wanted to do better, but it was, quote, hard to get sober if there's a lot of drugs around.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (10:24)

Yeah. She said the last time she, quote, hung out with Cassie and Diddy was on January 2, 2018, after a new Year's Eve party. She said they spent eight hours doing ketamine together at the 1 Hotel in Miami. She said she knew the precise date because that was the date she had decided she, quote, couldn't do this anymore. She said she had the date tattooed on her neck as part of a, quote, commitment to get sober and not go back.

Kayla Brantley (10:47)

So that was Bongolin's direct questioning. But then it was the turn of Diddy's defense lawyer, Nicole Westmoreland, to cross examine her. And Diddy's lawyer came in pretty hot. She started by asking her about her drug use and a favorite method she and Cassie used, which is known as Cocoa Puff. And here their words have been voiced by actors.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:06)

Okay, you and Cassie would do Cocoa Puff.

Brianna Bungolen (11:08)

Yeah.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:09)

Turn to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury and explain to all of us what Cocoa Puff is.

Brianna Bungolen (11:15)

It's when you take a blunt and you open the blunt and you put weed in there and then you sprinkle cocaine in it.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:23)

Okay. That was one of your faves favorites.

Brianna Bungolen (11:26)

Yes.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:27)

Okay. Cassie liked Cocoa Puffs too, didn't she? From your understanding?

Brianna Bungolen (11:32)

Yes.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:33)

How does Cocoa Puff make you feel?

Brianna Bungolen (11:35)

It's like, add all the weed feelings and then a little, like, sharp feeling because of the coke.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:42)

Okay. You would agree with me that you and Cassie had a serious drug problem?

Brianna Bungolen (11:46)

Uh, yeah, we had a problem.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:49)

Okay. Now, you and Cassie would do drugs together before you met Mr. Combs, true?

Brianna Bungolen (11:54)

Yes.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:55)

And you would sell Cassie drugs. True.

Brianna Bungolen (11:57)

Yes.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (11:58)

You often sold Cassi drugs.

Brianna Bungolen (12:00)

Yes.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (12:01)

Well, let's put a time frame on it. You would agree with me that you sold Cassi drugs on at least a weekly basis?

Brianna Bungolen (12:07)

Yes.

Kayla Brantley (12:08)

Bongolen said that she never took pills with Cassie, but she knew that she took them. And on one occasion, she bought hundreds of them for her friend. She said they were both regular weekly drug users, but she denied doing them every day.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (12:20)

Westmoreland then asked her about the lawsuit she filed last year against Diddy. She admitted she filed it after reading Cassie's lawsuit and speaking to her, but she insisted that she simply wanted justice for what she had been through. And it was at this point that the cross examination between Bungolen and Westmoreland got pretty testy.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (12:39)

Okay. And the purpose was to sue Mr. Combs? True.

Brianna Bungolen (12:42)

It was to seek justice. It was what to Seek justice.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (12:47)

And your definition of seeking justice was to sue Mr. Combs. Right.

Brianna Bungolen (12:51)

Could you explain that further?

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (12:53)

You hired lawyers to sue Mr. Combs. Isn't that true?

Brianna Bungolen (12:58)

I did hire a lawyer.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (12:59)

Okay. To sue Mr. Combs.

Brianna Bungolen (13:02)

To sue Mr. Combs.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (13:04)

Okay. And like Cassie did. True.

Brianna Bungolen (13:06)

For different intentions, I would say.

Kayla Brantley (13:08)

But yes, Westmoreland really went for Bunglen's credibility here. And she started asking her about inconsistencies between what she said in the lawsuit, what she later told the government, and what she more recently testified to the jury. Westmoreland said that Bongolin had told the government that the incident where Diddy threatened to kill her took place at a party and not on the beach during a photo shoot in Miami, as she had testified. But Bongolin said that she didn't recall. The lawyer also claimed Bongolen told government investigators that she'd been smoking a cigarette before the balcony incident and hadn't been asleep when Diddy arrived at Cassie's apartment, in direct contradiction to what she'd said to the jury. But Bongolin said she didn't agree and at times said she couldn't recall.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (13:50)

Westmoreland also pointed out that in Bongolin's lawsuit, her lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn, had said the rapper also sexually assaulted her when he lifted her over the balcony. In fact, the lawsuit said he had groped her breasts so hard it caused bruising when he lifted her over the balcony. It also claimed that Diddy had told her he would kill her while he was dangling her over the rail. The defense attorney said this again contradicted what Bungolen later told government investigators because she had not mentioned the sex assault or told them about the threat to kill. But Bongolin said Blackburn had written many incorrect things in the lawsuit and that's why she fired him. She said that when she met with the government, she did not remember if she told them Diddy had groped her. But she insisted she had told them where he placed his hands on her body.

Kayla Brantley (14:38)

She said that despite suffering back and neck injuries, she did go on to attend one of Diddy's concerts and a private after party at a club just eight days later.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (14:47)

You weren't too fearful enough to not go to Mr. Combs event.

Brianna Bungolen (14:51)

I always had a feeling inside, but yes, I went.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (14:55)

You have that neck brace on?

Brianna Bungolen (14:56)

I'm not sure. Probably not there. I don't think I'd want to be seen with a neck brace.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (15:01)

So your neck wasn't so hurt you needed to have a neck brace when you unattended Mr. Combs private party a week or so later.

Brianna Bungolen (15:08)

Probably should have and didn't because your.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (15:11)

Neck was still hurting.

Brianna Bungolen (15:12)

I can't recall.

Kayla Brantley (15:13)

Brianna admitted that she agreed to go back to Cassie's apartment to hang out and sleepover less than two weeks after the incident and that she also asked her friend if Diddy would like one of her sweatshirts.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (15:24)

Westmoreland then showed Bongolen receipts from the Trump International Hotel, which she claimed showed Diddy was in New York in September 2016 and not in Los Angeles where Cassie's apartment was located. Now, this was really quite an important moment in Bongolen's testimony. Kayla. The jury has now seen time and date stamped photos of bruises and injuries that Bongolen claims were taken on September 26, 2016, shortly after the balcony incident. But according to the defense, Diddy stayed at the Trump International Hotel in New York for three nights between September 26th and 29th. So he couldn't have been both in California and in New York. They told the jury Bungolen accepted that, quote, in theory that was true, but she said she stood by her testimony and denied lying to the jury. She also refuted Westmoreland's claims that she was suing Diddy to become a millionaire.

Kayla Brantley (16:15)

The defense attorney also suggested in her cross examination that Diddy had told Bungolen that she was giving Cassie too many drugs. She read out to the court a text message Diddy had sent her criticizing her for not having Cassie's back. The text from Diddy said, quote, when friends get high with each other, they're not supposed to let friends fuck up. You're real whack to me with that. If you're going to do K, at least have her back. Real whack. Bungolen said she didn't remember whether Diddy had said she was giving Cassie too many drugs or not. But she did admit that part of her income came from Cassie, who regularly bought drugs off of her.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (16:49)

Now, earlier this week, the jury also heard from an expert witness named Frank Piazza. He's a forensic audio and video editor and he was essentially called by the prosecution to analyze the authenticity of that now infamous surveillance video from the March 2016 attack on Cassie when she tried to escape a freak off at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles. You will remember that before the trial started, Diddy's defense team tried to get the video excluded by claiming it had been altered. He said he was asked to look at both the original surveillance video and a cell phone recording of that video.

Kayla Brantley (17:22)

Piazza said he concluded that the cell phone copy of the surveillance video had not been manually altered at all. He said that although there were issues with its color and shakiness, the cell phone had recorded the video surveillance off of the native system. He said it had not been edited and it had captured clean playback of the surveillance system.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (17:40)

However, he said there was evidence of a playback issue on the original surveillance footage where it played faster than nor. He said this had been corrected, but he insisted that although parts of it were corrupted, it did not make it inaccurate. Now, Kayla, this is quite a big deal because as we know, this video was a major catalyst for the bringing of charges against Diddy. His defense has been hinging a large part of their case on the idea that these videos were somehow tampered with. So it seems that Piazza helped the prosecution put that idea to bed with his testimony.

Kayla Brantley (18:14)

Yeah. And Hermania, we know that the jury has seen this video several times throughout the trial. Daniel Bates, our reporter who's in the courtroom, he told us that Diddy was calmly watching the footage on a monitor at his table when this was played again to the court. But he also said that the rapper seemed at times to be finding it difficult to watch. He said Diddy was seen resting his head on his hands and appeared uncomfortable as his actions in the scene were described out loud.

Hermania Rodriguez Poleo (18:39)

Kayla, this video has been played so much in this trial, and a lot of analysts say this is part of the prosecution's plan.

Kayla Brantley (18:52)

So that's it for today. For our trial plus listeners, we have an exclusive interview with Sheree Hayes, AKA the Punisher, who has already given evidence in this case. And that's an interview with our very own Marjorie Hernandez. Be sure to check it out and subscribe to trialplusrimedesk.com if you haven't already. We'll be back on Tuesday as usual with all the latest from the courtroom in New York. Thank you for listening.