A former hotel security officer has told a court that disgraced rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs offered him money in an attempt to silence him following his attack on Cassie Ventura
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs offered hush money to a hotel security officer, a court has heard. Israel Florez, who attended a hotel after the disgraced music mogul attacked his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016 told the court how he found the 55-year-old musician wearing nothing but a towel and sitting in a chair, ” slouched down, like with a blank stare … like a devilish stare, just looking at me,” he said.
Prosecutors showed the jury two mobile phone videos and three hotel surveillance videos related to the attack by Combs on Cassie at the Los Angeles hotel. Florez testified that he recorded the hotel’s video of the attack on his cellphone because he wanted to describe what he saw to his wife and feared she wouldn’t believe him.
Jurors were shown video surveillance footage of an attack by Combs on Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel in March 2016 that prosecutors have maintained is a key piece of evidence in their case against him. The video depicts Cassie with a bag at the hotel’s elevators just before Combs rounds a corner, strikes her and throws her to the ground before kicking her and then dragging her back toward their hotel room.
Florez responded to the call of a woman who was in distress on the sixth floor of a Los Angeles hotel. He said that the hotel’s floor display was ruined and told the rapper it would be charged to the room. But as he escorted Combs and Cassie to the room, Cassie is said to have suggested she wanted to leave.
“You’re not going to leave,” Combs allegedly said. Florez recounted to the court that he replied: “If she wants to leave, she’s going to leave.” After Cassie had left, Florez claims that when he was getting ready to leave, the rapper called him back and held out a stack of money, with a $100 note on top, saying: “Don’t tell nobody.”
Considering it a bribe, Florez told the court he said to Combs: “I don’t want your money, just go back into your room.” Prosecutors were using Florez’s testimony to introduce recordings of Combs beating his then-girlfriend, the singer Cassie, at the hotel in March 2016.
Defence lawyers had unsuccessfully tried before the trial to get the video banned from the trial on the grounds that a recording that aired on CNN last year was unfair because it was edited and incomplete. Prosecutors say they are not airing the recording that CNN aired. Instead, they plan to show the jury recordings taken within the hotel.
The first witnesses are set to testify following an hour-long lunch break. Meanwhile, Diddy’s defence team are arguing that the prosecutor’s evidence may show other crimes that he committed, but it is not proof of the sex trafficking and racketeering crimes he has been charged with. Combs continues to deny all allegations against him.
Attorney Teny Geragos, who is defending Diddy, called the beating “horrible, dehumanising violence,” but told the jury that it “is not evidence of sex trafficking. It is evidence of domestic violence.” She went on to add that all of Diddy’s sexual liaisons were part of his swinger lifestyle, involving consenting adults.
She acknowledged that some jurors might not condone “his kinky sex and his preferences for sex”, but she urged them to judge the case with an open mind. Those sexual predilections, she said, do not equate to sex trafficking. Geragos conceded Combs is extremely jealous and “has a bad temper,” telling jurors that he sometimes got angry when he drank alcohol or “did the wrong drugs.”
But “domestic violence is not sex trafficking,” she said, and being mean is not running a racketeering enterprise. Geragos took a relaxed tone, telling jurors they may end up thinking: “I think he’s a jerk and I think he’s kind of mean.” But she said he’s not charged “with being mean or a jerk.”
She said he is physical and a drug user and has “a bit of a different sex life.” She added: “We’ll fight for his freedom throughout the next eight weeks. Sean Combs is a complicated man.. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” his attorney began in her opening statement.
Prosecutors, she said, are trying to turn sexual relations between consenting adults into a prostitution and sex trafficking case. “There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year,” Geragos told jurors, noting immense news media coverage and social media chatter. “It is time to cancel that noise.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told jurors that they will see Diddy’s violence for themselves, including videos of Cassie and Jane, who is identified by a pseudonym, “pretending they enjoy themselves during Freak Offs”, and will see Diddy “brutally beating Cassie during a Freak Off at an LA hotel.”
After the video of Combs assaulting Cassie in the hotel aired on CNN last year, Combs apologised and said he took “full responsibility” for his actions. “I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.” The trial continues.
For confidential support, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Freephone Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit womensaid.co.uk If you or your family have lost a friend or family member through fatal domestic abuse, AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse) can offer specialist and expert support and advocacy. For more info visit www.aafda.org.uk
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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