The Trial: Evidence

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In the last few days of USA v Sean Combs, we've heard from more former employees of Combs as well as celebrity stylist Deontay Nash.

But most notably, Diddy's alleged victim going by the pseudonym Mia.

Mia worked for Sean Combs, first as a personal assistant.

and then as a director of development and acquisitions for his film business.

She said the highs were really high and the lows were really, really low.

She testified that she often didn't sleep while working for Combs, including one stint where she was up for five days.

Mia told jurors that Combs threw things at her, threw her against a wall, and he also sexually assaulted her.

When prosecutors asked if she could leave whenever she wanted, Mia answered, I wasn't allowed.

I'd have to ask permission.

Her testimony is meant, at least in part, to convince the jury that Combs used forced labor as part of his alleged criminal enterprise.

Cross-examination is expected to begin late Friday morning.

On Tuesday, another former employee, Capricorn Clark, testified that she'd been kidnapped while working for Combs.

She told the jury that Combs and a bodyguard showed up at her apartment with a gun and made her go with them to Scott Mesketty's house, aka rapper Kid Cuddy.

On cross, the defense tried to dispute it was a kidnapping, suggesting Clark had previously told defense attorneys she went with Combs to prevent him from doing something stupid and clarifying that he didn't point the gun at her.

Forced labor and kidnapping are both part of the racketeering conspiracy count Combs is facing.

He's pled not guilty.

At one point Wednesday, the defense requested a mistrial when an arson investigator from the Los Angeles Fire Department was testifying.

While it's the first time the defense requested a mistrial, it probably won't be the last.

This is Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy.

I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and practicing attorney.

This episode,

evidence.

That's right.

Today we're talking evidence.

What the jury has seen so far, how it becomes part of the trial, and how both sides can use it to support witness testimony.

My guest today is Peter Haralambus, a producer with ABC's investigative unit, and he also works with the visual verification team, which authenticates photos and videos from around the internet to make sure the news that you get is real and true.

Peter was a paralegal before going into journalism.

And one of the things he did as a paralegal was preparing evidence for jurors at trial in the southern district of New York.

Yeah, the very same court where Diddy is being tried.

And evidence has actually become Peter's expertise while covering the Diddy trial.

He collects exhibits filed in court and gets them ready for broadcast.

making sure the right redactions are made for our audiences.

He's the keeper of a giant spreadsheet where he logs all of the evidence publicly available from both the prosecution and the defense.

Peter, let's take our listeners inside the courtroom.

You know, what strikes me when I enter federal courtrooms these days is that each of the jurors and the alternates have a very large screen in front of them.

Peter, can you talk to us about how the technology in the courtroom works in terms of how the jurors are seeing the evidence, how the witnesses see the evidence, and how even the defense attorneys and prosecutors marshal that evidence in.

Yeah, I think this is super fascinating because you know, trials in the United States have been consistent for at this point centuries.

But one area where things have changed pretty rapidly over the last 20 years is how technology has made its way into the courtroom.

I used to be a paralegal before I was a journalist, and I dealt with this firsthand.

I was doing much more boring trials about white-collar criminals.

But the same technology applied, I think I even worked on a trial that is in the same courtroom where the Combs case is currently happening.

It's a magnificent, it's this large room.

You've been there plenty of times.

Tall ceilings, it's got this sweeping view of Midtown kind of rising up from Chinatown.

And it's speckled with technology.

There are kind of computer screens in front of every chair for the defense table and the prosecution table.

The witness box has a screen.

The jury each has a screen in front of them.

The gallery also has at least one screen to see what's being presented to the jury.

So basically, as they're kind of hearing this evidence being described by the witnesses, the jury gets to see this immediately in front of them.

They get to see it with their own eyes.

And when it comes actually to the point of deliberations, they get to see this all over again.

The jury will be sent into the deliberations room with a binder full of evidence or a laptop full of every single exhibit that's been admitted over the course of the trial.

So, you know, evidence is at the ready for them, and a good prosecutor can really enhance their direct examination using this evidence at times to kind of give their witness more credibility, to preempt a line of attack that the defense may make to cast doubt on that testimony.

It's one area, particularly with this case where there is so much evidence, where there are tons of photos and text messages and emails, where the prosecution kind of has a leg up here because they can build off this testimony with all of this material.

And one interesting thing I found about this case especially is that they put on privacy screens onto the TVs of the jurors.

So I would analogize it similar to the privacy screens you have on a cell phone.

You can see it if you're looking directly at the phone.

You cannot see if you're looking at it from an angle.

Yeah, so that's an interesting point, especially with a trial like this one where we're talking about testimony and witnesses who might be victims of an alleged crime.

So in this case, there are certain pieces of evidence that only the jury is seeing, that aren't being publicly released, aren't being shown to the jury.

So they have those screens on front of each of the computers in front of the jury to make sure that they can see that without kind of risking unnecessary harm.

For example, showing a photo of a victim who their image really serves no public interest, basically, in being released.

There's a weird kind of technological dance that happens every time a piece of evidence put in by the prosecution of the defense here where basically the judge has to sign off before the jury can see anything and the defense has an opportunity to object.

So basically the evidence is slowly spread out throughout the courtroom.

First it's only on the screens for the judge and for the attorneys.

Then the witness gets to see it so they can identify it.

And then only when it's been entered into evidence can the jury actually see it.

And at that point can usually the members of the gallery see it.

So if there's a mess up there, if the jury sees a piece of evidence that they shouldn't be seeing, that didn't get entered into evidence, that could be really prejudicial, that could become the grounds for a mistrial.

So it's kind of like a high-stakes technology thing that happens every single time something's entered into evidence.

You've collected a whole database of evidence for ABC that people like myself and others can really dive into to help explain to our audience.

Can you give us a lay of the land of the evidence introduced so far and summarize the range of things entered into this case?

Yeah, there's a few categories here.

And at this point, I think we're up to about more than 250 government exhibits, about 30 or 40 defense exhibits.

And some of them are minor things, like face cards for each of the witnesses, so that when it comes time to do a closing statement, they can kind of build out a clever chart that shows their allegation of what is a criminal enterprise.

But broadly speaking, I would say breaks down into a few categories.

There are photos taken from the raids of Sean Combs' property.

So we've already seen the photos taken from the raid of his Miami home and the raid of his hotel room when he was in New York to surrender.

And during those raids, investigators found illegal drugs.

They found substances that were allegedly used for freak-offs, like baby oil and astroglide.

Guns,

drugs.

Yeah.

Basically everything you could want to run a criminal enterprise, allegedly.

They alleged that they, over the course of these raids, found thousands of bottles of baby oil.

The jury saw upper and lower receivers for assault weapons, which had their serial numbers defaced.

They saw a loaded handgun that was found in a suitcase in Combs, Miami home.

I think we're also going to hear a bit more about this when we learn about the raid done on his Los Angeles home.

We haven't seen that material in evidence yet.

Certainly, there's been a lot of material about this Kid Cuddy firebombing incident.

They've seen plenty of photos showing this charred Porsche 9-11.

One piece of testimony that the jury heard a ton about and was kind of buttressed by evidence was this whole entire line of testimony about this 2011 freak off where Combs learns that Ventura was in a relationship with Kid Cuddy.

He allegedly lunges at Ventura with a wine opener.

And then we hear a ton about kind of the aftermath of that, the threats, the violence allegedly that Combs reacted with after he learned about this relationship.

And it's part of testimony that was kind of backed up pretty heavily by evidence.

The jury saw the email that Cassie sent on December 23rd, 2011, kind of documenting this blackmail threat, saying that, you know, the threats that have been made against me by Sean Puffy Combs are that he's going to release two explicit sex tapes of me.

One on Christmas Day, maybe right before or after, and another one sometime soon after that.

He has also said that he will be having someone hurt me and Scott Muscudi physically.

He made a point that it wouldn't be by his hand.

He actually said he'd be out of the country when it happened.

So they saw that.

And they also saw the photos that Regina Ventura took of Cassie, documenting the bruising on her back that she sustained, allegedly because of Combs.

So that's just another example of basically how testimony can really be supported, be backed up by evidence.

Yeah, it's interesting, I would agree, how they put this case together, both in terms of the order of the witnesses and the evidence that they provided, when they had to get their star witness on, but also how they chose to build this case based on just the circumstances of it all.

You mentioned the defense's exhibits.

Can you tell me about that?

Yeah, there's certainly fewer defense exhibits than the prosecution, and that's because the burden's not on them here.

But at times, they can be rather effective when it comes to these cross-examinations.

Let's use one example of a piece of evidence that they used, and it relates to that 2016 incident at the Intercontinental Hotel.

There was a lot of testimony from Ventura about basically how she felt pressured into this, how she didn't really want to participate in this because she had an upcoming movie premiere, and how it particularly became a problem for her when she was bruised from that vicious attack and basically had to put on enough makeup to make sure that she went to a red carpet premiere and had dozens of photos taken of her.

But I'll just pull up this one text message exchange that the defense attorneys brought up and asked her about, where, you know, this is a text message exchange between her and Combs.

This is taken on March 5th, 2016, same date as you can see on the timestamp of that video.

And you can see Ventura basically expressing a pretty strong eagerness to engage in a freak off.

Baby, I want to freak off so bad.

I don't want to myself up.

What am I to do?

And then Combs responds, what do you want to do?

And for a skeptical juror, a piece of evidence like this, where you're seeing Ventura seem eager, willing to participate in a freak off, can really cut against the prosecution's argument here that she was coerced into this.

And of course, we can't generalize the relationship here based off one particular example.

This one piece of evidence doesn't cut against the prosecution argument that this is a Euros-long relationship where she was coerced to participate in these freak offs time and time again.

But again, when we're dealing with such an important encounter, again, this 2016 incident that was caught on video is so central to the prosecution case, a piece of evidence like this can go a long way for a jury.

And I guess as I was thinking about kind of this conversation, I went back to look at the transcripts, the opening statement that this jury heard from the prosecution.

And it's interesting because when you look at how prosecutor Emily Johnson kind of phrased this case, she ended her opening statement with something that's kind of boilerplate for prosecutors, at least in the southern district.

You hear kind of this very similar ending to their opening statement where they warn the jury about what's coming next and the nature of how the evidence is going to come in.

And she says, The evidence will come in piece by piece and it won't always come in in chronological order.

But by the end of this trial, when you've seen and heard all of the evidence, you'll see how it all fits together.

I guess the general idea here is for this jury, they're basically hearing all of this evidence in no particular order.

It's not chronological.

It's not categorized for them by criminal account.

It's haphazard in a way.

And, you know, if you're looking at the evidence like you are, an experienced attorney, you can see how the puzzle pieces all fit together.

But for a jury, they've heard from dozens of witnesses.

They've heard hours of testimony.

They've seen hundreds of exhibits.

It's overwhelming.

It's hard to piece together.

And among all those pieces, you can find plenty of reasonable doubt if if you're really looking for it.

Of course, the prosecution and the defense will have their closing statements where they can try to assemble that puzzle for the jurors themselves.

But I guess that's just one thing to think about as we're talking about how impactful a lot of this individual evidence can be.

I see what Peter is saying here.

Why not just put the witnesses in a more linear order?

Well, it's not always possible giving witnesses schedules and travel needs.

Plus, the ordering might also create a foundation of evidence and testimony for later witnesses to build on or corroborate.

Let's take a short break.

But when we come back, some of the biggest moments in the Sean Combs trial this week, including the defense team's request for a mistrial.

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Peter, let's talk about some of the biggest moments from court in the past few days.

It seemed like prosecutors this week were trying to put a button on the arson charge, putting additional witnesses on the stand who they hoped could corroborate Kid Cuddy's testimony from last week.

There was a bit of testimony that struck me, and I'm curious if you felt the same way, with LA Fire Department arson investigator Lance Jimenez testifying about a black Cadillac escalade that he saw leaving the scene that was registered to Sean Combs' company, Bad Boy.

Now, did that stand out to you?

Yeah, that really did.

I mean, at this point, Kid Cuddy's gotten off the stand days ago, but his impact on the trial has really remained.

And I think from the start with this entire line of inquiry about this arson investigation, this alleged firebombing, there was a bit of uncertainty about how much concrete evidence there was connecting Combs to this actual incident.

I mean, even when you read the indictment in this case, they kind of left a question mark on that in terms of what is the arson here?

What are the details here?

It wasn't really particularly publicly reported at the time of the actual incident that Combs had any kind of connection to it.

And in this piece of evidence, the jury's really seeing...

the only piece of concrete material that ties Combs to this incident.

And of course, the jury has seen a ton of photos of the aftermath of this.

They saw the charred roof, the charred seats.

During testimony on Wednesday, they saw photos where you could see the Maltov cocktail sitting in the driver's seat.

You can see the handkerchief that was lit on fire.

And through this kind of standard DMV report, the jury has seen this and we see it in front of us here.

It's directly tying Combs to this incident, even if we don't necessarily know if Combs was there, we don't know how he was directly connected to it, but kind of gives some more credence to this suspicion from Kid Cuddy that Combs was the one who was behind it.

Speaking of that arson investigation, one thing I'm really interested in in your perspective as an attorney is we heard a a bit from the Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigator Lance Jimenez, who kind of described whether or not it was unusual that the fingerprints were destroyed while the investigation was ongoing.

The fence objected and asked the judge for a mistrial.

Why was that a big deal and why asked for a mistrial there?

So let's give a little bit of context as to how this came about.

There are no allegations that the person who committed the arson or alleged committed the arson was inside the home, but it was explained to us there was a prior event that had a burglary in the home.

And they took those fingerprints, they made fingerprint cards, and they stored them as evidence.

Now,

evidence gets destroyed all the time.

A case gets resolved, the person's found guilty, the case is done, the lead investigator says, this person's no longer a suspect.

There are many reasons why evidence gets destroyed.

But when a case is or an investigation is still ongoing, that's supposed to be saved.

Supposed to be saved for some 10, 20, how many every years until the lead investigator decides that it no longer is necessary to keep.

I mean, the lead investigator who's on the stand is saying, I did not ask for it to be destroyed.

No one contacted me saying it was supposed to be destroyed.

And the issue here was, I think in my opinion, and I think the judge agreed too, that at that point, the conversation should have been done.

They did an investigation.

They collected evidence.

It was destroyed.

They don't know why.

And then move on.

But the government kept going.

and kept going to the point that it seemed like a very strong insinuation that it's very unusual for this piece of evidence to be destroyed.

And so I think the government got far too dangerously close to that implication.

But that question of it being unusual was never answered.

And so the judge ultimately said, we're going to strike this line of questioning.

We're going to give what's called a curative instruction, meaning we're going to tell the jury that this line of questioning as to the loss or destruction of this evidence has no bearing or relevance as to this defendant.

And then we're going to move on.

But I think as the judge hinted, if that question was answered, and depending on what the answer was, we could have been very dangerous in a mistrial predicament for the government and probably something that the defense would have very much liked.

Interesting.

Moving for a mistrial.

Is that a particularly unusual thing to see during a trial?

Oh, you always move for a mistrial.

You guys love asking for mistrials.

Yes.

Yes.

I ask for mistrials like I ask for seconds at dinner.

I'm always going to ask.

The reason why you do it is because nine times out of 10, you're not going to get in.

But.

you make the mistrial motion because on appeal, that might be the reason why a case gets reversed.

And another example would be Harvey Weinstein.

You made the argument as to too many alleged victims or people who are prior bad act witnesses testifying.

You don't win that argument at trial, but on appeal, the case comes back.

So you always make those motions.

Celebrity stylist Deontay Nash also took the stand.

He testified to alleged control, coercion, and violence in Diddy's relationship with Cassie, something that is the bedrock of that sex trafficking charge that Sean Combs is facing two counts of.

But what stood out to you from his testimony?

I guess what stood out to me was kind of how we're beginning to see some of this evidence go full circle here, right?

Because we heard about, for example, this one incident where basically Combs rushed into her room.

He found her sleeping, was frustrated because she was supposed to be packing for a music festival, and basically became violent.

It became bloody very quickly.

She cut herself after Combs threw her on the bed on this bed frame.

And the jury actually saw photos of this.

There are multiple instances here where the prosecutors have not only elicited testimony about this alleged abuse, but have shown the jury photos of the damage.

In this case, and here I'll just pull it up on our end.

Yeah, and I really wish that the listeners could see this.

Peter has about maybe 30, 40 different pieces of paper in about six or seven different piles.

And it is so Peter to be like, let me pull this piece of information at my fingertips and explain to you what's going on.

So Peter, please.

I fear it looks a little chaotic, but here, this is government exhibit B247A.

This came in during Ventura's testimony.

She described this same incident that we heard about on Wednesday, and the jury saw what is one of the more graphic pieces of evidence in this case.

You can see kind of the gash on her eyebrow.

And the testimony on Wednesday talked about how bloody this was, how Combs got frustrated and freaked out, if anything, after he realized how bloody he had caused by throwing Ventura into this bed frame.

And for the jury, again, to a jury that might be skeptical of victim testimony in a sex trafficking case, stuff like this, where you not only have one victim testifying about this, but you also have another person corroborating that account, and you have evidence that

documents what exactly is being talked about, that can go a long way for the prosecution.

Peter, it is always a pleasure, whether I'm seeing you in the halls of ABC or reading an email.

Thank you for taking the time to come and talk with us on Batrap.

My pleasure.

Thanks for having me, Brian.

That's it for this episode of Bad Rap, The Case Against Diddy.

If you have any questions for me, I'd love to hear them.

So give us a call at 929-388-1249.

You might even hear me answer your question on the air.

If you appreciate this coverage, please share it and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Thanks for listening.

And if you're looking for even more coverage of the Diddy trial, you can check out our new daily show, Burgen of Proof, The Case Against Diddy.

The show streams weekdays at 5.30 p.m.

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You can also find it on Disney Plus, Hulu, or on most of your favorite streaming apps.

Bad Rap, The Case Against Diddy, is a production of ABC Audio.

I'm Brian Buckmeyer.

The podcast production team includes Vika Aronson, Nancy Rosenbaum, Audrey Mozdek, Amira Williams, Tracy Samuelson, and Sasha Aslanian.

Special thanks to Stephanie Maurice, Caitlin Morris, Liz Alesi, Katie Dendas, and the team at ABC News Live.

Michelle Margulis is our operations manager.

Josh Cohan is ABC Audio's Director of Podcast Programming.

Laura Mayer is our executive producer.

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