Sean Combs: Witness alleges Combs held her over a 17th-floor balcony.

0:00This is On Trial, a special series from Dateline True Crime Weekly, bringing you daily coverage from the Sean Combs racketeering trial. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. I'm Andrea Canning, and it's Wednesday, June 4th. Just a heads up, in this episode, we're going to be talking about some graphic details in harrowing subject matter. Today, federal prosecutors called the eighth witness they've had to subpoena to testify against Sean Combs. Some of his personal assistants, a hotel security guard, and now Brianna Bongolin. She had been a close friend of Cassie Ventura's. On the stand, Brianna told the jury that Combs once told her he was the devil and that he terrified her.

0:45NBC News correspondent Chloe Malas is in downtown Manhattan to get us up to speed. Hey, Chloe. Hey, Andrea. Okay, so tell us about Brianna and who she is to Sean Combs. So she's a fashion and graphic designer, and she partied with Diddy. They work together. And there has been a lot of anticipation about her testifying. Breonna testified under an immunity agreement. Chloe, what do you know about this agreement? Well, she testified about doing illegal drugs with Diddy and Cassie and about getting those drugs and sometimes getting paid back for them by the couple. So, you know, this is something that we've seen with other witnesses taking the stand, granted immunity by the government so that, look, you can say whatever your truth is as long as it's the truth and you're not going to be held legally accountable for anything.

1:38Her demeanor was very subdued? Very, almost breathless. At times, it was almost like a whisper. I can only imagine just how hard it is for some of these people, especially the ones, you know, who are being subpoenaed to get up there and take the stand. How does Breonna's testimony help the prosecution's case? Prosecutors are trying to show that there was this pattern of violence. They're trying to corroborate Cassie and other victims' allegations of physical and sexual abuse. And when it comes to Breonna, she's testifying that she saw Diddy be violent towards Cassie and that, you know, also she experienced violence from him.

2:20So it goes into that coercion element that you need for the sex trafficking. And she, according to the prosecution, provides some evidence of drug distribution allegations, which could go toward the charges against him. Right. When it comes to racketeering conspiracy, there are these predicate crimes that we've talked about that have to be proven, at least two of them. And she is not the first person to testify that Diddy allegedly had people procuring drugs for him. During Brianna's testimony, she describes some unsettling moments with Sean Combs. Tell us about some of them. So this was something that I had never heard before, Andrea.

3:03She described an incident in her testimony today in which Diddy was upset and he actually came into Cassie's apartment and threw a knife at her. And it didn't hit her, but then Cassie throws the knife back, not hitting him, and then Diddy swiftly leaving. But this is just another window into this incredibly violent relationship. And you're just hearing more and more incidents as the case goes on. Yeah, tell us about the devil. Well, it sounds like a movie. I've said that to you repeatedly. Brianna testified that at one point, Diddy said to her, I am the devil and I can kill you. She says that at the time she was taking cocaine and she testified that she was terrified.

3:52You know, Diddy would allegedly come over late at night. He would just show up unannounced to Cassie's apartment, banging on the door really loudly. Brianna also testified that Combs would be watching Cassie in the sense of like always knowing where she is, that kind of thing. Right. So we've heard other witnesses allege that Diddy put a tracking device on Cassie's car and things like that. And although we don't have proof of it, when you're hearing Brianna testify that, I mean, he literally knew where they were on this one particular day. He sent them all of the places where they were, that they were out shopping, getting their nails done.

4:32And it made them feel, according to her testimony, terrified. There's a balcony incident associated with Breonna. Can you tell us about that? So we first learned all of these details, Andrea, in her civil suit, which she filed in 2024. and in that suit she talked about Diddy dangling her off of a 17th floor balcony and that this took place one night while Diddy was in a state of rage he was banging on Cassie's apartment door and she actually was sleeping in the living room with her girlfriend she was crashing at Cassie's and she actually told her girlfriend to go in the bathroom and motioned for her to be quiet because she knew that Diddy had a propensity for violence.

5:16And so she opened the door, she let him in, and she went onto the balcony, and Diddy came up behind her. And, you know, to put this into perspective, she testified, I'm five foot one. And he comes up behind her and lifts her up above his chest. And she actually gestured this during her testimony today, saying, look, I weighed about 100 to 115 pounds and my feet were on the rail. And she testified I was trying not to slip, pushing back on him because I was scared I was going to fall. And for a second, I thought I was going to fall. And he was yelling at me and he kept saying, you know what the F you did?

5:52And she said, I had no idea what he was talking about and that he was holding her, she testified for 10 to 15 seconds. And I mean, look, in the news business, Andrea, you and I know that three seconds, four seconds, five seconds can feel like an eternity. Do we know why Breonna is saying that Sean Combs held her over this balcony? She still doesn't seem to know what he was so upset about. Has Sean Combs responded to this allegation? So she filed a civil suit in November of 2024. This is a year after Cassie had filed her explosive suit, and she claimed false imprisonment and emotional distress because of that alleged balcony incident.

6:36Diddy had already been arrested at this point, and he put out a statement via his team saying that he was confident that they would ultimately prove that all of these allegations were baseless. She also testified today that she was working with a previous attorney and that person no longer represents her, that they had sent demand letters to Diddy, which is really common when you file a civil suit. And she actually said that around that time, she got a FaceTime from a really good friend of hers who was a music producer who was also friends with Cassie. He was sitting in Diddy's backyard and calling on behalf of Diddy, trying to talk about settling with her.

7:17And she said no. What is the status of her suit? So it's still ongoing and she's seeking$10 million in damages. And you're hearing this refrain over and over during this trial from Diddy's defense team saying that this is all about money when it comes to these victims testifying. It's a money grab. All right, some more powerful testimony. Chloe, when we come back, the defense team tries to poke holes in Brianna's testimony. And we've got a little nugget for you about the surveillance video at the heart of the case.

7:59So the defense team started their cross-examination of Breonna by coming out hard against her and Cassie's drug use. This isn't the first time Cassie's drug use has come up in court. Correct. So, I mean, we heard Breonna testify that she did a bunch of different drugs. She did ecstasy. She did cocaine with Diddy. This is something that the defense is trying to do in an effort to poke holes in the credibility of these individuals, saying if you were on drugs, then how do you remember these incidents so clearly then, right? Is this revisionist history? How else did the defense try to undermine Breonna's testimony?

8:34One of the other things that the defense pointed out is that Cassie, according to Breonna's testimony, was in the other room as this alleged incident took place with her being dangled over the balcony. by Diddy. And so what they were saying is, Cassie never saw you get hung over the balcony, did she? And she even testified that she did not see this happen. And Brianna, when she was on the stand, simply said, I don't remember. The defense also talked about Brianna's meeting with prosecutors leading up to the trial. What were they trying to get at there? This is a strategy, Andrea, that is now becoming really clear to me when it comes to the defense.

9:14What they're doing is they're taking the transcripts of the meetings that these witnesses had with prosecutors leading up to their testimony, and they're comparing the transcripts against what they're saying on the stand. And they're like, okay, so today you're coming and you're testifying about all these different things, but you never mentioned it to prosecutors. Or it took you months to bring something up to prosecutors, like in the instance of Mia that we talked about, right, where Mia didn't tell prosecutors for almost two months that she had been sexually assaulted by calms. So, you know, we're seeing this again, the defense questioning her.

9:51Why is your testimony today different than in the past? And, you know, it's going to ultimately come down. What does the jury believe? Chloe, as promised, before we go, we've got some more information about that surveillance video most of us have probably seen by now showing Sean Combs beating Cassie up in the hotel hallway. That was back in 2016. What did you learn? So we talked yesterday about the security guard, Eddie Garcia, who testified that he handed over that USB drive that had the video to Diddy for money, right? 100 grand that he got in that brown bag. That raises a question, though.

10:31We still don't know who gave the copy to CNN. After we did the podcast yesterday, I was thinking that was the question that we needed to talk about. Where did it come from? And a government expert witness testified that prosecutors had given him copies of the surveillance footage to examine, along with a cell phone recording of that surveillance video. So that means someone recorded that security video off the TV monitor, and we don't know who it was. Was it Eddie who secretly held another copy? Chloe, another security guard testified that he actually recorded the video. Right. So remember at the beginning of the trial, Israel Flores, who was also a security guard at the hotel, he filmed the footage with his cell phone.

11:19So that could be what we're seeing, but we still don't have those answers because it didn't come up in his testimony. We just don't know. You can never guarantee that you got the only copy. That is for sure. Chloe, so what is next? Tomorrow is going to be a huge day. This is the last key witness that the government is putting on the stand. She is only known as Victim 2 or Jane, a.k.a. Jane Doe. She's another individual testifying under a pseudonym, a fake name. It's in an effort to protect her identity. And I'm sure we'll learn more tomorrow as to why she doesn't want her identity out there. All right, Chloe, thank you.

12:01on this Wednesday. We are inching our way through the week. Appreciate all of your updates from the courtroom. Thanks so much. Only a few weeks left. Thank you for listening to everyone else. And we'll be back with a new episode tomorrow. If you want to read the latest developments and analysis from inside the courtroom, check out the NBC newsletter, Diddy on Trial. Go to NBCnews.com slash Diddy to find that. On Trials, produced by Frannie Kelly, with help from the Dateline True Crime Weekly team. Our senior producers are Alison Orr and Liz Brown-Kurloff. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.