A hotel security supervisor testified on Tuesday, June 3, that Sean “Diddy” Combs paid him $100,000 in a brown paper bag for surveillance footage that captured Combs beating his longtime girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura at a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. Eddy Garcia testified that on March 5, 2016, the day of the assault at the InterContinental hotel, he received a call from Combs’ employee, Kristina Khorram, who asked him if there was any way she could get a copy of the footage or see it. He said he told her no during that call, and again when she showed up in the lobby later that day. That evening, Garcia testified, he received a call from Khorram, who put him in touch with Combs. Combs sounded nervous, Garcia testified, and told him he had had too much to drink the day of the assault and that if the video got out, it could ruin his career.
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Clips of the video — which showed Combs, wearing only a towel, beating, kicking and dragging Ventura — were published by CNN last year. Garcia said he explained to Combs that he could not help him because he did not have access to the room where the server with the original video was. Garcia said Khorram and Combs called him again and Combs offered to take care of him, which he interpreted to mean financially. Garcia said he contacted his supervisor, who agreed to sell the footage for $50,000. Garcia said his supervisor gave him a USB drive with the footage on it, and the following day, he brought it to an address in Los Angeles, where he was met by Combs, Khorram and a bodyguard. Garcia said he handed Combs the drive and also told him that he was concerned he could be implicated if there was a police report about the assault.
Garcia said Combs called Ventura on FaceTime, handed him the phone and told Ventura to tell Garcia that she also wanted the video “to go away.” Ventura told him she had a movie coming out and that it wasn’t a good time for the surveillance video to come out, Garcia testified. Garcia, who was making $10.50 an hour at the time, said he signed a document — which was shown to jurors — that said he had handed over the only existing copy of the video. He said he also signed a nondisclosure agreement that included a $1 million penalty if he breached it. After he signed the documents, he said Combs left the room and then returned with a brown bag and a money counter, feeding $10,000 at a time into the machine until it displayed $100,000 — double the amount Garcia’s supervisor had asked for. Garcia testified that he understood that the additional $50,000 was for him and a colleague. Garcia said Combs advised him not to make any big purchases. He said he used the $30,000 he received to buy a used car.
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Garcia testified that when he was contacted by law enforcement, he was not initially truthful with investigators. He said he later hired an attorney and met with the government, at which point he told them what had occurred. The video is a critical piece of evidence for the prosecution, which has alleged Combs ran a criminal enterprise over two decades that committed such crimes as bribery and obstruction of justice — which relate to the aftermath of the assault at the Intercontinental. Israel Florez, another member of the hotel security staff, testified at the start of the trial, which is now in its fourth week, that after he responded to a call of a woman in distress, Combs had tried to bribe him with a “stack of money.” Combs is on trial on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org. If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.