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This is On Trial, a special series from Dateline True Crime Weekly, bringing you daily coverage from the Sean Combs racketeering trial.
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He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. I'm Andrea Canning, and it's Friday, June 13th.
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Just a heads up, in this episode, we're going to be talking about some graphic details and harrowing subject matter.
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Today was eventful, both inside and briefly outside the courtroom. The prosecution called to the stand yet another witness who once worked as Combs' personal assistant.
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According to prosecutors, his text messages showed the role Combs' staff played in setting up his freak-offs and maybe keeping them a secret.
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But the morning arrival of another controversial star stole the show. NBC News correspondent Chloe Malas is here to tell us what happened when Kanye West Maybach pulled up to 500 Pearl Street, the federal courthouse.
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Hey, Chloe. Hey, Andrea. We will get to that Kanye West appearance in a few minutes. But first, let's talk about Combs' former assistant, Jonathan Perez. He was subpoenaed. He didn't want to testify against his one-time boss, but he did.
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Jonathan had such a calm, affable demeanor. I watched him on the stand this afternoon,
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and he testified that he really enjoyed working for Combs and that he still respects him present
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day. And Diddy seemed pretty positive during the testimony, and I can see why. So he worked with Sean Combs when Cassie Ventura's lawsuit was filed.
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He did, and he also overlapped with Jane. And he was one of the people that helped set up those hotel nights, but it was something that he called king nights.
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Yeah, now we have freak-offs, hotel nights, and king nights. And we had heard some of those terms in different civil suits, Andrea, that had been filed in the months leading up to this trial, but now we're starting to learn that they're all synonymous.
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Okay, so what did we learn about his routine of preparing for these nights? So Jonathan testified that he would set up everything from baby oil, lighting, getting food and beverages.
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There was at least one occasion he testified that the hotel room in New York City was under his own name.
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But he characterized all of this as just the personal side of his job. that 99% of his time, that's exactly what he said, was spent on business, doing the Love Album,
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business meetings, and that only 1% of his time was setting up or cleaning up after these hotel
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nights. And getting drugs was something that, yes, he had done. But again, it only took up a
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little bit of his time. He also testified under cross-examination when Brian Steele got up there.
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He said that sometimes work and personal all blurred together, and he has no idea if company funds were used to pay for any of those illegal things.
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He also, he testified, was required to frequent sex shops. Yes. So Jonathan on the stand said that he would get lingerie he would go buy it for Jane he would go to sex shops but that he really considered this to be personal time between Diddy and whatever girlfriend he was
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with, whether it was Jane or somebody else. Perez also testified that he and other staff
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members would clean up the room after the nights. We've heard a little bit about that from other
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witnesses. So there's two ways to look at this, Andrea, at cleaning up these hotel rooms. The
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prosecution paints it as they're cleaning up because they don't want anybody to know about
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these freak offs, these hotel nights, these king nights, because they don't want anyone to know
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that escorts were there. They don't want the public to find out. They don't want the hotel
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to find out. But on cross-examination, you have Jonathan Perez telling Brian Steele that this was
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actually done because they didn't want the hotel staff to have to clean up baby oil and go into a
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really dirty, messy, chaotic room. And Brian Steele said, so you're doing this to be helpful,
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to which Jonathan testified, yes. Okay. Chloe, what felt new today was that the prosecution
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read a number of Perez's text with Christina Coram, or KK, who was helping to run Combs'
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day-to-day schedule. Why did they read those text messages? We have heard so much about her. And the
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big question I get all the time is, is KK going to testify? And I actually spoke to someone familiar
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with Diddy's defense strategy, and they say that she is absolutely not stepping foot in this
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courthouse. Prosecutors are trying to paint her as a co-conspirator. Who was Combs conspiring with?
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And so when you're looking at these text messages today, you have KK saying is PD, meaning is Puff Daddy, at the hotel yet, to which Jonathan responds, he's on the way per security.
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And then you have KK who's liking the message. So what they're trying to do with these text messages, the government, is to try to show that Combs was carrying out illegal activity via these king nights, these hotel nights, and using employees to help carry out that illicit activity.
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The prosecutor asked Perez about an incident involving a video he found of one of the freak offs and how KK handled that.
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What did Perez testify that she did? We've learned throughout this trial that Diddy enjoyed filming at times these sexual encounters with these male escorts, whether it was with Cassie or with Jane.
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And in this particular instance, Jonathan, he testified that somebody else who was working for Diddy found a video of Jane having sex with another man, potentially an escort, and Diddy's in the video.
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So this is found on an iPad in the house, and he testifies that he reaches out to KK, and he's like, this is not good, right?
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This is on the work iPad, and there's discussion as to how could that have gotten on there, right?
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But on cross-examination, you have Steele saying, okay, so this is a work iPad. you basically freak out when you find this because this type of personal video you never seen anything like it before on a work laptop or a work iPad And you concerned because this is personal So Brian Steele is really trying to separate
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the lines that the government is trying to blur that there were things that happened on the clock
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and off the clock. And there were things that employees knew and things that they didn't.
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Christina KK hasn't spoken out much since her name has been brought up in the Combs allegations,
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first in a number of civil suits against him and now multiple times at trial. Chloe, she did release a statement to Rolling Stone back in March.
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Right. And we've read parts of this to you all before, but some of what she said was that for
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months, horrific accusations have been made about me in various lawsuits regarding my former boss
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and that she's confident that these allegations against her will be proven to be untrue.
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On cross-examination, Combs' defense attorney Brian Steele asked Perez about Jane, pseudonym Jane,
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and whether he thought she was reluctant to participate in the hotel nights, as she called them.
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You have him being called as a government witness, and he's up there because he's worked for Combs for years.
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He worked for Combs right up until he was arrested in September 2024. This isn't somebody with a hazy memory who is talking about something that happened 10 years ago.
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This is seemingly fresh. And Brian Steele says, did you ever get the feeling that Jane was hesitant to participate in King Nights?
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He says, no. Steele says that she was a willing participant. Jonathan testified, yes.
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Steele then says, was she ever upset or unhappy after a King Knight? Jonathan testifies no.
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Oh, that's big. And we also know. Yes, and we also know that Jonathan was, according to his testimony, close with Jane.
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He would shop for her, not just lingerie, that she trusted him, that he had her best interest at heart.
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And he would see her often because it sounds like Jonathan Perez was a fixture in Combs' day-to-day life for years.
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Hmm. Chloe, we have been talking this week about juror number six and possible issues with that
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juror, and you have a big update. So the issue is about where the juror lives, whether or not he
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still lives in the Bronx, and that the juror had been slightly confused but not deceitful.
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That's how the judge characterized it. We also learned that this came to light because
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he himself had said something to the jury staff offhand. He seemed to have said something about
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recently moving in with his girlfriend and his daughter in New Jersey. So the judge said even if
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he is technically qualified as to where he lives, there are serious questions about his propriety
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here. I just want to point out, though, that this is strongly being opposed by Diddy's legal defense
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team. So we shall see. Okay. When we come back, only a handful of celebrities have come to Sean
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Combs' defense in the year and a half since Cassie Ventura's lawsuit. But today, one superstar made a show of support.
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All right welcome back So Chloe you were hearing yesterday that Kanye West is in New York and was trying to come to Combs trial
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And that he did. He pulled up in a Maybach. Cameras swarmed him. And our own pool camera actually got it.
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Let's go, Kanye West. Kanye. Kanye. Happy to see you. Kanye, why'd you show up today?
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But he did not go into the courtroom. He actually was taken to the 23rd floor. The courtroom is on the 26th floor to something called an overflow room.
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We've told y'all about this before. This is where members of the public go. This is where media that doesn't make it into the courtroom that day go.
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And you watch the trial on TV screens. We don't know why he didn't go into the actual courtroom.
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I did interview this afternoon a guy named Looch. He's a good friend of Diddy's.
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He's been in the courtroom every single day. And I interviewed him on NBC earlier,
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and he said it was actually Kanye's decision not to go into the courtroom. That was his choice.
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He didn't want to go and just show up nothing, so he just wanted to just show his love.
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And you know what I'm saying? He's not trying to be all in the videos and all over the place,
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so he just came into the show some life. So there was some chatter that perhaps Kanye was here to testify, and that is not the case.
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We have no indication that he's going to be called as a defense witness, but Looch did say that he expects Kanye to come back at some point, so we could see that again next week.
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Kanye was at the courthouse for about a half hour. It's unclear if he was frustrated because he wasn't in the main courtroom
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or because they broke for lunch shortly after he got there and he didn't want to wait around.
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And I know from Looch that he actually left and had lunch with some of Combs' family and his kids around the corner.
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And people were just as excited about Kanye leaving. Kanye! We love you, Kanye! We love you, Kanye! We love you, Kanye!
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We love you, bro! We love you, bro! Chloe, the prosecution is still not done. They have a summary witness, and we could see a few of those.
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So they could be finished as early as Wednesday, and we could see Diddy's team start Thursday.
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Okay. And is there any chance that Sean Combs himself would testify? I asked that to Looch today, and he said he had no idea.
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That's not my expectation, so I wouldn't know that. But is there a chance? I don't know. I don't know. I wouldn't know.
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Okay. Thank you, Chloe. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you. You too. I hope all of our listeners enjoy their weekend.
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Thank you all for listening. We'll be back with a new episode on Monday. If you want to read the latest developments and analysis from inside the courtroom, check out the NBC newsletter, Diddy on Trial.
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Go to NBCNews.com slash Diddy to find that. On Trial is produced by Frannie Kelly with help from the Dateline True Crime Weekly team.
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Our senior producers are Alison Orr and Liz Brown-Korloff. Original music by Jesse McGinty.
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Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.