A witness in the sex-trafficking trial of the rap star Sean “Diddy” Combs testified that Mr. Combs paid him $100,000 to obtain the now infamous surveillance video that depicts the defendant beating his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in the hallway of a hotel. Federal prosecutors intend to call to the witness stand a forensic video specialist on Wednesday, as well as two more women who accused Mr. Combs of assaulting them. 

“Mr. Combs sounded very nervous,” Eddy Garcia, a security guard at the luxury InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles, where the assault incident that was captured on video by surveillance cameras occurred in March 2016, testified in federal court on Tuesday, as he described Mr. Combs’s demeanor when he first spoke to him about the hotel video. Mr. Garcias later added that Mr. Combs was “stuttering.”  

A brief commotion erupted in the courtroom before the security guard was called to the witness stand. A woman in the audience, who appeared to be an ardent fan of Mr. Combs, started cursing and then yelled, “Diddy, these motherf—s are laughing at you!” Court officers immediately removed her from the courtroom. The jury had not entered yet and did not witness the scene.   

Prosecutors then called Mr. Garcia, 33, who invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. But the presiding district judge, Arun Subramanian, signed an immunity order that required Mr. Garcia to testify.

Mr. Garcia is the second witness in the trial, which was in its 15th day of testimony on Tuesday, to testify under such an immunity order. A former executive assistant to Mr. Combs, George Kaplan, was also subpoenaed and also invoked his Fifth Amendment right. 

Mr. Kaplan had testified that he was in charge of supplying and then cleaning the hotel rooms that were the sites of Mr. Combs’s sex orgies, his so-called Freak Offs, where he booked male prostitutes and paid them to have sex with his on-and-off-again girlfriend, Ms. Ventura, who previously testified in the trial, as the Sun reported. 

The former assistant told the jury that part of his job was to protect Mr. Combs’s public image. “Protecting him and protecting his public image was very important and that was something I was very keen on doing,” he testified.

He was also tasked with bringing candles, liquor, baby oil, and lubricant to the hotel rooms before the parties would begin. A few times, Mr. Kaplan said, he was given money, and asked to purchase and deliver drugs to Mr. Combs and his Freak Off guests. 

The government has charged Mr. Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation for the purpose of prostitution. Prosecutors allege, among other offenses, that Mr. Combs used what they describe as his “criminal enterprise” to coerce Ms. Ventura and others, such as the male prostitutes, into partaking in these orgies to fulfill his sexual desires for more than a decade, using blackmailing tactics, drugs, and violence. 

Mr. Combs, who pleaded not guilty to all charges, insists that his sexual encounters were always consensual. His attorneys argue that the prosecution’s legal argument that consensual sex is actually organized crime is absurd. If convicted, the music producer faces a maximum of life in prison.  

Mr. Garcia’s testimony on Tuesday showed that Mr. Combs went so far as to pay the security guard $100,000 to keep the violence, caught on camera, out of the public eye. 

But the video, from March 2016, would become public in 2024, as prosecutors, who were closing in on Mr. Combs, upped the pressure on the mogul producer. 

The surveillance video recorded an incident between Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura in an elevator bank of the InterContinental. The video, which was first aired last year by CNN, depicts Mr. Combs, wearing only a towel, kicking and dragging a cowering Ms. Ventura. The video, which defense attorneys accused prosecutors of leaking to CNN, was damaging to public perceptions of Mr. Combs. 

Before the trial began, defense attorneys asked the judge to exclude the video from evidence, arguing that CNN had “altered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited” the video footage in such a way that it was “inaccurate.” CNN has repeatedly denied this allegation, saying it never touched the footage and is still in possession of the original copy. The judge allowed the video into evidence, and prosecutors presented it to the jury during the first week of testimony. The forensic video expert, who will testify on Wednesday, will most likely address these questions. 

On Tuesday, Mr. Garcia, who was working at the hotel on the day the incident occured, gave a detailed account of what happened after both Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura had left the hotel. 

He was sitting, he said, at his security desk, watching the cameras. His shift had started at 2 p.m., after the assault, but he had heard about the incident from the two other guards who had been on duty before him.  

They had shown him the video, he said, and told him “that Ms. Ventura did not request the presence of police or medical attention.”  

A short while later, he received a phone call at his security desk from a woman, who introduced herself as “a personal assistant to Mr. Combs, followed by her name, Kristina Khorram.”  

“She asked if there was a video of the incident,” Mr. Garcia said, and he told her she’d “have to speak to the hotel management or get a subpoena.”  

Then, about an hour and a half later, Ms. Khorram came to the hotel and asked to speak to Mr. Garcia in person, he said: “I received a call from the hotel operator that there was someone looking for me in the lobby.” 

In the lobby, he met Ms. Khorram, who told him that she and Mr. Combs “were unaware” of what “exactly was on the video” and that they “didn’t recall exactly what happened” and “wanted to know what they were dealing with.” 

Mr. Garcia testified that he told her again that she would have to get a subpoena or speak to the hotel management, but “off the record,” he said, he told her that the video was “bad.”

Later that evening, the security guard said, he received another call at his security desk from a cellphone with a New York area code, and it was, again, Ms. Khorram, saying someone wanted to speak to him, and then she handed the phone to Mr. Combs. 

When an assistant United States attorney, Mitzi Steiner, asked how he knew he was speaking to Mr. Combs, the guard said he recognized that voice: “He’s a public figure. He’s — I heard his voice a lot throughout the years, so I recognized his voice.”  

“Mr. Combs sounded very nervous,” Mr. Garcia said, “just was talking really fast but was just saying that he had a little too much to drink and that, you know, I knew how things was, you know, with women; one thing led to another and if this got out it could ruin him.”  

Mr. Garcia then sent an email message informing his superior that Mr. Combs wanted to discuss the surveillance video, because he was worried it could leak to the public. Then, the guard said, he went home after his shift ended. 

At home, he said he received numerous calls to his cellphone from Ms. Khorram, which made him feel “nervous” and “scared” because he had not given her his personal phone number, and he had no idea how she had obtained it. During one of these calls, she handed the phone to Mr. Combs again. 

“He stated that,” Mr. Garcia said, referring to the defendant, “that I sounded like a good guy, that I sounded like I wanted to help and that something like this can — can ruin him. And again, he kept repeating that I sounded like a good guy and he believed I could help.”  

Mr. Garcia said he apologized and told Mr. Combs that he “was only a security officer and that I didn’t have access to that,” meaning the video footage. He also mentioned that it was against the policy of his company and of the hotel to hand over surveillance footage to a hotel guest.  

But after Mr. Combs offered to “take care of” him — in other words, to pay him — Mr. Garcia called his superior, Bill Medrano, and “informed him I had gotten a few calls already and that Mr. Combs was offering to pay for the video. … There was a pause, and then he stated that he would do it for $50,’” Mr. Garcia testified, meaning $50,000.  

He called Mr. Combs back at the New York number, and told him his boss was willing to get him the video footage for $50,000. Her remembered that Mr. Combs sounded “excited.”   

Mr. Combs allegedly said, “‘Eddy, my angel, I knew you could help. I knew you could do it,’” Mr. Garcia testified. 

Two days later, on March 7, Mr. Medrano, handed him a black USB stick that contained the video. After informing Mr. Combs’s assistant that he was in possession of the footage, he was given an address in Los Angeles.  

Mr. Garcia arrived at a high rise, he said, where he was met in the lobby by one of Mr. Combs’s bodyguards, who took him to a “suite” on an upper floor. In the elevator, Mr. Garcia remembered the guard telling him “that he knew Mr. Combs for a long time, that they kind of came up together and that he was a good guy and I was doing a good thing.”  

Once inside the suite, where Mr. Combs was awaiting him, Mr. Garcia remembered that he was nervous and his voice cracked, and that he told Mr. Combs he was coming down with something, and he claimed that Mr. Combs asked his assistant to get his guest a tea. 

“When he told her [to] bring me a tea, before she could go, he looked back at me and asked me if I liked tea. I didn’t grow up drinking tea, so I said I didn’t know. And he turned back to her and said, ‘Go get him that tea I like,’” Mr. Garcia testified.  

While the assistant was getting the tea, Mr. Garcia handed Mr. Combs the USB stick. Mr. Combs wanted to know if it was the only copy, and Mr. Garcia called his boss, who told him that Mr. Combs was receiving the only copy of the footage. 

“I told him that — that I did have a concern that if there — if there was to be a police report made about the incident at a later time, that it would affect me,” Mr. Garcia remembered.  

Mr. Combs assured him that the woman in the video wanted the video gone as well, and that there would be no police report, and to prove that he was telling the truth he called Ms. Ventura on Facetime. 

“I was able to see enough to think it was Cassie,” Mr. Garcia testified. “She was wearing a hoodie, and the lighting wasn’t that great.” She told him she had a movie coming out and she wanted the video gone. 

Then Mr. Combs asked for his and his boss’s ID, and also for the ID of the security guard who had come into the hallway after the assault and spoken to Ms. Ventura and Mr. Combs. 

That man was Israel Florez. He also testified in the trial and introduced the video to the jury. Mr. Florez said that Mr. Combs had offered him a bribe to keep quiet about the incident, which he had refused. 

When Mr. Combs allegedly asked for Mr. Florez’s ID, Mr. Garcia became nervous, he said, because “just knowing Mr. Florez and who he was, very by-the-book guy, that’s just not something he would — he would do.”

He called his boss, he said, and mentioned to “Bill that I did not think Florez would go for it.” Again his boss “paused,” he said, and he told him, “‘Henry would do it.’”

There had been two security guards on duty on the day of incident, Mr. Florez and Henry Elias. Although Mr. Elias had not been the one who had responded to the assault, Mr. Garcia and his boss decided to trick Mr. Combs and tell him that Mr. Elias was the guard who’d responded.

The prosecutor inquired how Mr. Combs reacted when he received the IDs of Messrs. Medrano and Elias.  

“He looked at them. And when he looked at Henry’s, he said, ‘Yes, that’s him,’” Mr. Garcia replied.  

It appeared that Mr. Combs had not paid close enough attention during the dramatic incident. After receiving the IDs, Mr. Combs brought out a non-disclosure agreement, which Mr. Garcia said he had to sign, though he didn’t even fully read it because he was nervous and wanted to “get out of there.” 

Finally, Mr. Combs went into another room and returned with a brown paper bag and a money counter. He put the cash through the money counter, the witness said. “In total, at the end, it was $100,000.”  

“Did you have an understanding of what that additional $50,000 was for?” Ms. Steiner asked the witness. 

“Yes,” Mr. Garcia replied. Mr. Combs “mentioned he would take care of us financially. So the additional, it was my understanding, was for me and what he thought was Israel Florez.”  

According to the witness, the assistant, Ms. Kohram, was in and out of the room during this transaction, getting the tea, leaving, and coming back. The witness did not remember if she was present while Mr. Combs counted the money, but he remembered Mr. Combs’s  bodyguard was. Once the money was counted, Mr. Combs placed it back into the brown paper bag and handed the bag to Mr. Garcia. 

Mr. Combs and the bodyguard accompanied Mr. Garcia to his car, and at some point Mr. Combs allegedly asked Mr. Garcia how he would be spending the money. 

“He said not to make any big purchases,” Mr. Garcia testified. As he drove off, he remembered cautiously looking into the rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t being followed. 

Mr. Garcia said he gave his boss $50,000 and the other guard, Mr. Elias, $20,000, and he kept $30,000 for himself. 

When Ms. Steiner asked what he did with the money, Mr. Garcia said he “bought a used vehicle” for which he paid in cash. 

He said he received a phone call from Mr. Combs about a month later, on Easter, wishing him a happy holiday. “He said, ‘Happy Easter, Eddy, my angel, God is good, God put you in my way for a reason,’ and then proceeded to ask if anybody had asked about the incident or the video.”  

No one had inquired about it, Mr. Garcia said, and he remembered that Mr. Combs also told him to reach out if he ever needed anything. A year later, Mr. Garcia said he did reach out and sent Mr. Combs a message on Instagram, asking for work as a security guard. But he never received an answer. 

In 2024, he said, Mr. Florez texted him a screenshot of the video, and he realized that there was another copy. He admitted that he wasn’t initially honest when he was contacted by law enforcement about selling the video, but eventually told the truth to federal prosecutors. 

On cross-examination, defense attorney Brian Steel reminded the witness about a paragraph in the non-disclosure agreement that included provisions for when Mr. Garcia could discuss the video and the sale with law enforcement or other government bodies. The agreement specified that Mr. Garcia was to inform Mr. Combs’s company if he did. But Mr. Garcia, it appeared, had in fact not read the fine print of the document.   

In the afternoon, prosecutors called Derek Ferguson, a former chief financial officer at Bad Boy Entertainment, the company that included the record label founded by Mr. Combs. 

Mr. Ferguson, who worked for Mr. Combs between 1998 and 2017, was asked about the overlap of Mr. Combs’s personal and business expenses, and said that Mr. Combs would “from time to time” charge business and personal expenses on his corporate card. 

Through his testimony, prosecutors intend to establish that Mr. Combs’s business was in fact also a “criminal enterprise.” Mr. Ferguson confirmed, for example, that he knew the defendant was providing financial support to family and friends from his company funds. 

But when cross-examined by defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, Mr. Ferguson said he hadn’t ever witnessed anyone at any of Mr. Combs’s companies help Mr. Combs commit any criminal acts.  

Mr. Agnifilo asked if Mr. Ferguson had ever witnessed “acts of violence” or saw anyone “make the company stronger through acts of violence.” The former financial officer replied he had not. He also had not seen any acts of prostitution or forced labor. 

When asked what he thought about Mr. Combs today, Mr. Ferguson took a long pause before answering, “I don’t know how to respond to that.” 

Prosecutors told the court that they intend to call a forensic video expert as the next witness, followed by a woman, Bryana Bongolan, who has accused the defendant of dangling her off a balcony. After Ms. Bongolan, the next alleged victim is expected to take the stand. She has been referred to as “Victim-2” in the indictment and will testify under the pseudonym Jane.