Source: Variety / Getty
Diddy’s sex trafficking and racketeering trial has largely been supported by victim testimonies, text messages and photos like the ones of Kid Cudi’s burned Porsche, but the most damning has been the video.
The video of Diddy beating and dragging his then girlfriend, Cassie, through the hallways of a California hotel made its way through the court of public opinion, and now it’s the subject of the latest person to testify against him.
Eddie Garcia, who worked at the InterContinental in Los Angeles in March 2016, took the stand to tell the story of how much Diddy never wanted the tape to see the light of day.
According to NBC News, he remembers clocking in to work that day, brought up to speed about the assault, but “was told Ms. Ventura did not request the presence of police or medical attention.”
In the days after the assault, Diddy’s team began to understand the video’s potential damage, as former chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, repeatedly called the hotel to get the footage, and eventually Diddy himself, who tried to justify his actions.
“He was talking really fast, a lot of stuttering,” Garcia remembers Diddy saying, adding that he was “just saying he had a little too much to drink.”
Garcia said Diddy also told him, “With women, one thing leads to another, and if this got out, it would ruin him.”
Garcia says that Diddy was willing to pay for the sole copy of the footage, and his boss agreed to a $50,000 fee.
“He referred to me as ‘Eddy, my angel,’” Garcia said.
The deal came together as he got on a FaceTime call with Diddy and Ventura, who Diddy told to say she also wanted the video to disappear.
The security guard was then told to sign a $1 million penalty NDA, —which was later presented in court— and Diddy walked into a room with a money counter and $100,000 in a brown paper bag. Combs said he doubled the original amount so he could split it with the other security guards who were aware of the situation.
Combs warned him not to make any large purchases so as not to draw attention to himself, so he spent the money on a used car.
He even contacted Garcia weeks later to ask him if there had been any rumblings about the video, telling him, “Happy Easter. You are my angel. God is good. God put you in my life for a reason.”
Prior to Garcia’s account of Diddy paying him off, there was a disruption in the courtroom when a woman in the gallery, who claimed to be a transit employee, began acting up.
“Everyone is laughing at Diddy! It’s not right what they’re doing to him!” she screamed as U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian instructed her to be removed.
See social media’s latest responses to the Diddy trial below.