Welcome everyone to the Amy and TJ Podcast. Amy roboc here along with my partner TJ Holmes, and we are giving you your one stop shop for your latest Diddy trial updates. We sit here just a couple blocks away from the courthouse and testimony is continuing today right now.
Frank Piazza is up on the stand. He's a forensic video expert, and he's going to be talking about the validity of a lot of what we heard and saw yesterday regarding that surveillance video in that hotel where we see Ditty attacking his then girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
Frank is probably one of the more boring witnesses. Now, I don't say avent right. There have been so many salacious and wild and unbelievable and jaw dropping headlines that come out of testimony. The prosecution has to have several of these types of witnesses, forensic guys who walk the jury through it's very important. It can seem tedious, but it's important for him to point out in that video,
like you said, the validity of it. Brianna Bongolan as another one's going to be up on the stand today. She is a friend of Cassie Ventura Fine and also someone who claims that Diddy dangled her over a balcony and rolled. It's interesting. She is expected to be up today as well, but she's another of several who are testifying but clearly don't want to. They had to be compelled, that's right.
Brianna actually was first up to take the witness stand, but it's because she had to take that immunity or trying to get the judge. She's waiting for the judge to grant an order of immunity, so she can't testify until she gets that order. The judge will likely do that. It just is kind of clerical. We're just waiting for him to say it. But she wanted to make sure that she had that immunity because not only is she expected to testify about being dangled over a.
Seventeen floor I believe balcony.
But she alsos to get above ten.
Yeah, it doesn't really matter, right, but yes, apparently it was seventeen floors up, which is terrifying. And she's also expected to testify about illicit drug use. So that's why she needed the immunity, because she would be basically ratting on herself yeah, I mean, lack of a better word. Yes, she'd be ratting on herself about using drugs that are illegal,
so that is expected. But it's interesting I asked you this, and it's part of the reason why Frank Piazza is up on the stand now speaking to the validity of that surveillance video. But it was testified so many times yesterday that did he believe this was the only copy that he bought, that one hundred thousand dollars he gave was the only copy of that surveillance video, but clearly it was not, and was it explained then how the rest of the world saw that.
Video even though did he thought he had the only copy.
Well, it hasn't been revealed who was actually behind it. But there was the argument that the prosecution is made that of course the video wasn't doctored, and we can't show it to you to prove it wasn't. The point is what we all saw was a cell phone recording of the surveillance video. So it appears that someone played it for someone and someone recorded it on a cell phone, but they didn't get the actual USB copy of it.
Is how the prosecution at least has explained it, so there is no you can't go through do a forensic analysis of it. We didn't doctor it, obviously, we didn't because it came from a cell phone, as their argument. But that cell phone video and that one hundred thousand dollars you just mentioned was the centerpiece of the last full day of testimony we have in the books, and
that's the one we're going to talk about. There were two folks in particular that were One was Derek Ferguson, who was with Diddy for twenty years and he ended up being the CFO. But first was Eddie Garcia, this guy also under immunity testifying because he was the guy that Diddy reached out to allegedly after the incident with Cassie Ventura Fine in that hallway, reached out and immediately said I need that video and I'll pay for it.
And he paid handsomely for it. He ended up giving one hundred thousand dollars, Eddie Garcia said to him, and he divvied that up fifty thousand for his boss, twenty thousand for a coworker, he took thirty thousand for himself. He testified that Diddy made it very clear to him don't spend the money all at once right away. He didn't want anything to seem untoward. If someone suddenly has
thirty thousand dollars cash to pay for something large. He was like, he was cautioning him not to draw attention.
That was some good fellow's ish right there.
Right after you do a big heist, there's always one idiot that goes and buys a car and then gets caught. That's what he did, That is what did He was trying to tell him not and.
That to do.
So. Eddie Garcia then testifies that's exactly what he ended up doing, going and buying a new car.
So if you go back with his look, did he, according to at least this testimony, According to the testimony, as soon as it happened, did he knew it was bad and he knew he needed to get his hands on that surveillance video. He knew it immediately. So Garcia says,
he gets a call. He testifies he gets a call from Sean Holmes saying keps calling him, I know you're a good guy, like was really kind of sweetening, just talking him up, and said want you to help us out and need to get this video Garcia said he didn't have the authority. He actually didn't have access to it. He now has to go get somebody else involved.
His supervisor. That's crazy that you would take that to your supervisor.
That blows my mind.
You're being bribed to sell off a piece of video that is basically criminal evidence, because you know, when you see what's on that tape, that is a criminal act. And he then felt comfortable enough to call his boss and say, hey, can we do did he write? Give him this video? And he's going to pay us? And then his boss agreed that that's mind blowing to me. And then I don't know how there was another person involved too, but three people knew about this video and were paid for it.
See is we stopped probably once an episode that we've been doing this every day, and we stop and we have this moment. Damn, somebody knew how many folks were complicit. You are watching a vicious assault and you go, you know what, I won't tell nobody. If you give me fifty grand, I won't tell nobody. You can give me thirty grand, I won't tell anybody. You give me twenty grand. That's tough, man. You saw this woman be victimized. It's
like walking past somebody being beaten on the street. If you see a man beating a woman on the street, are you just gonna walk by? Are you gonna say, hey, you give me a hundred dollars, I'll forget about it.
Or whatever it may be. Be tough, you're not gonna do that.
I wonder how they all slept at night after that.
Look, I don't know what's going on in everybody else's life, and you try to give folks grace, but this is another time where robes we talk about there were so many people who knew who had an oppertunity. So this isn't just they were aware of They played an active hand in covering.
Up a crime.
One hundred percent.
Do you do you recall it? This was twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen. I'm trying to remember which year it was, but bottom line, this didn't come out until last year. Yes, yes, So this was all buried for at least six seven eight years, eight years, eight years.
That one.
It just it gets me.
It's just it's wild.
We keep talking about he was allowed to do these things, and he just had so much power, He had so much influence it needed some one person, and there seemed to be hundreds, quite frankly robes who had an opportunity to say something. This was a collaborative effort to help him cover up. The money just makes it ickier. But you how could you? Can you imagine watching that video and go okay, fine, I won't say nothing.
It makes me feel like everybody has a price.
Yeah, I mean, oh, guy's work in hotel security. How much is he making an hour or whatever it may be? And this cause of Garcia said. He reached out to Diddy later asking for a job. Never heard back from Diddy, Fine and Dandy, but this was Garcia said, yeah, see, gets Diddy on the phone. Diddy, they end up meeting face to face and Garcia brings him the USB file, one hundred grand in cash in a brown paper bag and a money counting machine. This is only stuff I've seen in movies, Like.
You said, Goodfellas, that's what it sounds like.
And also we mentioned this, but just it's also just the threat of personal safety was involved as well. Not only were they paid handsomely handsomely, but he also took photos of all of their ideas and basically let them know yes, I know who you are, I know where you live. I can come find you if any of
this gets out. I'm fascinated by the fact that someone had that video on their cell phone for all those years, and technically, when Eddie Garcia told him this is the only copy this is, you know, this is the only only keep Bob basically what it's a it was a USB from the actual surveillance video. I guess that technically was true. But someone, I mean, I imagine how or why someone took a video of the video and then kept it on their cell phone all those years.
I would say it should have been one of the supervisors or one of the security guards. It's some insurance policy you never know where you're going to need that again probably and again that's me watching gangster movies maybe thinking, but they might have done it for safety. Who else would have done it? Did somebody finally get so upset?
Did somebody finally go this is it when they saw Cassie was about to sue him and her lawsuit cooms and finance someone who knows I don't know where how CNN got their hands on it.
And if that security video never came out, would we be sitting watching observing this trial. Would Cassie have felt compelled or at least just backed up enough, you know, may to file that lawsuit when that video came out.
That was.
Total proof of everything she had endured, or at least a version of where people would start to believe what she had to say. So many people who have said things about Ditty didn't have any real proof. Now there's proof. Now there's physical, irrefutable proof. That might have emboldened Cassie to go ahead and file her lawsuits.
Oll she filed that sucker ahead of she'd seen in releasing.
So yeah, but the question is does she know it existed? Like all of that, the timing was pretty.
Close to your point. Yes, to your point, she one hundred percent knew it existed. And according to Eddie Garcia in the stand yesterday, he talked to her on the phone. Did he put cassieven to refine on the phone, and she backed up what Ditty was saying, which was, we don't want this video to come out, can you please help us out? And she had a movie coming out.
So she knew that at least one person had seen the video and had had their hands on it. So I just wonder how that how much that may have played in her decision to.
File the lawsuit.
It was out there exactly, and I'm just curious which one if there was any conversation beforehand. But interestingly, with Cassie having that conversation, Eddie Garcia testified that their real concern wasn't about the fact that they were covering something up or whether or not they were going to get paid.
They were concerned that if Cassie decided to file a police report, police would absolutely then come to the hotel and ask for surveillance footage, and if they saw that the footage was erased, deleted, or destroyed, that might have put some legal questions towards them. And so he was just concerned, Hey, I need to know that neither one of y'all, especially Cassie, is not going to go to the police after the fact, and then I'm going to get busted for having given you this video.
This is all a mess, And the point of all of this is they're trying to the prosecution build a case and showing that this man used his business enterprise which was a part of fueling a criminal enterprise, and a criminal enterprise has to have crimes, so he wasn't necessarily out there being a drug dealer or something you see from some of the other traditional mobsters.
In New York.
But coersion, dangling somebody off of a building, drugs, violence, this is all criminal behavior. So this is a part of them trying to stack it up and make a case against him. But Eddie Garcia, his testimony was incredible, yes one hundred to see what he was willing to do. And they knew immediately this wasn't a so to all of us that whoa where'd the video come from? They have known for eight years.
That's crazy that this was documented.
And you know what also is interesting given all of that, to then have Derek Ferguson take the stand, did he's CFO and say that he never saw anything untoward, He never saw any improper financial movement. And with all of this testimony, we've heard about Diddy ping people off, or even Cassie Ventura finds his own mother saying she wired him twenty thousand dollars. Now, Ferguson did acknowledge that there was a twenty thousand dollars payment back to Cassie Ventura's mother,
so that did exist. But was that not questionable? Why was he paying? You know, it's hard for me to yes, I'll hard for me to imagine that the CFO had no idea of anything illegal or improper happening financially, when clearly that had to have happened.
If what people are alleging.
Occurred, money had to be exchange, money had to be offered in payment to people. What did he think those payments were for? Does the CFO isn't that part of their responsibility to ask why this money.
Is being do they?
Or do they just need to keep the numbers and keep the sheets balanced. And he tried to explain, Yeah, some folks use cash payments for this. People use expenses on that. He said, it was all over the place, but he did the record keeping, and he to your point, some of these witnesses are able to corroborate what earlier witnesses said. We our minds were blown to hear that Casue Binturofine's mom sent Diddy twenty thousand essentially trying to get her daughter free. And it's like wow, and then
they sent it back to her. And now this guy comes on the stand and say, yeah, I got a twenty thousand dollars payment and then it went back out.
He said he didn't know what it was for.
Wow. I still keep thinking about that. The return of that twenty thousand dollars had to be the worst that mom money you've ever received in your life, because it'd be such a sinking feeling, like rejected. You don't get your daughter. I still have her and I'm keeping her. Here's your money back. That just had to be gutting to her. I thought something really interesting occurred when he was asked. When Derek Ferguson was asked, do you think
highly of mister Combs? His response and he took a pause, a long pause. I don't know how to respond to that.
What do you make of that?
Well, what I made the.
If that was in the middle of testimony, that might have been one thing, But that was the last question to him, and it was it leaves an impact. It leaves an impression on the jury because this guy was Look, he's a numbers guy. He's a Harvard educated guy who's been CFO. He does the numbers. I don't know anything about a hotel or freak golf or I'm just in my office doing my thing.
Do you believe that I do. Really, I actually.
Think that's possible. I think there are plenty people in his circle. And look, we run around enough in New York and industry, we've been in We've been around folks in the music industry. There was some we've talked to plenty over the years who had an idea. The other folks who talk to now like I had no freaking idea this kind of stuff, Like just are blown away this guy. It's tough because he was with him for twenty years.
That's my point. I'm skeptical as hell. You could have purposefully removed yourself from situations where you would have to acknowledge that you saw things. So in my mind, he it's hard for me to believe that he didn't know things were happening. But he deliberately removed himself or wasn't a part of any conversation or in any sort of room where something could be said, or he could have learned something that he would have then had to testify to.
But the smart okay, fine.
But then he's but that's also still you know something's going on.
You just don't want to know what's going on. You want plausible deniability.
So is plausible deniability.
Called to a stand and put on their oath, you can honestly say, I don't know.
That might be illegal versus a moral dilemma, because I cannot believe that he didn't think that stuff was happening.
He thought what he saw, and there is no way he didn't.
Hear There's no way he didn't.
That's my point.
Or maybe he was the square in the office and nobody invited him to a party and he wasn't included. It's possible, but I think the testimony least this guy gave, he was measured, he was calm, he was sharp, and I thought that was an honest answer, the one you just talked about there. But if that's the last impression this guy known, did he twenty years been with him, given straightforward test that was as emotional probably as I
saw it, And that's not an emotional statement. But to think, you know what, I don't know what to think about this guy that I was with for twenty years, that the jury's going to remember that and the way and who was at the defense of the prosecution that I asked last I can't remember it?
Was it a redirect?
Well? He asked if I don't know if this was a redirect, but he was asked, you know, has anyone did he ever see anyone commit any crimes? No, he said no, And he said, what I observed with Bad Boy and Sean Combs was a company that really gave a lot of young executives a lot of opportunities.
He put a positive spin on it.
But we've heard from so many of those young folks, maybe not even executives, but artists, emerging artists, saying those opportunities came at a devastating cost.
But like you said, you said artists an executive. This is a young guy who was I think he's from He's from New York. He's Harvard educated, but I think he worked with his dad at a company or something. He's just he's a New York guy who made good sharp as anything. So to hear him and his testimony explain that, yes, I was excited to go to Bad Boy. A young guy going, young black guy going to bad Boy. You know exactly, that's cool, that's awesome. And this goes
to Aubrey Odah's been talking to us about it. Depending on who you were and where you fell in his life and when you were around him, he could be the most wonderful, charming, great guy you've ever been around, Sean Diddy Combs. Maybe that was this guy's experience and he didn't see that other thing.
Yeah, maybe he just was mostly in his life via email.
Quite seriously, I'm saying that, like, maybe he never really physically was around him very often to see some of these other sides of him and to even get an inkling about what was happening.
Maybe they just had an email relationship.
You've been around CFOs before. They don't care around bags of cash and pill bags and whatnot. These guys are in the office heads down a lot of the times, usually not the coolest guy in the room. No offense to you guys out there. What I'm saying is, for all the artists and people have been up and we're talking to who seem to come from a different place or a different world, this guy doesn't seem to fit
into it at all. He's an executive. We have to remember this is this was a very successful, thriving company.
Why so, I'm curious with what he testified to, what was the what was the benefit to the prosecution to have him on What did he corroborate. Well, the twenty thousand dollars payment.
Certainly the twenty thousand, just the structure of his Yeah, he didn't have any buyd blowing to who I saw this, Oh this was or.
This money went there? I mean I was kind of expecting maybe some of those transactions to be detailed by him because he had the account of it. So I was actually underwhelmed by what he had to offer in terms of bolstering the prosecution's case.
You got spoiled with headline out the headline after all the other witnesses.
You can't believe what the hell you see it.
Well, today we're going to get perhaps a little bit more of that type of testimony because we are expecting, as we mentioned, Brianna Bongolan to actually take the stand today. We're expecting that later today, and then after that we're all kind of waiting for this Jane character to testify that as a pseudonym, Jane Doe is what the moniker is that they're giving her. But there are real concerns given what happened with Mia. Mia was also being protected
because she is allegedly a rape survivor. She claims that did he raped her and sexually assaulted her. So she was offered that anonymity, and unfortunately, at least one YouTuber put her name out there and has now been banned from the courtroom.
But that's a real concern.
Execution has asked when Jane does take the stand, they're asking the judge to consider what happened with Mia, and they're asking that video feeds actually be cut into some
of these overflow rooms. They're trying to put in some extra layers or protection to make sure that Jane's actual identity doesn't also get released, because there are a lot of Didty supporters out there and potentially people who are looking to out some of these women, at least that's what it appeared to be at least with Mia, So there are real concerns.
We don't know what the judge is going to rule on that, and the.
Ditty supporters, some of them are in the courthouse wearing free puff attire. The overflow room rolls. I'm curious to see what happens with this. We've been reading more and more about it, but it's become a little bit of a rowdy place, turned into somewhat of a where they say a watch party atmosphere where this is the overflow area where members of the public can be, where journalists are. And yes, there are some supporters of Ditty in there, but they say it's gotten a little loud, and it's
gotten a little rowdy. And the Washington Post reporter we need to get her name because we want to give her credit.
We've been using a lot of her stuff, she says.
A couple of folks walked out of the overfrow room, like some influencers, excitedly yelling let's go viral, like they had something that's disgusting.
It is, let's go viral.
You know, when anyone tries to profit off of like actual painful, devastating, horrific situations, it just it's sickening. So yes, let's go viral free puff. That's deeply concerning to think that those are some of the folks who are reporting on this trial and what's happening inside the courtroom. It's certainly not the decorum that any of us are used to in any way, shape or form.
All right, folks, well, we are keeping our eye on everything that's happening in the courthouse. That's only a couple of blocks from us here.
Actually, We will.
Continue to keep you updated and in form folks, but as always, Swamy Robock I am TJ.
Holmes.
Thanks for listening.