STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A key piece of evidence in the trial of Sean Combs is a hotel surveillance video. It shows a violent confrontation between Combs and his girlfriend at the time. Jurors have seen that event from more than one angle. There's more than one video. The event has come up in testimony of multiple witnesses. And now another witness has testified about it saying that Combs paid him in order to get his hands on the footage. We should advise you this story mentions violence and sex. Lasts about 3 1/2 more minutes. NPR's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento has been in the courthouse and joins us now. Good morning.
ISABELLA GOMEZ SARMIENTO, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. For those who have not seen it - it's been all over the place - what's on this video?
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: So the hotel video is from 2016, and it shows Combs hitting, kicking and dragging his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, who is probably the highest profile witness in this case. Last year, CNN obtained and released a version of the video and it became public after Ventura had filed and settled a civil lawsuit against Combs but before he was indicted on these criminal charges - just as a reminder, those charges include sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
INSKEEP: Right, of course. Now, it's interesting that this witness is talking not strictly about what happened on the video but about the handling of the video afterward, is that right?
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: That's correct. So one of the things that we learned is that Combs knew this video was a potentially damning piece of evidence even dating right back to when this happened. So it was a witness named Eddy Garcia. He worked for security at the hotel, and he told the court that hours after the assault, the security desk received multiple calls from a woman named Kristina Khorram. She worked for Combs, and she repeatedly asked for the footage, even at one point showing up to the hotel. She would put Combs on the line. They got a hold of Garcia's personal phone number, and they promised that if he made the video go away, they would, quote, "take care of him." According to Garcia, he told his boss what was going on, and his boss offered to give Combs the footage in exchange for $50,000.
INSKEEP: Oh, offered to give him the footage for $50,000. What actually happened?
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: So Garcia told the court that his boss gave him a USB with the video, and then he went to meet with Combs, who had two of his employees with him. Remember, this video shows Combs beating Ventura and throwing her on the ground. And Garcia says he was really worried about what would happen if she went to the police. Combs allegedly called Ventura on FaceTime and told her to say that she also wanted this video to go away, which she did. Then Garcia said he signed a nondisclosure agreement and a document stating that this was the only existing copy of the video, and that then Combs gave him $100,000 in cash.
INSKEEP: OK. So the payment was made to make the video go away, but it hasn't gone away. CNN released it last year. I guess it wasn't the only copy?
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: Right. And Garcia said that he learned another version existed the same way we did when it was all over the news last year. It's unclear how CNN got that footage, but we do know that at least another copy of it exists in the world because another witness who worked at the hotel testified earlier in the trial, and he said that he recorded the footage onto his personal cellphone.
INSKEEP: OK. So we get all this testimony about Combs' concern about the video - showing Combs' concern about the video, to the extent he wanted to pay to make it go away. Did the defense attorneys challenge any of that testimony?
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: So, not really. Most of what the defense focused on was the technical details of that nondisclosure agreement that Garcia signed, but they did not try to poke holes into his claims of bribery. And interestingly, we saw something similar with another witness. She was an employee of Combs who testified that Combs physically and sexually assaulted her. And she said that in 2023, years after she no longer worked for Combs, a security guard contacted her to offer her an unsolicited gift. This was right after Cassie Ventura had filed her civil lawsuit against Combs. As with the hotel employee, the defense attorney didn't really challenge the witness' bribery accusations, but they went really hard after her allegations of sexual assault, so much so that the prosecution objected to their tone of the questions, and things got pretty confrontational.
INSKEEP: NPR's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Thanks for the reporting. Really appreciate it.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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