Alert – Diddy judge explodes at rapper for ‘absolutely unacceptable’ attempts to sway the jury: Live trial updates

Judge Arun Subramanian told lawyers on Thursday that he twice saw Combs looking at the jury and ‘nodding vigorously’ during the cross-examination of Bongolan.

The judge said Diddy’s behavior was ‘absolutely unacceptable’ and ‘cannot happen again.’

The judge said he would consider further measures if the conduct does not stop, including kicking the disgraced mogul out of his own trial.

Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said he understood.

The judge then added sternly: ‘There should be no efforts whatsoever to have an interaction with this jury.’

To hear all the explosive testimony from singer Cassie Ventura and the other witnesses in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ trial, tune in to Daily Mail’s hit podcast The Trial.

From sworn testimony to video evidence and the rapper’s every subtle move, our team of journalists take you inside the courtroom of the world’s biggest celebrity case.

Daily Mail has been following Diddy’s downfall from the very beginning. Join us as we hear from experts involved in the case, and members of the rapper’s inside circle.

Jane told the jury her first official date with Diddy was a January 2021 meetup at a Miami hotel that evolved into a torrid five-day stay.

She recalled eating dinner with the mogul in their hotel room, watching the sunrise with him from the balcony, and taking morning walks together on the beach.

After the trip, Jane said, she was ‘pretty head over heels with Sean already.’

Soon, she said, she was joining Combs on his private jet for a nine-day trip to Turks and Caicos.

They later took a trip to the Bahamas.

During both trips Jane said they did drugs, particularly ecstasy.

After each trip, Jane said, Diddy gifted her $10,000 to make up with the work she missed as a social media influencer.

Jane said she was dating Diddy at the time of his arrest last September.

In the case of a guilty verdict, Diddy may have to use his ties with Washington, DC elite for help obtaining a pardon – which his ‘good friend’ Donald Trump has said he would consider.

Although Diddy has often endorsed Democrats throughout the years, including Joe Biden in 2020, he has been photographed with members across the political spectrum.

Here DailyMail.com takes a look at all of the politicians this music mogul has mingled with over the years.

Jane told the jury she met Diddy in late 2020 while on a girl’s trip to Miami.

She said Diddy was in a relationship with one of her friends at the time and he covered the trip’s costs.

‘He had invited us all over for dinner and a yacht thing at night, and I remember we went over there as a group to his residence in Miami, the one on Star Island,’ Jane testified.

[Diddy] was really charming, really nice and I was really drawn to him pretty instantly. He was really hospitable, really sweet, and really funny,’ she added.

Jane testified that she dated Combs from 2021 to 2024 up until the time of his arrets. Jane said she went by the nickname ‘Bert’ while Combs was ‘Ernie.’

Jane, who is testifying under a pseudonym, is said to be a single mom who was allegedly victimized by Diddy in 2020.

‘The defendant pursued and romanced Jane, who fell in love with him quickly,’ prosecutor Johnson said during opening statements.

‘Jane was not seeing other men, but the defendant was seeing other women at the time, so his relationship with Jane was not at all public.’

After a lunch break, prosecutors are now questioning one of their analysts who will testify about cellphone data.

Enrique Santos, who has worked at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan for 17 years, said he pulled data from three cellphones that were obtained from Diddy’s former longtime girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.

The notorious ‘freak off’ videos at the center of Diddy’s trial will not be released to the public.

Judge Arun Subramanian sided with lawyers for Combs and alleged victim Cassie Ventura, both of whom both asked that the explicit content remain private.

The videos are said to show Cassie and another woman referred to only as ‘Jane’ in the throes of horrendous sex acts with prostitutes they say Diddy forced on them.

They are central to the prosecution’s case that Diddy abused and trafficked the women, and have long been speculated over by the public.

Video expert Frank Piazza told the court on Wednesday that his conclusion was that the cellphone and survailance videos he analyzed were not manipulated.

The testimony is significant because Diddy’s lawyers have argued that surveillance footage of the assault against Cassie in 2016 was altered.

Piazza also said he analyzed ‘sex videos’ obtained from a device Cassie Ventura provided to the government.

The jury has not yet been shown any sex videos, but they did see screengrabs of the so-called ‘freak offs’ showing Cassie and male escorts.

Westmoreland closed her cross-examination by again challenging Bongolan on her claims that Combs harmed her on Cassie’s balcony.

Bongolan denied the lawyer’s suggestion that she was lying and that Combs hadn’t caused her injuries. But she didn’t explicitly say, ‘no.’

Rather, Bongolan softly told the lawyer: ‘I can’t agree with you.’

The judge advised jurors that their lunch is ready.

It’s an abbreviated break because testimony began around 11am, later than usual, and is expected to go until 4pm.

The defense showed the jury evidence that Diddy was in the East Coast when the alleged balcony assault on Bryana Bongolan happened.

‘On September 26th Mr Combs was in New York at the Boys and Girls benefit?’ Diddy lawyer Nicole Westmoreland asked.

The defense then showed the court bills Diddy racked up during the dates in New York.

‘You agree that one person can’t be in two places at the same time?’ Westmoreland asked.

‘In theory, yeah,’ Bongolan replied.

Cassie Ventura (L) and Sean 'Diddy' Combs attend the Boys & Girls Harbor Salute To Achievement at David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center on September 26, 2016.

The jury on Thursday was shown a bill from the Trump International hotel in New York in September, 2016, for Frank Black – the name Diddy would use to book hotels.

The bill’s breakdown was:

Runners fee – $5

Breakfast – $210.31

Breakfast – $107.84

Breakfast – $102.77

Breakfast – $344.65

Diddy attorney Nicole Westomoreland has continued confronting Bryana Bongolan over how she continued seeing Diddy after he allegedly dangled her off a 17-story balcony.

Westomoreland showed the jury a text message after the alleged assault where Bongolan asked Cassie if Diddy would like a sweatshirt.

‘Mr Combs two weeks prior to this hung you over a balcony, threw you into some furniture and now you’re asking if he’d like a t-shirt?’ she asked the witness.

‘We were trying to be cool. We had the facetime call after the incident and I stated I don’t want on any problems. I was trying to be cool,’ Bongolan replied.

Westmoreland pressed: ‘Isn’t it true that you continued to hang out with Mr Combs and continued to spend the night at Ms Venturas’ house because he did not cause you those injuries?’

Bongolan answered: ‘Part of the statement is correct and part I can’t agree with.’

Bryana Bongolan, a fashion designer, was brought into the courtroom Wednesday morning to be given immunity before she took the stand.

She told the court she would have otherwise invoked the 5th amendment to avoid incriminating herself.

Cassie Ventura’s friend testified about being dangled over the side of a building by Diddy.

Several witnesses including one of Diddy’s former assistants have requested immunity before testifying in the trial.

Anyone who watches Thursday’s testimony by the woman who will testify under the pseudonym ‘Jane’ cannot describe or sketch her in a way that could reveal her identity, Judge Arun Subramanian said.

Before the judge entered the courtroom, Combs conversed with several of his lawyers.

Judge Arun Subramanian agreed to a prosecution request to turn off TV monitors that are normally used to display evidence to the audience in the courtroom and overflow rooms when Combs accuser ‘Jane’ testifies.

Prosecutors contend the exhibits contain the exhibits, including text messages and photos, contain personal identifying information about the woman.

Instead, prosecutor Maurene Comey said she aims to provide redacted versions — with identifying information removed — the day after they’re shown to the jury.

News organizations had asked the judge to delay the trial or change the witness order to give prosecutors time to make redactions.

Defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland is questioning Bryana ‘Bana’ Bongolan on inconsistencies between the first lawsuit she filed against Diddy and her current claims.

Bongolan admitted that the first lawyer she hired made mistakes, incuding wrongly claiming that Diddy had sexually assaulted her.

‘You’re aware in one of his demand letters, he alleged Mr Combs grabbed and squeezed your breast so hard you had bruises?’ Westmoreland asked.

‘Many of the things he said was incorrect,’ Bongolan conceded.

Bryana Bongolan, right, leaves the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse on Thursday

As lawyers discussed evidence to be entered, prosecutor Christy Slavik referred to Khorram as a ‘co-conspirator of Mr Combs.’

Kristina Khorram – once referred to as ‘the Ghislaine Maxwell to [Diddy’s] Jeffrey Epstein’ – has not been accused of any wrongdoing or charged with any crimes.

However, she has been repeatedly mentioned by witnesses as someone who would contact them to do Diddy’s bidding.

Diddy’s team of star lawyers again asked the judge on Tuesday to allow them to have more time with the mogul before he has to go back to the Brooklyn jail where he has been since September.

The attorneys have told the judge the conditions of visiting at the jail are not appropriate to discuss the trial with Diddy.

‘We need to be able to sit in a place with a desk with no separation so we can go through these text messages,’ lead attorney Marc Agnifilo said on Tuesday.

Agnifilo said a ‘Very, very important witness is going’ on the stand tomorrow, likely referring to alleged victim Jane.

Judge Arun Subramanian pointed out that he already agreed to allow Diddy and his lawyers to use a side room in the courthouse to discuss the case from 3pm until 6pm.

Diddy also gets to court early and is able to discuss the case with his lawyers from 7 to 8.30am.

‘If you’re here in the courtroom, there’s going to be marshals here,’ the judge told the defense.

‘I have no issue with the marshals,’ Agnifilo replied.

Diddy’s lawyers will continue cross-examining the 33-year-old designer, pictured left, Thursday morning.

After court wrapped up on Tuesday, prosecutors asked the judge to turn the livestream in the overflow room when alleged victim Jane testifies on Wednesday.

They said they want to avoid a situation where nonredacted information is shown to those in the overflow and press rooms.

Jane will be testifying under a pseudonym.

Bryana ‘Bana’ Bongolan sued the rap mogul for $10million in 2024, accusing him of sexual battery and physical abuse.

She claimed Diddy force-fed her ecstasy and during a photoshoot told her ‘I’m the mother******g devil. I could kill you’.

Bongolan’s lawsuit further included stories she heard while working with Combs, including that he threatened to blow up rapper Kid Cudi’s car after he slept with Ventura.

Her complaint also featured a rumor that Diddy previously ‘skinned a rival’s dog’, although she admitted she did not know if there was any truth to the story.

A video of Diddy berating Cassie over a less-than-stellar performance of her hit song Me & U on BET in 2006 has been making the rounds as his trial continues in Manhattan.

Cassie had an infamously poor performance on the iconic BET show 106 and park; she said on the stand that Diddy supported her after it, which made them closer.

‘Cassie right here, she had a a whack show… she had a pretty whack show on BET,’ the music mogul said as the singer nervously smiled next to him.

‘She did not perform at the level of the Bad Boy excellence… but at Bad Boy we’re with our artists through their growth periods.. through their bad shows and good shows.’

Jane, the third alleged victim brought by prosecutors to the stand, will testify on Thursday.

She will be testifying under a pseudonym after the state requested that her identity be kept private.

Prosecutors say Diddy ‘used lies, drugs, threats, and violence’ to coerce Jane into so-called freak-offs – sexual performances where she would be forced to have sex with male escorts as Diddy watched.

Witness Bryana Bongolan told the court on Wednesday that she once woke up at Cassie’s apartment in Los Angeles with ‘Puff banging on the door.’

She said Cassie left the bedroom and Diddy eventually got inside the house.

‘I remember seeing a knife get thrown in her direction,’ Bongolan said.

Cassie then threw the knife back at him, according to the witness.

The knife did not hit him, and he left shortly after. Bongolan did not call the police because she was scared of Diddy and everything she was seeing.

A security guard told how Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs counted out $100,000 from a brown paper bag to buy the only copy of a video showing him beating up his ex-girlfriend on Tuesday.

Eddy Garcia, who worked at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles, told in vivid detail how the hip hop mogul used a counting machine to add up the money for the bribe in 2016.

Garcia said that Diddy called him ‘Eddy, my angel’ for deleting it from the servers and giving it to him on a USB stick.

Taking the stand as a witness, Bongolan, 33, told the court on Wednesday she is the creative director for her own art agency in September, 2016

‘I was held over a 17-story balcony [by Diddy],’ she told the court just moments after taking the stand.

Bongolan, who is a close friend of Cassie Ventura, said Diddy then ‘Threw me onto the balcony furniture.’

‘I had a bruise on the back of my leg and back and neck pain,’ she said of the aftermath of the alleged assault.

‘I had night terrors and paranoia and I screamed in my sleep.’

The trial will get going at 10.30am on Thursday instead of the usual 8.30am.

It will begin with the defense’s cross examination of Bryana ‘Bana’ Bongolan, 33, a friend of Combs’ former girlfriend and main accuser Cassie Ventura.

A witness that will speak about the technicality of some text messages will take the stand after Bongolan.

Diddy’s third alleged victim, Jane, will be up after the technician.

Diddy’s words about Donald Trump have come back to haunt him after the president said he would consider pardoning him if he is convicted of sex-trafficking and racketeering.

‘If Trump gets elected, I really do believe in my heart there will be a race war,’ Diddy said in 2020 as he campaigned for Joe Biden.

‘That’s why this message is not just to black people, you know what I’m saying? This message is to everybody. This man is really trying to turn us against each other and put us in a situation. America messed up.’

Diddy added that ‘white men like Trump need to be banished.’

The comments were resurfaced by 50 Cent, who shared them after he said he would make sure Trump did not pardon Diddy.

The disgraced music mogul campaigned for Democrats in 2020 and repeatedly made the comment about an upcoming race war.

He wrote in October, 2020: ‘The NUMBER ONE priority is to get Trump out of office. HE HAS TO GO.

‘We can’t allow this man to continue to try and DIVIDE US. The people that have the most responsibility and should be SCARED TO DEATH of this man are white people. WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF A RACE WAR.’