Woman tells jury that Diddy held her over 17th-floor balcony

NEW YORK >> A woman testified today in Sean Combs’ federal trial that the music mogul once held her above the railing of a 17th-floor apartment balcony, making her fear for her life — before being closely questioned about the allegation by Combs’ attorneys.

The woman, Bryana Bongolan, described herself as a longtime friend of Casandra Ventura, Combs’ former girlfriend. Early one morning in September 2016, Bongolan testified, she was staying at Ventura’s apartment in Los Angeles when she was awakened by Combs banging on the door.

Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, was in her bedroom, and Bongolan said she headed to the apartment’s balcony in an attempt to “act casual.” Combs entered the apartment and came right to her, holding her up by the armpits above the balcony’s railing and yelling at her.

“For a split second,” Bongolan testified, “I was thinking about if I was going to fall.”

Bongolan said that Combs told her “you know what you did,” using an expletive, but that she was unaware what he meant.

Combs then pulled her down and threw her onto the balcony furniture, she said. Jurors were shown photographs she took later that day of her bruised leg, and with bandages on her back and a neck brace.

Bongolan testified that she is 5 foot 1 inch and weighed between 100 and 115 pounds at the time. Combs, she said, was “bigger.”

Since the incident, Bongolan said, “I have nightmares, and I have a lot of paranoia and I used to scream a lot in my sleep, but it’s dissipated a little bit.”

In a cross-examination, Nicole Westmoreland, a lawyer for Combs, challenged Bongolan repeatedly about inconsistencies in accounts she has given, including an allegation in a legal letter that Combs had groped her breasts before lifting her onto the balcony railing.

“Didn’t you accuse Combs of actually sexually assaulting you on that balcony?” Westmoreland asked.

“I don’t remember,” Bongolan answered, in a weary voice.

Westmoreland also questioned Bongolan about inconsistencies in her descriptions of where on the balcony Combs had held her. In her lawsuit, Bongolan said she had been dangled over the banister, “with only Combs’ grip keeping her from falling to her death”; on the stand, she said her feet were resting on the railing.

“Isn’t it true,” Westmoreland asked, “that just two days ago you told the prosecution you just don’t recall the details of the balcony allegation?”

After a pause, Bongolan said, “I don’t remember.”

Prosecutors say the incident involving the balcony is part of a pattern of violent acts perpetrated by Combs over a period of years. Combs is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, which involves accusations that an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees helped him commit a series of crimes over two decades.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers have said that he and his employees were involved in legitimate business operations, not a criminal conspiracy, and that the sex at issue in the government’s case was entirely consensual.

Bongolan’s testimony has been anticipated for months. There was a reference to the balcony incident — without her name — in Ventura’s bombshell lawsuit in November 2023, which led to the government’s investigation and Combs’ arrest. Bongolan filed her own suit against Combs late last year.

Bongolan, a designer, met and befriended Ventura around 2014, and she described a friendship that revolved around frequent drug use. She said they took marijuana, cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy and other drugs, including “cocoa puffs,” or marijuana sprinkled with cocaine. Bongolan said she also sold drugs to Ventura.

On cross-examination, Westmoreland asked if she and Ventura had drug problems.

“Yeah, we had a problem,” Bongolan said.

Bongolan testified under an immunity order by the court, after telling the government that she intended to assert her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.

She said she met Combs about a year after she had befriended Ventura, and said she then witnessed various threats and violent incidents involving him.

She said that he once accosted her near a photo shoot outside his home in the Los Angeles area. “He came up really close to my face,” Bongolan testified, “and said something along the lines of, like, ‘I’m the devil and I could kill you.’”

On another occasion when she was staying at Ventura’s apartment, she said, she was again awakened by Combs banging at the door, before he entered and threw a knife toward Ventura, she said, who was standing in a hallway.

It missed her, Bongolan said, and “she threw the knife back.” That throw also missed, and Combs “left swiftly,” she said.

Madison Smyser, a prosecutor, asked Bongolan whether she called the police. She said no, because she was scared. “Why?” Smyser asked. After a long pause, Bongolan answered, “I was just scared of Puff,” using a nickname for Combs.

The 16th day of Combs’ trial, at U.S. District Court in lower Manhattan, started with testimony from Frank Piazza, a forensic video analyst. He walked jurors through a series of videos drawn from hotel surveillance footage that captured Combs attacking Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel.

Selections from the videos — which show Combs throwing Ventura down, kicking her and dragging her down a hallway — were broadcast by CNN last year, months before Combs’ arrest in September, and they drew wide condemnation. After that footage was broadcast, Combs apologized on social media, saying “my behavior on that video is inexcusable.”

The footage has become a key part of the government’s case, but Combs’ lawyers have raised questions about how CNN’s video was edited, saying that some of the events were depicted out of sequence, and parts were sped up.

Piazza showed a “corrected” compilation of the videos that standardized the speed of the footage and put the events in order, matched to a time code that had been set by the hotel’s security system when it was recorded.

When asked by Smyser, the prosecutor, whether the video sources he used for his compilation were “reliable depictions” of what the hotel surveillance system captured, Piazza agreed, and said that they showed no signs of tampering.

Even though the footage has been shown in court numerous times since the start of the trial, it still has a visible effect on people in the courtroom. At the point when Combs drags Ventura, a female juror wiped her brow and nodded with her lips pursed. When the jury again saw Combs throw Ventura to the ground, Combs, seated with his legal team, sighed.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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