The Japan Times - Witness testifies Sean Combs dangled her from balcony

Bryana Bongolan testified in the music icon's ongoing federal criminal trial in New York that she was staying over with her friend Casanda "Cassie" Ventura -- Combs's ex and a key trial witness who recently delivered searing testimony of abuse and coercion.

While she was at Ventura's place, Combs burst into the apartment and seized Bongolan on the balcony.

Bongolan, a designer, said Combs repeatedly shouted with expletives that "you know what you did" -- and she said she repeatedly told him she did not.

The witness also recounted an incident when she saw Combs hurl a knife at Ventura, which Bongolan said Ventura then threw back at him.

Bongolan told prosecutors she did not go to the police out of fear: "I was just scared of Puff," she told the court, using another nickname for Combs.

But a defense lawyer for the musician, who faces racketeering and sex trafficking charges, cast Bongolan as a drug abuser and unreliable witness whose story was shifting.

Bongolan is among dozens of people who have filed civil suits against Combs in recent years, legal action she told jurors she took "because I wanted to seek justice for what happened to me on the balcony."

Bongolan, who remains friends with Ventura, says the incident left her with post-traumatic stress, including recurring night terrors and paranoia: "Sometimes I scream in my sleep," she told jurors.

Defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland bluntly indicated that Bongolan was lying, and implied that the witness had compared notes with Ventura to get their stories straight as the two filed separate civil suits against Combs.

Ventura alleged that she suffered harrowing abuse under Combs, her former on-and-off partner of more than a decade, opening the floodgates against the one-time music powerhouse when she first filed suit against him in November 2023.

That suit was settled out of court in less than 24 hours.

Westmoreland on Wednesday pushed the narrative that Bongolan's heavy drug use, including with Ventura, clouded her memories of the alleged events.

Bongolan was testifying under an immunity order that protects her from incrimination if she speaks truthfully.

She frequently responded to Westmoreland by saying she could not remember every detail -- and the occasionally brusque defense questioning of her will continue Thursday morning.

Afterwards, the prosecution is expected to call Jane -- long-anticipated testimony from a woman who will speak under a pseudonym in relation to one of the sex trafficking charges against Combs.

- $100,000 in a paper bag -

Combs, 55, faces upwards of life in prison if convicted of crimes of sex trafficking and racketeering.

Prosecutors say he ran a criminal enterprise of high-ranking employees and bodyguards who enforced his power with illicit acts including kidnapping, bribery and arson.

On Tuesday, a hotel security guard said he received $100,000 in a brown paper bag from Combs in exchange for now-infamous surveillance footage that showed the artist-entrepreneur violently kicking and dragging Ventura in a hotel.

Jurors have repeatedly been shown the disturbing clip in open court.

The security officer, Eddy Garcia, said he initially rebuffed an attempt from a Combs employee -- Kristina Khorram, who has been described as the music heavyweight's "right hand" -- to obtain the video.

After repeated calls, including from Combs himself, Garcia eventually agreed to sell the tape, with permission from his supervisor, who got a cut.

"'Eddy, my angel, I knew you could help. I knew you could do it,'" Garcia recounted Combs telling him.

Garcia -- who was also speaking under an immunity order -- testified that he signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Last week a former assistant speaking under the pseudonym Mia described violent acts Combs committed against her and also recalled many times that she saw him beat Ventura.

Now in its fourth week of testimony, witnesses have included alleged victims, former high-ranking employees as well as assistants and law enforcement officials.

The trial in Manhattan is expected to last well into the summer.

T.Maeda--JT