Before the gavel banged in the start of the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial, a security tape showed much of the world footage of the music mogul assaulting then-girlfriend Cassandra "Cassie" Ventura Fine in a hotel hallway.
That footage, released publicly by CNN a year before the trial, has factored heavily into the closely watched court proceedings playing out in Manhattan – first with Combs' lawyers attempting to exclude it as evidence, then with potential jurors being asked if they had seen it, and now with a hotel security guard alleging he was paid $100,000 to destroy it.
On Tuesday, June 3, a former security officer at the InterContinental hotel at the time of the 2016 assault took the stand. Eddy Garcia told jurors that shortly after the incident, he received a call from Combs' chief of staff Kristina "KK" Khorram, asking "if there was any possible way to get a copy of the video."
What ensued, he said, was a cover-up facilitated by Combs' bodyguards, his hotel boss and a bag full of cash.
At the time, Garcia told Khorram "she would have to reach out to hotel management or get a subpoena," but about an hour later, she showed up looking for him, allegedly telling him she and Combs wanted to know "what exactly they were dealing with." Garcia said he told her, "Off the record, it's bad."
