Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy on Trial: Ex-Employee Exposes Death Threats, Kidnapping & Alleged Murder Plot

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Staff members of disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs are taking the witness stand in his racketeering and sex trafficking trial, providing first-hand accounts of alleged crimes. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber got the latest details from inside the federal courthouse from correspondent Elizabeth Millner.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you received Depo-Provera birth control shots and were later diagnosed with a brain or spinal tumor called meningioma, you may be eligible for a lawsuit. Visit https://forthepeople.com/lcdepo to start a claim now! HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Threats, force polygraphs, a gun, and a plan to kill Kid Cuddy. These are allegations a jury just heard from Capricorn Clark, a former Diddy employee whose testimony could be key to proving the racketeering case against the hip-hop mogul. I'm going to speak with Long Crimes reporter Elizabeth Milner, who is inside that courtroom to get the latest from what went down. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Long Crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. Well, in yet another big day of testimony, Sean Diddy Combs' former employee, Capricorn Clark, detailed a years-long pattern of alleged intimidation, violent outbursts, workplace abuse, all while working for the hip-hop mogul. And you know why her testimony is so important? Because Clark, who served as Combs' personal assistant and later as Cassandra Ventura's creative director, she arguably helps prove the racketeering charge in this case.

More specifically, the underlying kidnapping, arson, maybe even forced labor underlying crimes that support the pattern of racketeering activity. Remember, prosecutors need to prove at least two underlying crimes to get the racketeering count. And what she apparently told these jurors was a lot, even that Combs allegedly threatened to kill her, that she was forced to take

a lie detector test. Okay, so we're going to break all this down. And to do that, I want to bring on now Law and Crimes, Elizabeth Milner, who's been inside that courtroom throughout the trial every day for every piece of testimony. And that includes the testimony

of Capricorn Clark. Elizabeth, great to see you. So Capricorn Clark, we knew she was to take the stand after the explosive testimony from Kid Cuddy last week where he mentioned her. Before we begin to any specifics about her testimony, just remind our audience who she is exactly, how she even got involved with the Sean Combs Enterprise. That's more of a legal term if we're talking about a criminal enterprise. The Sean Combs business. How about that? Well, Capricorn Clark is a name that we've been hearing about a number of times, right? We know

that she had been working under Diddy's employment for a number of years, but she really kind of broke it down today just as far as what position that she had held at what time. So when she was first brought on to kind of the bad boy orbit or the Diddy orbit, we could also say, this was around the 2004 to 2006 timeframe when Capricorn Clark was just Diddy's assistant at the time. But then after a couple promotions, she went on to become the director of marketing. She worked for the Women's Department of Sean John. And then she went on to global branding and something that she had held as a position

from about 2008 to 2012. Then there were some time laps because a lot of things had happened after that time period. But around 2016 to 2018, she was rehired again and she was hired actually this time to work as Cassie's brand director.

So she had worked pretty much kind of from the ground up in a way if you think about it from just an executive assistant role all the way up until, She was essentially just kind of monitoring or at least managing Cassie's brand, how she looks, how she would appear in press and red carpets, that sort of thing. And what else we know about Capricorn Clark is she was one of the other people, including Diddy and one of the security guards who went over to Kid Cuddy's house while Diddy was essentially looking for the rapper because he was in a relationship with Cassie around the time. And so this was a person that a lot of us have been anticipating her testimony today because a lot of us just wanted to know what she had to. say. We had already heard from Cassie, and we already heard from Kid Cutty last week, and now we're

hearing from Capricorn Clark. So she's really kind of tied into just different orbits or different tangles of the web within Diddy's orbit, I should say. And my understanding is that she starts her testimony by telling the jury that, what, right from day one of her employment, Combs threatened or threatened her, threatened her life. And I think this has something to do with, because she had worked for Shug Knight in the past, who was a big rival, by the way, of Diddy. anybody doesn't know. I know. People don't know kind of the rivalry, how it started between Diddy and Shug Night. It's like you're living under a rock, essentially. But I thought it was interesting just Capricorn Clark's connection to Shug Night and that she said that Shugnight is

the father of her best friend's children. Now, she didn't name who this best friend was while she was testifying today. But she did reveal that she had previously signed with Death Row way before she had worked with Bad Boy. So when she was hired at Bad Boy, of course, Diddy was going to have a conversation with her. And the conversation, according to Capricorn Clark, was pretty tense from what she had described. So she said this conversation that they had had was just on her first day of the job as a personal assistant. So this was around the 2004 time frame. And she said on that first day that she, Diddy, and one of Diddy security guards named Paul Alpert, who we have known about for a while now. He's actually referred to by other witnesses as Uncle

Polly that Diddy, Capricorn Clark, and Uncle Polly all went to Central Park. And Central Park's a great place, right? But this conversation that was had at Central Park, not a great place or not coming from a great place, according to Capricorn Clark's testimony. So she had explained that she went over to the park and that she was kind of describing Uncle Polly's demeanor as menacing and she even described him kind of as a linebacker when describing just the size of him. And she said that around this time that Diddy had told her that he would have her killed if she had anything to do with Shug Knight.

And this was kind of a moment in the courtroom where a lot of people were just like, oh my God, what? Because when you're seeing Diddy inside that courtroom, he's very toned down. He looks kind of like he kind of looks like a huxtable, maybe possibly Mr. Rogers, where he's just in a sweater, he's in an undershirt, he's just wearing slacks. Like he's not the ditty that we've seen on red carpet. which we're not, he's not the diddy we've seen on social media. So he looks toned down inside the courtroom. So to hear that he had allegedly wanted her killed because she had had this previous relationship with Shug Nite, it was kind of just like a, oh my goodness, moments a little

bit because this was kind of the first time we were hearing about this. But according to Capricorn Clark, when this alleged threat was being made, that Diddy appeared very calm during this. And again, Uncle Pauley was calm. And Capricorn Clark had said Uncle Pauley didn't say anything when Diddy. had allegedly made this threat. Instead, Uncle Pauli remained calm. He was stoic. But Capricorn responded to the threat saying, we'll have to see. And Capricorn admitted while she was on the stand that she wanted to be, she should have been more transparent. You know, hindsight's always

2020, but she said she should have been more transparent just about the overall relationship with Shug Nye. Because again, Shug Nide and Diddy go way back and not in necessarily a good way either. You know, they started off as kind of colleagues in a way or at least cordial for understanding of it and then things escalated obviously Shug Nye used to kind of be on the West Coast side with death row whereas Biggie and even Diddy represented the East Coast side and that was bad boy of course that we know and so then while we were inside the gallery and while we were inside the courtroom we see a bunch of exhibit photos and the exhibit photos are photos we've seen before they were photos

of D-Rock D-Roc was a good friend of Biggie Smalls according to Capricorn Clark and this is something that we've known as well too because D-Rock was the who had driven down another assistant to try to find Shugnight that one time. So everything just kind of intertwines with itself. But really, I think the takeaway is just this beef carried on and on forever. And so then we saw another exhibit photo, this one of Ruben. Ruben is going to be kind of an important figure later on in Capricorn Clark's testimony. But we saw a photo of Rubin, aka Rue.

He also goes by that, and that's actually D. Rock's little brother, came and was hired after Capricorn Clark. And then we saw an exhibit photo of Roger Bonds. He started around the same time as Capricorn Clark, and that, again, is another security guard. So these photos we've seen as government exhibits already. But then Capricorn Clark was asked, you know, did you observe Diddy with a gun? And she had mentioned one particular incident, and this was during the kidnapping incident. And then she had also discussed that there was a time before that Diddy had, he was doing kind of this like press events with 50 cents,

and that there was kind of this back and forth between $0.50 and Diddy because we know their beef also goes back years and years and years. But according to Capricorn Clark when she was on the stand today, Diddy, who she refers to as Puff or Puffy while she's on the stand, told Chris Lyddy, we used to work with 50 Cent that I don't like the back and forth. I like. And that was kind of a way that the prosecution I felt like was really kind of coming out swinging as far as just what did you observe with Diddy and under your employment. what were the threats that were made? They really just kind of went at it right off of the bat. No, look, for a racketeering conspiracy charge where prosecutors are saying that he operated a criminal enterprise

that was engaged in a pattern of illegal activity and there are all these underlying crimes, they have to convince this jury that he's essentially almost like a mafia boss, right? That he's a gang leader. And the more they can say who he surrounded himself with and there was violence and threats and drugs and guns and bodyguards. That's how they build it up. Now, we'll get more into the specifics

of the underlying charges they're trying to prove with racketeering. But just to give everybody a sense of what we're talking about, didn't she also describe having to take a lie detector test, this over missing jewelry, which she wouldn't be the first witness, the first former employee of Combs to testify in this trial about a lie detector test. Right, we got a little snippet of it from David Jones. She names his testimony last week, but now we're hearing it from, like you said, Jesse, another employee, this one being of Capricorn Clark. So according to Capricorn Clark, she said that she was actually accused within the first few months of her employment, accused of stealing a watch and stealing a necklace, stealing essentially this jewelry, very expensive jewelry, by the way, that was on a loan from this man named Jacob the jeweler. And so Puff or Diddy, I should say, actually gave Capricorn Clark the jewelry to kind of hold.

told, again, it was on loan around this time, and Capricorn said that she had called security and told Diddy that his jewelry was missing. Diddy had told Capricorn Clark at this time to go back with Uncle Polly, again, the same Uncle Polly who was in Central Park that one day, and Capricorn described being questioned by Uncle Polly for a long period of time, essentially just about where this jewelry was. She said that Uncle Pauley even came to her home, searched her home, searched her belonging, something that David James had testified to, last week that this hotel room was searched through by Diddy Security Guards. And then we see an exhibit photo of Bad Boy Worldwide.

And this later became their new corporate offices. But around the time, it was essentially just kind of this empty building. And I think it's from the address, because I can't have my phone on with me during federal court. But I think from the address, it's not too far from where our law and crime offices are now. But as far as just what did happen in this particular instance, she said she arrived to these offices. Again, these were supposed to be the new corporate headquarters, but at the time that she had went, it was essentially just this abandoned building.

And when she went inside, someone locked her in from the outside, so there was no way for her to leave. So she said she was brought up to the sixth floor by Uncle Polly, and she was met with another man. And she didn't know this man's name. She could not identify what his name was, but really just kind of spoke about his features. And she explained that he was a very wide-set man and that he was equivalent to about six. of her. So just kind of emphasizing that he was just a heavy set man who was smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, I guess, they're in this office on the sixth floor. And so this man had told her, because again, we don't know his name, had told her that she needed to take a lie detector

test. And if she didn't take the test, the biggest thing was that she said she would be thrown into the East River. Now, there was an objection that had happened after she had said this statement during her testimony. And then they had gone to a sidebar. And of course, when the sidebar happens. There's a bunch of white noise going off. It kind of sounds like static. And so we can't hear what all is discussed in the sidebar. They're kind of huddled over into the corner. So it's unclear exactly what the defense was kind of objecting to and just the details kind of surrounding it. And so then when they get back from the sidebar, Capricorn Clark has asked whether or not she felt like the man was being serious as far as this threat goes to

take the fly detector test. And Capricorn said that the man was being very serious and said She was petrified during this whole incident and said that she ended up just going ahead and taking the test. And so she was asked questions like, did you steal? Did you come up with a plan to steal? And the results came back inconclusive. The results were inconclusive. She had said because the lie detector administrator wasn't getting a good reading of her because she was so nervous. She was so jittery.

And, you know, like when I was younger, I took like a lie detector test because my dad worked as a police officer. And really, like, if you are asked a question, like, did you clean your room and you get nervous? It does kind of spike up. So that I can say is my only experience taking a lie detector test. But from what Capricorn Clark was kind of explaining while on the stand is just how petrified and nervous she was. But she said she was left in this deserted office the entire day and just kept on taking these lie detector tests all day, unable to leave. And Uncle Polly was the one who told her she cannot leave. And so, again, the door was locked from the outside.

and she was able to leave after Polly essentially let her leave. And the next day, Polly came back, got her again, and she went back to that exact same location, took the lie detector test over again and over again and over again. And she said that she had to come back and do this lie detector test five times. And these lie detector tests, according to Capricorn Clark, lasted essentially all day. And she said the reason she kept coming back and doing these tests

was because she wanted to prove her innocence. She said that she didn't take anything from anyone. And she didn't go and tell the police because she had worked under an NDA. There was an objection. That objection was sustained, so the jury, you know, won't be able to hear that part. But she said during these long days, long hours of taking this lie detector test that Diddy didn't check up on her during this time. And then after the five days was over, Uncle Pauley told her that she could go back to work that same or that next Monday or that following Monday, I should say. But she doesn't even know where the jewelry was or if it was even ever located.

And she said she continued to work for Diddy after the time, even though, you know, she, he had kept making her do this lie detector test so quickly into her new position. A couple of things that I take away from this. One, again, feeds into the narrative of this. This is really like a criminal enterprise, right, lie detector tests, bodyguards, threats. But I think the threats also corroborate what Cassie had testified to. So Cassie had talked about threats and which is very important for coercion. one of the elements of sex trafficking, right? And the big theme is, why didn't she leave?

Why didn't she step away? Why didn't she report what was going on? Well, think about the environment she was around. And if she's not the only one testifying to this, and there's been other witnesses who've testified about being abused by homes or allegedly abused by homes or threatened by homes, this adds to this.

But it could also, I wonder, when she's talking about this, does it help prove maybe kidnapping? Does it help prove maybe forced labor? It'll be interesting to see how the prosecutors articulate it. The biggest takeaway I had from this, and I took notes, is that your dad basically gave you a lie detector test about whether or not you cleaned your room. That's a second, a separate question for Elizabeth Milner that we have to talk about. The fact that your dad gave you a lie detector test. We'll talk about that another day.

But I do want to ask you about Kid Cuddy. We knew she was going to testify about Kid Cuddy, and she talked about him at length. Now, I think the real important part, and we know that he and Combs' ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, they were involved together briefly when apparently Ventura and Combs were on a break. What can you tell us about this? Because she was describing essentially being held at gunpoint or that she was picked up from her home by Combs. He had a gun. And this may lead into this kidnapping count. So again, one of the underlying predicate crimes for racketeering. You need to proof, too, is kidnapping. There's also sex trafficking, there's drug crimes, there's forced labor,

there's arson. But talk to me about what happened here. This happened, I think, in December 2011. Yep, the December of 2011, right before the holiday times. And so as soon as we start to get into the Kid Cutty kind of aspect of Capricorn Clark's testimony, we are shown, you might have guessed it, an exhibit photo of Kid Cutty. So, Capricorn Clark verified that was Kid Cuddy. Obviously, the jury kind of has his face fresh in their mind. We had just testified last week. And so she again confirmed that that was Scott Mescody, aka Kid Cuddy.

And she said that Cassie was seeing Kid Cuddy in around December of 2011, and that Cassie asked if Kid Cuddy could join them, that you want to hike together. And Capricorn Clark actually said it was a bad idea, and you would think a hike, it's so simple, it's so easy. I don't understand what the problem is. But Capricorn said that she was concerned about Diddy finding out and Diddy finding out that Kid Cuddy was just around them. And so Capricorn said that around this time, Diddy was paying for her phone. So she was worried that Diddy might be able to see who was calling her.

And so he might also be able to see Cassie's text messages to Capricorn Clark. And so Capricorn Clark said that she had took Cassie actually to buy a burner phone because she was afraid that they would all get killed. And so there was an objection made, that objection was sustained. And so there were a lot of objections here and there, especially when it came to the threats of being killed made by the defense. And so during this testimony, Diddy, I could see over at the defense table kind of shaking his head. The gallery, I think, seemed a little shocked because this was another alleged threat about being killed. But again, it was the objection was sustained.

Capricorn explained that she all of a sudden heard a loud banging at her apartment one day. And she said that she looked through the people. She saw Diddy was there and Diddy was upset. He was pacing back and forth. His body language looked like he had something in his hand. So Capricorn opened the door and Diddy was still upset. But she described Diddy wearing kind of a button-down shirt. He was wearing a sweater.

He was wearing slacks that were ripped, exposing his underwear, she had said. But she said also in his hand, she noticed that he had a gun in his hand. And so Diddy said to Capricorn, why didn't she tell me? And then said, who is Scott? and Scott being Scott Meskiddy, aka Kid Cuddy. And so Diddy then told Capricorn Clark, get dressed. We're going to go kill this inward. And so I'm seeing Diddy kind of jotting notes down during this testimony.

And Capricorn explained that she didn't want to go. She said Diddy made her end that Diddy had put the gun that he had had in his hand into his waist and that Diddy seem pretty mad. And that Diddy has never even been to Capricorn Clark's house before. So definitely during the cross, they were like, well, how do you get upstairs? How was he led into this building? and those types of questions. But during direct testimony, Capricorn was explaining that Diddy put the gun in his lap once they were inside the car,

and that there was another person there, and that was Ruben. Ruben, who has also been referred to as Rube by other witnesses and Rube, and he was driving the vehicle. And so when Capricorn, Rube, and Diddy all drove down or drove up to Kid Cuddy's then home in the Hollywood Hills, that they were in an escalade together, and that Capricorn explained that she wasn't able to even leave this escalate because everything was moving so fast, and there was just no conversations going on. But she said that they went to his home in the Hollywood Hills, driving from Capricorn's house over to Kid Cuddy's house. Then we see an exhibit of a Google map, kind of mapping out the route that they would take, even though Capricorn was like, that's not the route I would take, but there was that.

And then there was another exhibit of Kid Cuddy's front door. So Capricorn explained when they got there, caught to Kid Cuddy's house, she didn't even know whether he was there or not. So Capricorn stayed in the car while Rubin and Diddy went inside Kid Cuddy's home. So what Capricorn did was she ended up calling Cassie on her burner phone, calling Cassie's burner phone, I should say. And Capricorn said to Cassie, Cassie, what the F? And told Cassie that she was brought to Kid Cuddy's home to kill him. And Capricorn said that she had changed the name of Cassie's name of the burner phone. to her best friend's name just so that way she can not have Diddy find out, but she could hear

Kid Cuddy on the phone and Cassie told him to stop, or she told Cassie to tell Kid Cuddy to stop him because if he had gone down to his home, he might have been killed. She just didn't know what was going to happen had Kid Cuddy driven to his home. And so Diddy comes out of the home and Diddy is, I guess, yelling at Capricorn, who the F are you talking to? Diddy called this number back and then got livid knowing that Cassie now has a burner phone. and now has a number that Diddy seemingly didn't know about. And so Capricorn said that Kid Cuddy then pulled up to his home. But then he sped off after Diddy Rubin and Capricorn, I guess, spotted him.

And so they all chased after him. And Capricorn was just riding in the car. Ruben, again, was driving. And then Diddy was just in the car too. And they chased him until they lost him. And that's when police had responded to Kid Cuddy's home. And so Capricorn explained that Diddy was relatively calm after kind of hearing the police sirens and that Capricorn, Diddy, and Rubin all went to the key club afterwards and

Diddy told Capricorn to essentially just get Cassie. So Cassie gets a phone call. Cassie says, okay, come get me and that Cassie was relatively calm. That's how Capricorn described it. But Diddy had told Cassie to tell Kid Cuddy not to tell the police that Diddy was allegedly behind this and not to make a police report. And Capricorn was explaining that if Kid Cuddy would went forth with filing the police reporting, speaking to police about who was allegedly behind this, that Diddy could have possibly killed everyone, including Capricorn, including Kid Cuddy, including even Cassie, according to Capricorn's testimony. And so Kid Cuddy was mind-blown, according to Capricorn Clark's testimony. And then afterwards, Capricorn Cassie, and then

Diddy went over to Diddy's home. And then Diddy violently, physically assaulted Cassie during this. According to Capricorn, he kept kicking her. He never used his hands. She was crouched into the fetal position and that Diddy kicked Cassie all the way into the street, essentially, that Cassie was just crying really silently while Diddy was kicking her, including even in her back. She said Ruben was present during this physical assault, but that he didn't even intervene. And so what Diddy had told Capricorn is that if you do intervene, that he would F her up too. And, you know, when Capricorn's on the witness stand, she didn't shy away from using, you know, profanity or, you know, lewd language or anything like that. She really just kind of went all in.

And so just hearing that, it's just kind of like, wow, it was just pretty shocking testimony. And so Capricorn said, then she called DRock to tell his brother to kind of intervene and to stop things. Then when she didn't see that Rubin's phone was ringing and that he wasn't intervening, that's when Capricoran ended up calling Regina Ventura, who we know. is Cassie's mother. So she called Regina Ventura on the phone, and she had told Regina, I can't call the police, but you can. Again, kind of pointing to the threats that were made, just the fear that she had had. And so Capricorn admitted that she didn't call police because the mission was to get kid cuddied, not to tell police what had happened to his car, so she felt like it would have been counterintuitive for her to call police. And it was just

kind of a little bit of a weird thing to say. But essentially, the takeaway is that she didn't intervene. Ruben didn't intervene. None of Diddy's security intervene. It's something that we've heard about so many times where people are around it. They're witnessing what's going on with Diddy towards Cassie, and they're just not intervening. And so later on, Capricorn said that she did end up visiting Cassie after. Cassie was in this hotel, and her stuff was just thrown everywhere. It was smashed. It was just everywhere inside that room. And so then that's when we see another exhibit, and this is an exhibit. We've seen multiple times, and that's that exhibit from Cassie to Capricorn Clark with her mom ced on it, essentially explaining that Diddy was

threatening to release two sexually explicit videos of her around the holidays. So this again was December of 2011 in response to the relationship that Cassie had with Kid Cutty. So I will say those were just the biggest takeaways of Capricorn Clark's testimony when it comes to just what had happened and what she had witnessed from her side of things just in regards to what it happened with Kid Cuddy. Yeah, and look, again, it helps support that kidnapping allegation, well, underlying crime of kidnapping, but it also, as I said, corroborates what Ventura said. When she talks about no one stepped forward, Donne Rashard said the same thing, that Cassie was beat up in front of high-powered celebrities like Usher and Jimmy Iveen, no one stepped forward.

It goes to that power dynamic. If people are questioning why Cassie didn't speak up or step forward, I think the argument being put forward by prosecutors is if he can do this, this and no one steps in including these high-powered celebrities, what do you expect her to do? And that is a big, big theme that's going to be exploited by both sides. But before I even get into the car fire, so which we talked about last week for Kid Cuddy testifying about his car allegedly being set on fire by Sean Combs or his staff, which goes to the arson, right, another underlying crime for racketeering. Arson, putting that to the side. Capricorn Clark justified a lot about just her experience working with Diddy, the difficulty of working for Diddy.

She talked about long hours, right? Extreme pressure. Didn't she say she hated it there? Yeah, Jessie, as far as just the long hours that she would work. Again, this was something that we had heard from other assistants, including George Kaplan, including David James. Now we're hearing it from Capricorn Clark, too, where she had said that, you know, as her role as a personal assistant, it was pretty much a 24-8. job, literally, because there were a lot of days that she was just working a lot of hours. So she explained on a good night, she's getting four hours of sleep, and that's on a good night. And she said on a bad night, that's cutting it in half. She said she would only get two hours of sleep. And so she said just the pressure, she ended up getting stress-induced alopecia just from working as Diddy's personal assistant. To the point she even went to a doctor,

and the doctor was essentially like, you've got to calm down, you've got to relieve this stress some way. And so she was explaining that around this time, she was making about $65,000 as a personal assistant. However, when she went to HR to discuss just overtime, because she is working more than those eight-hour days according to her times where she wasn't getting off until maybe 4 o'clock in the morning, having to be back at 9 a.m., that she went to HR, and HR actually calculated Capricorn's overtime, and that the head of HR around this time, or just one of the officials with HR, said that she was actually owed $80,000 of overtime. But was this overtime ever given to her. According to Capricorn Clark, Diddy looked at this document that

kind of summed up all the overtime that she had earned. And Diddy ripped up the paper. And so this is kind of another example just of just how Diddy would kind of treat his employees as their boss. And she would even explain, too, just kind of, you know, we've heard from other assistants to, again, David James, again, George Kaplan, just about hotel stays and that they would kind of set up the hotel rooms. But I thought it was interesting hearing about this from Capricorn Clark because, again, thinking about this time frame, 2004 to 2006, she was already setting up hotel rooms and this was prior to the Cassie relationship because according to Capricorn Clark, she was setting up hotel rooms that Diddy would even stay out with Kim Porter and he would stay with

Kim Porter about once a week. She was asked to pack and unpack things. She said that some of the aliases used for Diddy's girlfriends at the time. Again, this before, Cassie was Jackie Starr, surprisingly a name that Cassie had used as one of her aliases. And the names that Diddy was still booking hotels, booking hotel rooms under were Frank Black, Frank White. But according to Capricorn, she said some of her duties even included unpacking Diddy's clothes, his shoes, but also his toiletry bag, something that was a Louis Vuitton bag. And she said, what was in the Louis Vuitton bag beyond toiletries?

Well, drugs, including drugs like Ecstasy. And according to Capricorn Clark, Ecstasy, was kind of a big drug that Diddy was using a lot of the time while she was working with him. But she said she also was told to unpack a camera box. And she said inside the camera box was a camera, but also it was other items like lube and baby oil. And so again, this going back all the way to the 2004-2006 time frame, and that Diddy brought this camera box and toilet your bag every hotel stay that he had went to. And that Diddy would stay in hotels for a few days on end.

Again, kind of playing into what Cassie was talking about. but this predating her. And so afterwards, Capricorn Clark explained that she would have to be tasked with kind of helping clean up the hotel rooms, too, and that she would pack up ditty stuff. She would clean up, and there would sometimes be things like baby oil that would just be kind of everywhere inside this hotel room, including even on the walls. And so it was interesting kind of hearing how her responsibilities didn't differ too much from the existence that came after her because it seems like their roles in responsibilities

all aligned the same. Look, generally speaking, again, going back to racketeering, if you're saying he operated a criminal enterprise and there was a conspiracy, right, an agreement between him and others to further racketeering activities, criminal activities, you got to know who the team was. You got to know who helped put it together. He didn't do it alone. It doesn't necessarily mean they'd be guilty of a crime or took a deal, but you got to know who the team is. You got to know who the people that surrounded himself were. Now, real quick, did she say anything about Kid Cuddy's car? being set on fire, the investigation into that, that was a big, big factor in this case,

goes to the arson, goes to arson, which is one of the underlying crimes of racketeering. Kid Cuddy said that he not only feels that his house was broken into by Combs and his associates, but that his car was set on fire. What did she say about that? Yeah, so she said that actually an arson investigator reached out to her in the summer of 2012. So Kid Cuddy and the Molotov cocktail was lodged into his car in January of that same year. But by the summer, Capricorn Clark said that she was reached out to by an arson investigator, and that Kid Cuddy was the one who gave this investigator Capricorn Clark's name. And so Capricorn said that she actually hung up with the investigator,

didn't give a statement to this person, and that Diddy asked Capricorn about why she didn't tell him about Kid Cuddy. and that Diddy had threatened to cut her face and kill her. That's what she had said on the witness stand. And she had said that D. Rock, again, a security guard that we heard about a number of times throughout other witness testimony. And Cassie were present during these threats that were made to Capricorn. And so Capricorn explained that her relationship with Cassie actually kind of changed after this incident. And she being Capricorn Clark actually told Harpire and H.R. what had happened about her being kidnapped by Diddy, and she told them,

Puff kidnapped me and threatened to kill Kid Cuddy. And what had happened was that it wasn't a situation where it was investigated or that, you know, Harf Pierre or HR had spoken to Diddy, or maybe they did speak to Diddy. But according to Capricorn Clark, what happened to her is that she got a 30-day notice to essentially leave her job, to quit her job after she had reported this incident to HR. And so she said, you know, she was reached out to by an arson investigation. in summer of 2012. And by August of 2012, her employment was terminated. And she was accused of not putting in her vacation timing correctly. So they didn't say it was because she had

known about Kit Cuddy or anything like that. She said it was essentially just kind of a way that they had used a loophole to say that she wasn't taking her vacation time properly. And so she was given a 30-day notice and was terminated by August of that year. So Capricorn told HR that Diddy was harassing her because she didn't tell Diddy about Cassie seeing Kid Cuddy. And after she was terminated from her position, she lost a lot of things like her 401K, her insurance, her car, her house. Her car and her house were, I guess, paid for by a bad boy. And so she lost all of that. And Diddy had told Capricorn she wasn't going to work again and that she had no friends.

And Capricorn said that she had a job, that she was going to go afterwards, but that job had fallen through, and that she was struggling to find a job. And so what ended up happening is that she reached a settlement with Diddy in October of that same year. So she was fired in August, or terminated in August. And then by October of 2012, she was already receiving a settlement. The thing is, we don't know how much the settlement was for, but we do know that there was no pending civil litigation as of now. And we do know, again, that the two had reached a settlement that had a bunch of stipulations. One of those even being that Diddy was supposed to be giving her positive job recommendation.

something that didn't happen. And it was something that was really touched upon a little bit during cross and then definitely during redirect. Yeah, I want to ask about the defense. I mean, her testimony is fascinating. Even the idea, as I understand it, you know, she said in 2012 that the Los Angeles Fire Department called her, you know, talk about the arson. She hung up, never called back, didn't want to have anything to do with it. Talk to us about the cross-examination. And there's a lot of different parts of the cross-examination. But one of the things that I was trying to understand, and I hope you can articulate, there was a lot of questions about her relationship with Cassie, her views on Cassie. She went back to work with Cassie

in 2016. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, it was interesting kind of hearing from Capricorn's own words and her own mouth, just her describing her relationship with Cassie, because there were times during direct testimony, during cross testimony, and I was just kind of like, Did she care about Cassie? Were they really friends? Because I feel like from Kid Cuddy's explanation, he had explained that Capricorn Clark was a great friend to Cassie. But from Capricorn, it seemed like Cassie was kind of the root of why she was fired, and she seemed like she kind of held a grudge a little bit about that.

And so once they started getting into Cassie, this was a little bit after the lunch break. They touched base upon it just a little bit as far as just her working with Diddy when they were kind of establishing those foundational. questions because when Mark Agnifalo was cross-examining Capricorn Clark, he started off very easy, very slow, like he wanted to be her friend. And then that's when, you know, defense attorneys do with defense attorneys too. They try to, you know, go in, you know, he, did he hires a bunch of sharks. But Mark Agnifalo really kind of approached it in a delicate way, as far as I could tell. But there were some hard questions, and Capricorn did get emotional at times while she was testifying

today. But as far as just Cassie and her relationship, there. There was this conversation about Capricorn meeting Cassie, and this was back when she was still with Ryan Leslie, her former boyfriend, but also who used to be her producer. And that's when Capricorn actually had first met Cassie. So this was even prior to Cassie signing with Bad Boy. And she said that she didn't always get along with Cassie. She said these issues kind of began around 2008 when Cassie and Diddy started dating. And Capricorn had explained that Cassie's expectation level was increasing. She went from being kind of a sweet model to a feisty girlfriend.

That's what she said on the stand. Then they kind of got into Cassie's talent range in a way where essentially the defense and Capricorn were saying that she had talent, but she wasn't talented. And, you know, these are not coming from my own mouth, but that was something that that was being discussed while on the stand. And so Capricorn explained that Cassie was more of a studio artist and not necessarily a live performer. And it's something that I think Cassie had owned while she was testified.

where she had talked about just some rough live performances that she had had, especially during her start in her music career. And Capricorn was explaining that Cassie's live performances didn't go that well because Cassie was nervous and she had a lot of nerves going on. Then the defense brings up Cassie's drug use and whether or not that prevented her from being a good performer. But Capricorn said that Cassie wasn't a hard worker when they had moved to Los Angeles. So this was around the 2009-ish time frame. But she said that Cassie was hardworking before, and so Capricorn was saying that Cassie got a lot of support from Diddy and from Diddy's businesses as far as, you know, getting access to stylists and choreographers and some of the best of the best.

And I think, you know, the defense is trying to point out that Cassie wasn't struggling for anything, essentially, because it was all provided to her and that she was a lot more successful possibly than maybe some of the jurors had realized. And so Capricorn was asked, were there other artists in Bad Boy getting less attention? And Capricorn responded, yes. And so they kind of took it date by date. So from 2007 to 2009, Capricorn explained that Cassie got a considerable amount of attention. Again, this was at the start of their relationship. And she said, the lion's share of Bad Boy was actually focused on Cassie. Then Bad Boy signed some more artists.

And then by 2016, Diddy had fell back, and he was essentially supporting Cassie from afar. But I think what's interesting around that time frame is that Capricorn was hired as Cassie's brand manager around that time. So that role kind of fell with Capricorn from her description of it. And so then we're shown this exhibit photo of Cassie. She has neon hair. She's at the MTV, I think music video awards. And that Capricorn was explaining that she had put her in this particular look because she wanted to put her into the future and just kind of get away from kind of the half-shaped head and kind of go on to her next look that she'd essentially be rocking.

And so as far as Cassie, it kind of went a little bit of everywhere as far as just the dates go. So we get back into the January 2012 timeframe where Capricorn said she was Cassie's representative at this time. And January 13th specifically of 2012 was about three weeks after the kidnapping. And the defense says that Capricorn was still conducting business as usually. after this kidnapping. And Capricorn says that she was just responding to this email where essentially it was kind of a rut from Bad Boy wanting to get on this virtual call with Cassie, Capricorn, and just some other high-power people with Bad Boy.

So the defense trying to point out that, you know, she wasn't necessarily rocked by this alleged kidnapping that instead that she was still going on with life as usual, still conducting business as usual. And so then we go back to the year before around fall or, excuse me, summer, fall of 2011. They were talking about how bad boy had paid for Capricorn to live at these apartments. It's called Hillcrest Apartments and that Cassie began staying with Capricorn when Diddy was busy and that Cassie just wanted someone to be around because she didn't want to be in the hotels anymore. And then that's when we start kind of getting more into the Kid Cuddy

incident and this from the defense's perspective. Yeah, and it seems to me they're basically really, you know, really assassinating the character of Cassandra Ventura, basically saying she's relying on combs, she's leaching off of him, you know, he's not controlling her, but he's helping her. And this idea of that, you know, he didn't sacrifice her career, he didn't control her career, maybe she wasn't very hard working at all, and that she was just, you know, using combs, and she really trying to reverse the narrative about her being a victim. I do think it's really interesting where the idea, and they've said this before in the past, that you claim all this happened to you, you claim you saw this, but yet you continue to work for the man, or you

wanted to continue to work for the man. Wasn't there an email or something about where she was asking for forgiveness from Sean Combs? Can you talk to us about that? Yes, absolutely. There were a lot of emails that were shown, and they were back to back. So I apologize everyone. I couldn't write all of them down, so I'm going to just kind of paraphrase them. And so, this was after Capricorn Clark was terminated and there were again different points where she was let go of her job as she left the job and so these ones had come a little bit later on some as late as 2015 2014 so right before she was rehired back on and so in one exhibit that we saw it was an email from Capricorn where her the subject line was or the kind of salutation was record my boss

Sean Combs and, by default, Harpierre, are upset I went on vacation and are being petty as usual. So that was one email that was sent. Then there was another email sent in September of 2014 that Capricorn wrote to Diddy, Are You OK? Is your mom okay? Be well. Again, paraphrasing, there was a lot more said in these emails. Then we saw another email from January 5th of 2015, where Capricorn, she's starting to get emotional here while we're calling just the emails that she sent because she had said, in this particular email, sending you blessings and love. I hope to see you this year.

There was another, a month later, February 28th of 2015, where Capricorn sent another email to Diddy. Hope you're well. The grace period to be mad at me has exceeded past a long period of time. Then we see another email from November 4th of 2015, which I believe is Diddy's birthday, because Capricorn said, happy birthday and good luck with your project.

And then it was a pretty long email, so I was trying to write it down. But one big takeaway is that she sent in this, particular email, she must have wanted and gone. And this she that she was actually referring to was Cassie. Again, a moment where I'm just kind of like, oh, wow, because again, from Cassie and Kid Cuddy's testimony, you would think that Capricorn Clark was kind of this good friend of Cassie's and was on Cassie's sidebook of Capricorn Clark. It seems like, again, Capricorn was holding a lot of resentment towards Cassie, kind of believing that Cassie was the reason that she no longer was working with

Diddy, and by no longer working with Diddy, Diddy Black listed her according to Capricorn Clark and that way she could no longer get any type of employment in the music industry. And so I think what the defense, again, to your point, Jesse is kind of trying to show is just that she did want to come back, even though she was allegedly kidnapped, even though she had witnessed Diddy and Rubin breaking into Kid Cuddy's apartment, even though she knew about the Molotov cocktail lodge into Kid Cuddy's car, even though she knew about Diddy beating Cassie, that she still wanted to return working with Diddy even years afterwards. So I think the defense, you know, they were trying to really kind of hone in just about that.

Capricorn wanted back this life because even as they were ending the cross-examination, Capricorn even asked for a recommendation as late as 2021 and even was possibly planning on working with him just last year. And so Capricorn explained from her point of view, again, she's very emotional while in the witness stand, that she just wanted to take care of her son. And that's part of the reason that she wanted to be back in Diddy's employment again. And she said that she wanted her life back and she wanted to work in the music industry, again, being very emotional to the point where I thought the judge would be like, okay, we need to take a break, everyone. But we didn't take a break. Capricorn Clark just kept on trucking through.

But she did get very emotional, just recalling that she was fired and then subsequently blacklisted. Wait, so 2024, she tried to work for him again last year. what was what were the circumstances of that yeah so the circumstances were if you think about it so this was around april of 2024 that capricorn clark had met with ditty's attorneys and it's interesting because the way capricorn clark was kind of explaining it is that around december of 2023 she had actually went and got an attorney after cassie's lawsuit and surprisingly capricorn clark wasn't even mentioned in cassie's lawsuit something that she had testified to today. But she was explaining that around this time frame, December of

2023, that's when she was, I couldn't tell if she was upset about the lawsuit, emotional about the lawsuit, mainly because she was just explaining that she just wanted to hear Diddy's side of things in regards to Cassie's lawsuit. So what ended up happening was months later, the defense attorneys met with Capricorn Clark in the defense at the time, just being Tini Garigos, as well as Mark Agnifalo, because around this time frame, Diddy hadn't been arrested. How This was after, this was, I think, a couple weeks after Diddy's homes were rated, both in Los Angeles, as well as Miami. And so there was this discussion being had about Capricorn Clark possibly returning onto Diddy's staff because around this time, Diddy was essentially going through some bad PR for the most part. His homes were raided.

He has a number of lawsuits filed against him at this point. And so Capricorn Clark thought it'd be a good idea in a way that she'd be the one to return back because she was there from the start. And so it would kind of look better, I think, you know, to the optics, that it would look better that someone originally with Diddy is back once again. Because for the most part, Capricorn Clark, she does have a little name to her. And people do kind of know and recognize her. So she was explaining that during this meeting with Tenny Garagos and Mark Agnipolo as well as some, I think another person on the defense team that she had proposed coming back as the chief of staff, which I thought was interesting. because who do we also know who used to be Diddy's chief of staff, and that being Christina Corum.

And so she was saying that she had kind of proposed this idea. However, there wasn't necessarily a lot of room for her to come back because around this time, Mark Agnifalo was explaining that there was a criminal investigation into Diddy. Again, this was after the raids. So I thought it was interesting that she was explaining that she, as late as just last year, wanted to come back. But I think what the prosecution really did when they cross, or, excuse me, when they redirected her testimony after she had said this tidbit,

was just that there was this stipulation and the settlement from 2012 when Capricorn was wrongfully terminated from her employment at Bad Boy and that the stipulation was that Diddy would give her a positive work recommendation. However, she had so much trouble finding a job, and this is again where she's getting emotional, just recalling the life that she had wanted, she wanted to be back in the music industry, but she named other instances of her getting so close to another job,

For example, she was going to help manage 50 cent. And the day before she was supposed to report for the job, 50 cents, I guess, manager, Chris Lighty, had died. And she was supposed to start that job the day after he had died. Then there was another opportunity that Jimmy Iveen had called her up saying that he had job opportunities from her. This was in 2012. And the meeting that she had had with Jimmy Iveen wasn't even about jobs. It was about essentially Jimmy threatening Capricoran. to leave Diddy alone and it wasn't for a job interview.

Then Capricorn said she tried to get a job through the talent agency, CAA. And then Andre Harrell, who is Diddy's mentor. Did he essentially looked at Andre Harrell as like another father figure. He's a very important figure to his life that Andre Harrell and Diddy followed her around and trying to talk her out of pursuing legal efforts around this time. And she said she was looking for work essentially from 2012 to 2015, again claiming that she was blacklisted and that she ended up going into consulting to just find work. So I guess in some ways it does make sense as to why she wanted to continue working with

Diddy, mainly because I think she felt like if she'd worked for Diddy, then, you know, maybe the blacklist would be lifted off of her. And that way, if something were to happen, she'd still be able to find other opportunities. But it was pretty interesting to hear her kind of describe just, you know, because we've heard it a bunch, right, where people, even though something horrible had happened, that they still had either love for did he supported him or just possibly wanted to work for her for him again. So I thought it was interesting that even though she was super emotional just recalling everything that she had witnessed that even at the end she still wanted to go back.

It's complicated testimony. It's the same thing we talk about with Cassandra Ventura, right? They had to call a psychologist to try to explain you claim you're a victim of sex trafficking yet you stayed with him. You were allegedly raped by him but then had consensual sex. with them. It's a different kind of situation, but what you're seeing is just complicated testimony. None of it is straightforward, any of it. And it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough for the jury to make sense of this and what to take away from it. By the way, real quick, was the jury paying attention to every one of her words that they show any kind of reaction to what she was describing today? Yeah, I feel like from what I could see of the jury, they're again, they're so fascinating to the point where I do want to

know what's inside their mind sometimes because they were, for the most part, I thought being laser focused on Capricorn Clark. Then there were times that they were laser focused either on Mitzi Steiner, who was doing the questioning for the prosecution, or they were focused on Mark Magnifalo while he was trying to do the cross. And especially, you know, I was wondering if they were thinking about all these threats of being killed or putting somebody's body in the East River, what was kind of going through their mind when they were hearing about this testimony, especially from someone so close to Diddy, who had worked with them. But yeah, they're so hard to read sometimes.

But from what I could see of them, they were definitely being laser-focused on the testimony, as they have been so far. Before I let you go, there was something that happened prior to Capricorn Clark's testimony that I thought was interesting. I believe at the very start of the day, because the judge apparently made a ruling regarding the possibility of female DNA that was discovered on the Molotov cocktail that was used to blow up Kid Cuddy's car. I mean, this feels quite important.

Now, if we're talking about whether or not Sean Combs or an associate of Combs at his direction blew up Kid Cuddy's car, again, arson underlying predicate crime for racketeering. What was that discussion about? And do you know what the judge ruled regarding that? Yeah, so the discussion, to your point, Jesse, it happened right and early this morning. It actually happened outside of the presence of the jury. So the jury hasn't even been brought into the courtroom just yet. And so they were discussing this DNA testing, this forensic testing that's going to be talked about during Investigator Humanez's testimony.

And so Investigator Humanez, he works for the Los Angeles Fire Department, and we're expecting his testimony tomorrow. And so the government was saying that they don't want Officer, or excuse me, Investigator Humanez to be asked about the latent fingerprints. And that Investigator Humanez didn't swab any evidence or do the testing or even conduct the investigation. analysis and that his knowledge rests on the report from an analyst, something that he didn't do and that this report was about two pages long. And so their problem from the government's perspective is just the questioning about this analysis report. Mark Aganifalo said he's the one who's going to be cross-examining investigator Jimenez. That was kind of what he had said today. I don't know if that will change between now and today. But as far as the government's point of

everything, they were saying that investigator Humanez isn't qualified to testify about the results. that the defense only wants it in because from their understanding of it, that there's only one DNA profile on that glass bottle, a.k.a. the Molotov cocktail, and that DNA profile was from a female. And the government says that they don't necessarily know if there's more than one DNA profile, and that's part of the issue. And so they said oftentimes there actually is more than one profile. But the defense says that they were going to ask about the DNA profile that's consistent with a woman. And the defense said that the government thinks we're going to do something. off rails and that they aren't. And so as far as whether or not the objection was overruled, the judge ruled that he is overruling the objection right now, but he said he'll actually revisit

his ruling later on during the testimony. We thought we were going to get the testimony today, but because Capricorn Clark took up the entire day doing her testimony today, it looks like this will be something. That might be another issue tomorrow for sure. Yeah, I was going to ask you, any idea about who's testifying next? Yeah, so we do know that an officer with LAPD is going to be testifying tomorrow. We also know that in arson investigator, i.e. Investigator Jimenez, will be testifying tomorrow, too. I'm assuming that they'll continue talking about just the Kid Cuddy incident and just the reports that they got during this. But we also know that another person named Damon Nash is going to be testified. There was one more witness,

and they were talking just so fast that I couldn't get that last witnesses named down. But they are expecting four witnesses to take the stand tomorrow, depending on just how long those cross-examination go because sometimes those crosses Jesse they are pretty lengthy sometimes 10 times longer than the direct but we'll see if we'll be able to get to all four witnesses tomorrow elizabeth milner great reporting as always and great to see you thanks so much thanks jesse and that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on youtube apple podcast Spotify wherever you should get your podcasts i'm jesse weber i'll speak to you next time

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