The Rise and Fall of Diddy - The Price of Silence: 7

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

It started with a security tape…and a hundred-thousand-dollar payoff to make it disappear. In this episode, we follow the man who held the tape, the fixer sent to retrieve it, and the alleged cover-up that prosecutors claimed exposed a system of control inside Sean Combs’ empire. Was it a crime… or just business as usual?Featuring interviews with: Elizabeth Millner, Chris Stewart, Melba Pearson—-Host - Jesse WeberReporter - Elizabeth MillnerExecutive Producer - Jessica LowtherWriter and Producer - Cooper MollAssociate Producer - Tess Jagger-WellsEdit and Sound Design - Anna McClainGuest Booking - Diane Kaye & Alyssa FisherAdditional Production Support - Juliana Battaglia & Stefanie DoucetteLegal review - Elizabeth VulajKey art - Sean PanzeraSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a long crime series available exclusively on Wondery Plus. To listen to the remaining episodes, join Wondery Plus and enjoy ad-free listening to over 50,000 episodes, including more thrilling long-crime series like new episodes of Karen the retrial and sidebar with Jesse Weber. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. This podcast is a long crime production. The content may include graphic descriptions of alleged sexual acts, violence, abuse, and drug use. These topics may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners. Listener discretion is strongly advised. The allegations discussed are based on court documents, public testimony, and media reporting. While normally we wouldn't spoil the ending of a story, the headlines were nearly impossible to ignore. On July 2, 2025, a jury convicted Sean

Combs of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, but acquitted him of the racketeering and sex trafficking charges. The case against Sean Combs didn't start with an indictment. It didn't start with a raid or even a lawsuit. It started with a video, a grainy, silent hallway camera, a flash of violence, and a man the world knew his ditty caught on tape in a way no headline, no rumor, and no lawsuit could explain away. For years, the footage stayed hidden.

until it didn't, and when it finally surfaced, it didn't just shake the industry. It cracked open a federal investigation. But inside that story, the story of how the video got buried, was a name most people had never heard before, a hotel security guard drawn into a world he never expected. This episode, we're going back to that moment, to the man who held the tape and the alleged plot to make it disappear, and the moment that blew this case. wide open. I'm Jesse Weber, and this is the rise and fall of Diddy, the federal trial.

When Eddie Garcia walked into federal court, he didn't look like a man at the center of a six-figure payoff. When we see him get on the witness stand, he just seemed like a regular guy. He's, I think, in his early 30s, very casual wear. He's not in a suit or anything like that. He just approaches the stand. He swears his oath, and then he starts testifying. Law and Crime's own reporter Elizabeth Milner was in the courtroom on June 3rd, 2025, when he took the stand. Behind Garcia's low-key appearance was a story the jury and the world at large couldn't ignore.

He was the one who sold off the tape of the Intercontinental Hotel incident that happened between Sean Combs and Cassie Ventura back in 2016. A man who went from hotel security. to a witness in a federal conspiracy case. And as Milner saw firsthand, even under intense pressure, Garcia didn't crack. When he was on the stand, he was very calm, cool, and collected. There have been times where you do see combative witnesses, especially during the cross-examination. But for the most part, Eddie Garcia really held his own.

Telling a story that would put him face-to-face with combs and revealing the machine allegedly built to make that story disappear. Let's take a step back in time to March 5th, 2016, the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles. Eddie Garcia was on shift at the security desk when the call came in. It wasn't law enforcement or hotel management. It was the then personal assistant to Sean Combs, a woman named Christina Corum. Christina Corum was kind of this imaginary figure probably to the jurors throughout this entire trial in the sense that she was somebody who was talked about at nausea.

but we've never heard from her in person. Coram wasn't asking about what happened upstairs. She was asking about the hotel security cameras and how she could get her hands on the video. The stakes were clear. Inside that footage, a brutal assault involving Sean Combs and Cassie Ventura, a scene so violent, Elizabeth Milner said, Corum must have known exactly how much damage it could do.

Christina Corum being the chief of staff at the time, she recognized that this could be a huge issue of this. video were to get out. It could have been career ending for Sean Combs. Garcia told her no. The tapes weren't his to release. But Quorum wasn't giving up that easily. What she ended up doing was she got a hold of Eddie Garcia's phone number. In what way that is still a little bit of a mystery. I think he was even surprised that Christina Quorum got his personal phone number. She called him directly. And it wasn't long before Garcia realized this wasn't a polite request. He told the jury that Sean Combs said that this video could ruin his career

and that Eddie explained on the call that he didn't have access to the server room where he could get the original video and that he possibly couldn't be able to help because the only person who was able to have access to this video in order to go back and rewind it or fast forward or just look at the surveillance video again. That was only the manager's role. Garcia explained the limits of what he could access

and for Quorum, that just meant finding another one. way. Christina Quorum's role was really helping facilitate Sean Combs being able to obtain this tape and not even just obtain the tape the only copy. Garcia said no again, but that didn't stop her. Criminal law attorney Melba Pearson says her persistence didn't just show her loyalty to Combs. Quorum was operating like she knew the ropes, like she'd done this before. She is basically the fixer. She is his right-hand person and would, do whatever needed to be done to ensure that he was protected. And that's not just the thought process of, oh, it's my boss, I'm going to do the best

that I can to make sure he's okay. It's, I'm going to figure out Eddie Garcia's personal phone number and start stalking him there to make sure that he gives up the tape. Like, she's going above and beyond just, I'm a good employee. She's basically being his lieutenant, if you're looking at it from a mob perspective. Corum called in backup, The Big Guns. The next time Garcia heard about the tape, it was from the man caught on it. Sean Combs offered a take care of Eddie Garcia, and Eddie believed that to mean financially.

His interpretation wasn't wrong. In the government's telling, it sounded less like a conversation and more like a shakedown. And it was an offer he couldn't refuse. I spoke to Long Crime's very own Chris Stewart about this. I know that the parallel has been drawn and kind of shorthand of saying that the government's trying to show that Sean Combs in some ways was like a mob boss. And when I was hearing Eddie Garcia's story and it's okay. So Christina Corum calls, hey, do you have the video? Could we get the video?

No. And then she shows up in person at the lobby. And then it's, can we get the video? No. And then it's, well, I'm going to put Sean Combs on the phone and let me take care of you. And then suddenly it just seemed like the pressure campaign kept going and going and going. For a young guy making minimum wage, the idea of a powerful man stepping in to take care of him sounded more like an opportunity than a risk. They were able to kind of help this then young 20-something who was just working security in order to obtain this tape.

That's how it worked, not a shakedown, a favor, a door opening, but only if you played your part. It seemed at points that Christina Quorum and Sean Combs used their charm to really sway, Eddie Garcia possibly to their side. To Garcia and the prosecution, in hindsight, Charm wasn't just part of the approach. It was the strategy. She even referred to Eddie Garcia as Eddie My Angel, something that Sean Combs also referred to him as.

Up to this point, everything about the effort to get a hold of that video had been personal. Phone calls, quiet asks, subtle pressure, an offer. But the next step took it somewhere else entirely. It turned into a negotiation, then a business transaction. Chris Stewart recalls what happened next. Instead of once again saying no, Garcia decided it was time to go talk to his supervisor, a man named Bill Madrano. Madrano didn't need convincing.

According to Garcia, the response was almost casual. Garcia said his boss told him for $50,000, Combs would have a deal. Sean comes as a man with a lot of money. And so I think for him, $50,000 in order to get what could be a tape that could possibly save his career at the time, he was willing to pay for it. But then he doubled that figure. Sean Holmes was willing to pay $100,000. Here's how the deal shook out. $30,000 Garcia kept for himself.

$50,000 he handed off to his boss, Bill Madrano. $20,000 went to another guard on the shift. This wasn't a panic move. It was controlled and deliberate, a strategy from, people who had the money to cover their tracks. The next step, Garcia said, was getting what he thought was the only copy of this video. Garcia said he went to the hotel's server room, and he says that his boss, Bill Madrano, gave him a USB that he was told had the video on it.

And Christina Quorum was right in the middle of it, managing the contact, facilitating the deal, and if Garcia's testimony was to be believed, making sure he felt like he was part of something much bigger. And if Garcia thought he was doing a favor for powerful people, that was exactly the point. What started as a quiet ask had turned into something far more coordinated and far more dangerous. By now, the groundwork had been laid. The price had been set and the promise that this tape would never see the light of day was about to be sealed. Eddie Garcia wasn't just passing along a copy of the tape. He was delivering what he was. He believed was the only copy.

And according to his testimony, there was nothing casual about the way it went down. Garcia then went to meet Combs, and this, though it's cliche to say, does sound like a scene out of a movie. Garcia was directed to show up in person at a West L.A. high rise and waiting for him inside, Sean Combs, Christina Quorum, and a bodyguard. Garcia said, when he got there, he called a number, and he was met by a member of Diddy's security team, a big guy. standing as tall as 6'5, he says. Eddie then goes upstairs. And there he saw Sean Diddy Combs. He said Diddy was smiling and once again saying he was Eddie, my angel.

Eddie Garcia was talking about Sean Combs presenting $100,000 just in a paper brown bag, trying to persuade them to hand over this tape. And before the money changed hands, there was something else. Combs pulled out non-disclosure agreements, NDAs, with his heart-pounding, Garcia signed them. Eddie Garcia talked about, you know, feeling very intimidated and nervous that he didn't even read over the NDA. And it wasn't hard to understand why. He had two huge security guards standing over him, making sure he signed. In Melba's view, that changes everything.

So that, to me, does not seem to be a knowing and willing waiver of your rights or any penalties or anything. the penalties in question all Garcia says he really remembers about that document is that he would be on the hook four million dollars if he ever broke the agreement in the eyes of the prosecution this wasn't just a handshake deal between a hotel security guard and a music icon to them it was a transaction designed to erase a threat Sean Combs did a lot to make sure that this was untraceable back to him But if Combs thought that money and assigned NDA would bury the story forever, Chris Stewart highlights, he was wrong. Perhaps did he thought that by allegedly paying off the security team at the Intercontinental, his problem would be solved. But that obviously could not have been further from the truth because in 2024, CNN obtained a copy of that video and broadcast it worldwide.

It has been seen by millions of people. The money changed hands. The USB drive was gone, and just like that, it was over. At least, that's how it was supposed to feel. For Eddie Garcia, the payoff wasn't just a transaction. It came with a set of instructions, some spoken, some not. Sean Combs was telling Eddie Garcia not to make any type of big purchases, because that might also lead to a potential money trail.

It wasn't just about keeping Eddie quiet. It was about covering every possible track. Even after the money changed hands, it didn't seem over. I think the way the testimony played out in court, I thought there were moments where Sean Combs knew what he was doing was wrong. And if Combs knew it was wrong, it wasn't because this was a one-off. It was because that's how it worked. It did feel like there was this pattern between a lot of these witnesses.

Hush, hush, don't speak about this, don't talk about this, but we'll take care of you if you do this one. little thing for me. If Eddie Garcia was Diddy's puppet, Christina Quorum was the one pulling the strings. She always helped clean up his mess. Officially, Corum was Sean Combs' chief of staff, but inside the courtroom, she became something else entirely. The fixer, the go-between, the person prosecutors painted as central to a pattern of cover-ups and hush-money deals, an unindicted and alleged co-conspirator. And yet, despite all the evidence, all the references, all the text messages and calls, she never took the stand.

If she is this devilish co-conspirator that the government was making her out to be, why wouldn't they call her just to set the record straight? You would think that, okay, there's a point. She's going to walk into this courtroom. She's going to take the stand. And that never happened. To some trial watchers, her absence raised eyebrows. To others, like Attorney Melba Pearson, it raised questions.

Was she being protected, avoiding the stand, or simply too unpredictable to risk in front of a jury? There could be a number of reasons for that. Number one, she could have made herself unavailable, or maybe Diddy assisted her in becoming unavailable. And by that, I mean outside of the reach of the law, she could be in another country, or she may be in hiding somewhere in the U.S. and evading service so that she wouldn't have to testify. Or maybe they did find her, and maybe she doesn't. doesn't add that much to the case. Maybe she gives too much conflicting testimony or basically the prosecution would be calling her as a hostile witness because she likely wouldn't want

to be there and testify against her whole boss. So, you know, it's a mixed bag. In a case built on who knew what and when, Quorum remains simply a name on a page. Elizabeth Milner wondered about the potential impact if Christina Corum had been called to testify. I think maybe the case would have played out different. differently if she took the stand. In a trial about control, her silence spoke volumes. She could substantiate what she knew about Cassie being beaten because we had a different witness that testified on that,

but this particular witness had indicated to Christina Quorum that Cassie is being brutalized, bad things are happening, ditties out of control, and she was like, okay, yeah, I'll speak to him, and of course, nothing changed. So what did she know, when did she know it, and what did she do about it? We may never know. Eddie Garcia was called by the prosecution to show the jury how far Sean Combs and the people around him would go to cover their tracks. Experts say it wasn't just about intimidation.

It was about resources, power, and knowing exactly how to use them. That threat of force was always there, but also using money, using anything else that they can leverage to be. be able to get the outcome that they want. And that's exactly what happened here. The thing was money. Initially, the supervisor said, I'll do it for 50 grand. But if the supervisor said, I want $500,000, he likely would have gotten it. Because again, Diddy had a vested interest in making sure his criminal activity did not come to light. And he was going to use all the resources he had to be able to do that. But when it was the defense's turn, they didn't go after Garcia's story. The defense was trying to say, okay, well, Sean Combs never obstructed justice or anything like that.

Instead, they went after Garcia's choices, and at the center of it all, a document, the NDA. According to the defense, this wasn't a criminal conspiracy. It was a business deal. And Garcia, he signed it voluntarily. If he'd really thought something illegal had happened. He could have easily went to law enforcement if you really needed to. He could have spoke to authorities about this, but Eddie Garcia didn't. And when it came to Christina Quorum, the defense doubled down.

They didn't deny she was involved. They just framed her differently. For the defense's perspective, Christina Quorum was just doing her job and that everyone needed a Christina Corum. And it seemed like from the defense's perspective, she was doing everything right. And that was doing her job, being Sean Combs' chief of staff. In the hands of the defense, Garcia's testimony, wasn't a smoking gun, it was a credibility test, and every question, every challenge was designed

to leave the jury asking the same thing. Was this really a crime or just bad behavior? Eddie Garcia's testimony wasn't just about what happened in 2016. To the prosecution, it was meant to showcase the patterns of control, silence, and cover-ups. Here's Melba Pearson again. This is another example of Diddy using his enterprises to cover up criminal behavior. So let's not get it twisted. We know that what happened between him and Cassie was criminal, that depending on the level of injury she sustained, it could be a felony level battery. We're not quite sure.

But just from what we've seen, clearly, at the very least, it's a battery. Depending on California law, it could have been even worse. And so as a result of this being a criminal action and obviously him not wanting it to get out and purchasing the evidence to make sure it doesn't get out. These are all examples of him using monies that may not necessarily be coming out of his personal bank account, but coming out from the bank account of bad boy productions or Combs enterprises or whatever the case may be. You also have the aspect of the use of various staff members to call and put pressure on Eddie Garcia and his supervisor to relinquish the tape. And that would

be Christina Corum, the chief of staff. You have the security guards that basically stood over Eddie to ensure that he signed the NDA. All of those things play right into the government's hands in terms of showing. He's also doing more than just making music. He's also running a criminal enterprise. But when it came time for the jury to weigh it all, Elizabeth Milner says it was far from straightforward. I just feel like I saw it one way and the jurors didn't see it the exact same way. I did. Because for every move, the prosecution framed as criminal, the defense offered an explanation that sounded just close enough to legal. A non-disclosure agreement? Business as usual. A payoff? A personal settlement? A chief of staff running interference? Just doing her job. In a case like this,

sometimes the difference between illegal and uncomfortable is just the story you're willing to believe. When you're young and a lot of money is thrown at your face and all you have to do is just turn over a thumb drive. It can make a lot of sense as to why Eddie Garcia did what he had done. And so there were times where I felt like, oh, is this possibly a better witness for the defense or is this a possible better witness for the government? Because even when all the pieces seem to fit, there's still the question of what picture the jury sees when they step back and look at the whole thing. I felt like all the puzzle pieces were there, but I just don't think. that the puzzle matched what the government was alleging versus what the jury interpreted the allegations to be. And so it felt like a mismatched puzzle on both ends.

And in a federal courtroom, sometimes that mismatch is all it takes. In any trial, every story is only as strong as the evidence behind it. And every witness is only as convincing as the lines of questioning they survive. By the time Garcia stepped down, What lingered wasn't just the $100,000 payoff. It was the uncertainty over whether this was a criminal conspiracy at all or just the cost of doing business in Combs' world. And in the end, the jury didn't have to decide that question just yet because there was still one more round to go, closing arguments.

The government's last chance to pull it all together and the defense's last shot to tear it all apart. And a verdict that would tell the world whether the system of control Garcia described was, Just business as usual, or a criminal enterprise hiding in plain sight. That's next time on the final episode of the rise and fall of Diddy, the federal trial. This has been a long crime production. I'm your host, Jesse Weber.

Our executive producer is Jessica Lowther. Our writer and producer is Cooper Mall. Our associate producer is Test Jagger Wells, edit and sound design by Anna McLean, guest booking by Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher. Additional production support from Juliana Bataglia and Stephanie Ducet, legal review by Elizabeth Vuli, key art designed by Sean Panzera, and special thanks to Elizabeth Milner for her in-depth reporting on this case. Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, and get ad-free access to more thrilling long crime series like new episodes of Karen the retrial and sidebar with Jesse Weber. Start your free trial today.