'I'm Laura Coates, and this is Trial by Jury. Well, we have just wrapped week five of the federal criminal trial of Sean Diddy Combs. It's been over a month, and we're told we're more than halfway through it. In fact, the prosecution could wrap as early as this coming Wednesday, possibly Friday, which of course means the big question. Will the defense present a case? And of course, will a particular defendant end up testifying on the stand? We have a lot to get to before we'll get that answer, I think. Let's talk about today in court because we heard testimony from a special agent who helped search Diddy's L.A. home. We heard from yet another former assistant to Sean Combs who helped stage his so-called, here's a new term, king nights. So remember we've got freak-offs, hotel nights, and now king nights — gotta keep up. But the biggest spectacle today may have happened outside the courtroom. ["Kanye, who are you in support of?"] Because as he might say, rapper Kanye West was in the building. He showed up to court in New York today. He was dressed in all white, and reporters, of course, were shouting questions at him as he walked inside, wondering whether he was there, in fact, to support Sean Diddy Combs, and would he actually end up inside of that courtroom? ["Are you into freak offs? Why are you here?"]

Well, we brought you that news as you remember that Kanye West was planning to come to court. We told you about it last night in this podcast. And my girl Elizabeth Wagmeister got that scoop. She shared it with us here. And today we saw it happen. I asked her to describe the scene, to paint that picture for us.

'Okay, Laura, so yesterday you were the first that I gave the scoop to about Kanye. I told you that Kanye was planning on coming to court to support Diddy and I had a source who told me this and that source also said that Kanye had been in constant communication with Christian Combs, who's also known as King Combs. That is one of Diddy's sons who of course has been in court most days throughout this trial to support his dad. So what happens today? Well, Kanye shows up at court. It was truly mayhem. I mean, you know what this courthouse is like inside and out every day. There is already a cast of characters there. It is already media madhouse. There are TikTokers. There's fans. It's, you know, craziness ensues every day, but Kanye comes and when he comes, I was inside the courthouse. I was not outside. So I didn't see him arrive. I was able to see footage because our crew, of course, our CNN crew was out there and saw him come in. But inside the courthouse, it was like the quickest game of telephone. Immediately, everyone was saying, do you hear, do you hear, Kanye is here, Kanye is here. And then I had heard that he was not going to be led into the actual courtroom. Courtrooms are open to the public. So Kanye, if there was room in the main courtroom, he could walk in. But, as we both know from covering this trial, every single day, it is jam-packed. There's no room at all. So, in order to be on the list where you would sit with the family or the defense, you would need to be a on a list. And he was not made to be on that list. So, he couldn't be in the main courtroom. So, I was hearing that he was going to go to an overflow room. So, the overflow room for those who don't know is exactly what it sounds like. When the main courtroom is overflowing with too many people, they open other courtrooms to let in members of the media and members of public. And there's an overflow room on 24 and sometimes on 23, if it's really crazy that day. So I went to the 24th floor and immediately the security there said, clear the halls. And I was just waiting on a bench out there and they came up to me and they said, Miss, you can't be here. You either have to be in the courtroom or leave the floor. And you know me, Laura, I was talking back a little bit. I said, I don't understand why I have to leave. This is a public space. I'm in the court room all the time. I'm the hallway all the times. And they said ma'am, you either have to go in or leave floor. So I knew he was coming. That's what I was trying to do. I was try to figure that out. So then I go inside the overflow room. I was told that the bench in the back of the courtroom, so the one against the wall, they were saving for Kanye and whoever was going to come in. So all of a sudden, you've members of Diddy's defense coming to the overflow room. I have never seen them in the overflow room before. So you have members of his defense coming down. And then you have all these members that work at the courthouse, like security staff coming in. So it was very clear, Kanye was coming. But then, Kanye was brought to the other overflow room. So he was brought the 23rd floor. So I missed him. I did not see him in the flesh, but I saw everything that was happening and all the steps that the staff at the courthouse took because he was coming. Well, I found out later on that he was on the 23rd floor in the overflow room, he was sitting with King Combs with Diddy's son. So Diddy son left the main courtroom and went to sit with Kanye. Didn't last long. I was told he was sitting like in the front row, looking at the monitor, listened to just a few questions of testimony, and then he left. And our crew caught him leaving, and that was it. Throughout the day, there was more rumors that he may be coming back, but he did not come back, at least today. So we will see what next week brings, but it was really a sight to be seen, and of course this has nothing to do at all with the trial, but of course it's the story of the day, because anytime Kanye goes somewhere, we're all talking about it, and that's really exactly what he wants, isn't it?

Wow, what will happen next week? Well, to help me recap this week of testimony, I'm joined by entertainment lawyer and litigator Lisa Bonner, who I can't wait to talk about this industry and what the celebrity impact might be here. But first, let's start with the fact that, Lisa, Kanye West was in a courtroom today. Were you surprised that Kanye West made an appearance?

I thought about that, Laura, and I'm gonna tell you, does anything that Kanye West does surprise us anymore? I mean, he came, he saw, and he left. It seemed like he was there for a very short time, and to make us recognize the great Kanye West and speculate about his attendance there.

'Well, interestingly enough, when you talk about, if it's an overflow, and just so people know, if its overflow, it means it's not the main courtroom where the jurors The jurors don't know who's in the overflow room. So they may or may not have actually laid eyes on Kanye West or had it register if he were to appear in that room. But this to me speaks volumes about the role of celebrity in this trial. I mean, it is the star witness. It is the Achilles heel. It is the big mystery. When you look at, obviously, the voir dire, Lisa, they had to take for granted as a given that everyone knew who Diddy was. To a certain extent, they had to know who Cassie was, but certainly Diddy. The fact that he is this high-profile individual. We're talking about people who were testifying like Kid Cudi and of course, Cassie Ventura and they're name dropping all sorts of people. Mike Myers was named as somebody who somebody worked for. Michael B. Jordan, Madonna I think at one point came up as somebody who was an employer of somebody who used to work for Sean Diddy Combs. How much is this looming over the trial or the jurors perception of Sean?

I've been thinking about that as well. Initially, I do believe that there might have been a lot of being starstruck, right? In terms of, wow, this is Diddy and you see him, he's larger than life normally. And then he walks in with gray hair and a sweater and cardigan and really has been in this courtroom for the last four weeks and hearing all of this testimony Him, and somehow not normalizing that, but just more of a wow factor, because I think a lot of people, especially in Hollywood, and who had been around him, were enamored with him. They had all these great feelings about him. And that surely plays into the starstruck behavior initially.

'You're right. A lot of the witnesses. Either who were in a sexual relationship with him, dare I say some believed romantic relationship with them, others in an employer-employee relationship, they were all almost universally starstruck by him even throughout the course of their interactions. They still had very lovely things to say about him for the most part. There were some exceptions, of course. They talked about him as being a business school in and of itself. And so even if the jurors themselves have come down from the initial shock of, wow, that's Puff, that Diddy, that P Diddy that's Sean Diddy Sean Combs, whoever it might be. To them, the people who work for him certainly maintained that.

'Absolutely, and just being an entertainment lawyer and living in New York and working with people and knowing people who've gone to Howard with him. I mean, this is literally one of the worlds that I live in and I practice in. And Diddy has always been, in the hip hop and the urban world and even the pop culture world, been a persona. This man who gave these white parties that everybody — not me, but a lot of people really have always wanted to go to, and really they have soaked up every bit of stardom, every bit, of being in close proximity to him for this lifestyle. That is on the personal, but on the professional level, he ran several enterprises, right? He ran a legitimate record company. And whatever you have to say about Sean, P-Diddy, Puff, or whatever. He has been responsible for some of the biggest acts of our generation, R&B acts of our generations, hands down. And that is without equivocation. And so he is absolutely a master class in terms of even self-promotion, right? Because the biggest thing was that Diddy doesn't really produce, he doesn't rap, but he's always inserting himself on an artist's music, on a song to get publishing and to be and artist. And that was, you know, one of the things that 50, you know, and other people have said about him in terms of, you know, you're, are you the, are you the businessman? Are you the artist? So he definitely has this larger than life persona across many, many industries, in terms of Sean John, that was a huge deal when it was out. Ciroc, very big, then DeLeon Tequila. So he has been very instrumental in launching black culture into the zeitgeist of pop culture, kind of mending a lot of the two.

'You know, what I think is so fascinating about that is you're ticking off the different enterprises. Of course, the word enterprise sticks in my mind because the prosecution wants you to think he has enterprises, but they want a RICO enterprise. They want to prove that. But legitimate businesses, of course, can be involved in illegitimate practices or criminal practices as well. But I'm wondering from the jurors perspective, if your crafting this and thinking about this, they have to be convinced that these businesses, that one of their functions, or that the inner circle working for these businesses, that some of their responsibilities were to engage in criminal activity. And just from ticking off what is known about his businesses, that presents a hurdle for the prosecution. Perhaps if he was a lesser known figure, people would maybe say, okay, well these might be front companies, but there might be jurors in New York who are aware of the legitimate businesses and wondering if the prosecution has connected the dots. And on that point, I'm curious from your perspective about how all this testimony has come in, because we have certainly, Lisa, we have heard the toxic of toxicity when it comes to the relationships that we're describing. There is the so-called sexual deviance. I use the words so- called because of course, I don't know who's on the jury, what they find deviant behavior or not. There's also the violence and it's extensive, but that's, those are crimes that have not been charged. How did the prosecutors bridge those gaps more than a month in now when there might be jurors who are saying, I got it. He's violent. He's a drug user. He's admitted to these things to his counsel or otherwise or through testimony has come in. But have you proven the trafficking in RICO?

'That's a question I think that everybody, we are always discussing on a day-by-day basis. How is the prosecution doing in terms of having the underlying RICO, not the predicate crimes, but the underlying crime of sex trafficking tied to the RICO, and in the indictment basically saying that he used, by the way, his name of his legitimate companies, the umbrella company was Combs Enterprises.

That's probably an unfortunate detail of the prosecutors would like to exploit. Right.

Right and also just, but knowing how he's always presented himself, that is not surprising. I do believe that they have, the prosecution has done a very good job at tying a lot of the people who've worked for him to the protecting and furthering these acts of alleged sex trafficking. Now that turns on consent, and we can talk about that in a minute, but in terms of concealing the conduct, protecting his reputation and furthering this behavior, they've tied plenty of assistants to the fact that they've alleged that they have transported drugs for him. They've picked up drugs for them.

So of them even set up the hotel nights, right?

'That is correct. And procured lingerie for them. And some of these were paid with company credit cards. I think the one thing that the prosecution is going to need to do, because we've heard these people's names so many times, is they absolutely need to bring Kristina Khorram and D-Rock to the stand.

'Khorram is part of, you know, almost the right-hand woman, and then D-rock, a security guard.

'Because we'd heard so much about them, they're procuring being a middle person, and because they are also higher up on the, the food chain, if you will, the corporate totem pole. Like these were more or less his lieutenants, right? As opposed to his assistants whose behavior that he, you know, had more control over. But he was acting allegedly in concert with Kristina Khorram, and she was the one, Kristina was the who allegedly made the call to the Hotel Intercontinental, you know to procure the tape. So I think they've done a good job at establishing the fact that these people did do these alleged things through and they were acting at his orders with him and I believe they've even called Kristina Khorram an unindicted co-conspirator.

'It's a good point that you're And of course, Kristina Khorram has not been criminally charged as far as we know and, or ever been aware of, and she has vehemently denied any criminal involvement whatsoever. D-Rock, I presume similarly, because I don't see anything that this has an indictment or him in any way admitting to criminal activity and in fact professing innocence. But what I think is important about what you said in particular, Lisa, is that the jurors. Probably have these names written down on multiple pages on these little notebooks that the jurors have with them where they, you know, day one they were probably thinking, gosh, my penmanship is horrible. And now after day 20 something, they're thinking to themselves, I know how to spell these people's names because I hear them so often. So where are they? And that includes, by the way, there's another alleged victim who they're not going to hear from. The prosecution said they were not going hear from a woman by the name of Gina, they said that she was unavailable or they weren't able to locate her, which you and I both know is head scratching, gives you the big side eye, because why would a prosecutor be truly unable to locate a witness who seemed to be so crucial to their case or have they made a decision to not find her? That's what the defense is going to raise. Let's talk about for a second what we heard a lot this week of and that was Jane. Emotional testimony. She was on the stand as long if not longer than even Cassie Ventura. And there were moments when she got pretty snippy when it came to questions about financial benefits that she received from Diddy. But overarching was an obvious love and affection that she had for him. And her proactive participation and organizing of what she called hotel nights, Cassie Ventura called freak-offs, and now we're hearing, I think, king nights from another witness now. How does that factor in? How would you use that as defense?

I've been thinking about this and one thing that we have seen also through all of the victims, through alleged victims, and all of the witness testimony that we've heard, a lot of people have these complex relationships. Mia, for example, who was one of his assistants as well.

'That's right. And they really, and who Brian Steele got up and vigorously cross-examined her and said it three times, this did not happen to you. So after that she is posting on Instagram about his birthday, and so it's one of the things that is very common throughout everybody is that they have this very complex relationship with him. And so I don't think Jane — Jane was a little different because she came off as wanting a little bit more of the relationship, right? And so could the jury potentially say, well, you know, she's just an aggrieved ex-lover and under different circumstances, we might not be here. I think a lot of it is gonna turn on if she came off cross more like an ex-lover who has just been given a bad deal, who wasn't able to get more out of the relationships. That's kind of my takeaway from that because she did you know, she hugged the prosecution on her way out And then she turns around and hugs the defense, right?

'That was such such an odd moment, and I remember thinking, you know, it's one thing if you're the prosecutor and an alleged victim of a sex crime hugs you after your direct examination and handling because you can almost foresee someone being like relieved that the way they were handled. And for many people, their second nightmare, second to an actual assault, is having to discuss it in public in front of strangers. It's re-traumatizing again. So I'm letting you think, okay, maybe if I'm a juror watching this, I'm gonna contextualize this and say, okay, that's what that was about. But then if you hug the defense attorney who I've just seen you be snippy with, and I know from testimony that you have been talking to them as recently as April, and here we are just June. And I know that the defendant who's paying for your attorney and still paying for your rent, and you're still talking about the love and affection, it's almost as if the testimony could conceivably, even if there were gains, become a wash where jurors are wondering, well, I don't know whose side you're on. And if I don't know whose side you're, is that enough for a seed of reasonable doubt? Which is, of course, what the defense wants to have. When you look at all of this and think about, even today, there was testimony from Jonathan Perez, who was a former personal assistant to Sean Collins. We've heard now multiple personal assistants from. We heard him talk about king nights or hotel nights, a yet another term that we're talking about. I am curious as an entertainment lawyer and a good one at that.

You're obviously around a number of celebrities and I think you might have less preconceived notions than the average person because you are in the midst of so many people who many people find completely unattainable and unreachable. So I wonder if there is a preconceived notion in the stereotype that you see the jurors might be looking at, this is how rock stars act. This is the drug sex and rock and roll component, the enabling of people around them. That's all part of it. And they expect to be treated in the way they are because they are narcissists. One has to be to catapult themselves to a career. Obviously you've seen a variety of personalities. Did jurors have some valid views in terms of how they might be assessing that?

That's a great question. I think so. You know, that's one of the things that we were discussing about the luster, right? Of this person's, his shininess, and how he just was always larger than life. It's so interesting, again, when you think about it from the mind of a juror. And I would like to think that since the Me Too movement, that people have come to expect more from our celebrities, people that they look up to, because the MeToo movement really was instrumental in underscoring the fact that this behavior, this sexual assault, the quid pro quo from a devious manner, from a coercive manner, form a forcible manner, is no longer acceptable to the mainstream public. So I'm hoping that that is something that people really tend to look and see that maybe it's not as acceptable as it once was. And the other thing I was gonna say is that maybe the mind of the juror is thinking, he should not be held to any different standard than I would be. Why should this man get special treatment because he can afford 10 lawyers, for example? When the average Joe might be struggling to pay for one private attorney and be fighting not to use a public defender. And so I'm hoping that the jurors really look at this in every case that we are asked to serve as jurors on from the lens of a reasonable person standard.

That's such an important point, yeah.

'Thank you, and not from the rose-colored glasses that tends to, where you idolize people and hold them to a different standard. Because I, as a normal juror that is working as a masseuse, for example, or working at a deli, I can't afford a $1,500, $5,000 handbag. I'm not riding on private jets. And so sometimes that could be seen to be a little bit more challenging for the defense to overcome. Because, well, they're just rich and famous and this is what, no, no. I'm not, I couldn't do that. So why should they be able to get away with that?

'That's such a great point. There's nothing more equalizing than five felony charges against somebody. They talk about being knocked off the so-called pedestal of society and being human in a way that they didn't foresee that they would be. But that brings it back to our original point about the impact of celebrity in this trial. Because I do wonder, who is that working for? Is it the prosecution, or is it the defense? Even. The way money is handed over for performances or the use of company credit cards or personal assistance. I think there is a lot of information that these jurors are processing in real time. And I'm glad you stopped by because we needed your brain today. Thank you.

Thank you for having me, Laura, this was a wonderful conversation.

I don't know if it's TGIF, or can't wait till Monday. Either way, follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you do not want to miss an episode. But this one was produced by Emily Williams, Graelyn Brashear, Alexandra Saddler, and Rachid Haoues. Our technical director is Dan DZula. And executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickteig. With support from Andrea Lewis, Mike Figliola, Hank Butler, Robert Mathers, Alex Manasseri, and Lisa Namerow. I'm Laura Coates, and I'm here for it.