279: I Sat Inside The Courtroom This Week, Here's Everything That Happened | Karen Read Trial Recap & Diddy's Smelly Hotel Room

This week, I sat inside the courtroom for the Karen Read trial—and trust me, it was tense. In this episode, I’m breaking down everything that happened: the key witness testimony, the major inconsistencies, and the behind-the-scenes dynamics that you didn’t see on the livestream. From shifting alliances to bombshell cross-examinations, there’s a lot to unpack. Plus, I’m diving into the latest updates in the Diddy case, including new witness revelations and what they could mean for the investigation. If you’ve been following either of these cases, this is the episode you don’t want to miss. 🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks 🔎Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to EXTRA deep dive episodes every week on Apple!https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164Follow Annie on Socials 📸🩷Instagram: @ _annieelise💜TikTok: @_annieelise🗞️ Substack: @annieelise💙Facebook: @10tolifeShop Annie’s Closet & Must-Haves! 👗Poshmark: https://posh.mk/Tdbki6Ae0RbShopMY: https://shopmy.us/annieeliseAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/10tolife?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_aipsfshop_BKN1ZMCMEZHACVFQ2R75&language=en_USDisclaimer ‣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me.🎙️ Follow the podcast for FREE on all podcast platforms! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6HdheEH8WeMTHoe5da34qUAll Other Platforms: https://audioboom.com/channels/5100770-serialously-with-annie-eliseGet Involved or Recommend the Case 💬About Annie: https://annieelise.com/For Business Inquiries: [email protected].*Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:32Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialishly.

• 1:55Annie Elise?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialishly. With me, Annie Elise, fresh back from Boston and ready to break down everything that went down this week in the Karen Reed trial. I attended in person, which definitely... gave me a little bit of a different view into things because I was able to see the jury's reactions, kind of feel the vibes in the courtroom, see the energy, see the infamous fan in person up close and center. But no, so there's a lot we have to go over about what went on this week in the trial. I also want to just talk a little bit about my time there, who I met with, what some of the conversations were like and things like that. And then rather than split the episode, I also am going to include all of the Diddy

• 2:39Annie Elise?

  updates from the back half of this week in this episode. So whether you're here for both updates, Karen Reed and Diddy, or just Diddy, or just Karen, I'm going to start with all the Karen Reed updates and then we'll finish off with all of the Diddy stuff that went down, which is pretty interesting, like Kid Cudi testified, crazy new allegations. I mean, we have a lot to go over either way. But let's start with Karen Reed. Now, I'm going to also just say this one more time, and I'm sure you guys are probably like, give it up, Annie, we've heard this a million times. But apparently, there are still people out there who need to hear this. I don't know what happened that night at 34 Fairview Road. I don't know if Karen hit John with her car. I don't know if somebody fought him

• 3:21Annie Elise?

  in the basement of the house. I don't know if he just fell over wasted when he was trying to get into the house and hit his head. I don't know what happened. But what I do know is that there is, in my opinion, that at this moment in the trial, there is too much reasonable doubt to convict her. Now, I'm keeping an open mind. I'll just be honest. And there were a couple of times this week during the trial where there were some things that gave me pause and made me scratch my head and kind of wonder like, well, that doesn't really look very good for the defense. Could, how can you explain this away? This does look pretty compelling. So I am still keeping a very open mind. I'm not going into this with some sort of confirmation bias just because I sat with Karen's team and

• 4:04Annie Elise?

  met with them and met with Karen. I'm keeping an open mind and my mind can change at any point. But at this given moment, I do think that there is too much reasonable doubt to convict her. But as I've also said all along with that, it's really, it's a struggle because who wins in the end of this with that? There still is no justice for John, right? If Karen's not convicted, which she only should be convicted if it is true, just, and believed without, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt, if she is not convicted, and if there are no other charges brought against anybody else, which at this point, let's be honest, it doesn't really look likely that that will be the case, in terms of other charges being filed is what I mean, then where's the justice for John? Where's the justice for his family?

• 4:49Annie Elise?

  And being there in person too, seeing his family, it is emotional. If this is a real person who lost his life, and regardless of getting swept up in all of the chaos, or the sides, or the fighting, and the, all of that, you can see the devastation and the heartbreak on their face, and there were a couple of times where they had to leave the courtroom because they didn't want to see the images. So, again, I just want to remind everybody, that's the root of this whole case. Somebody lost their life, and we're trying to figure out what really happened and get justice for him, and it's my opinion that if the trial continues the way that it's going, or when the defense comes up, and if they put on a very, very compelling argument and case, then I don't know that John will ever get justice.

• 5:32Annie Elise?

  And that's not, you know, that's tough, because that's, those are the kinds of cases that we hate to talk about and hate to think about, because there's just no resolution. There's no, I don't even want to say closure, because I don't really believe in closure, but there's no peace, if that makes sense. So anyways, I do think that there is a possibility that public opinion shifted this week, based on some of the testimony, and it was a pretty interesting week. I saw some people out there saying that they thought that it was boring, or that it wasn't really that interesting. I found it really compelling, and again, I kind of think that there might have been some shift in public opinion, but I am curious to know your thoughts as we get into it. So.

• 6:12Annie Elise?

  The week started off, I got into Boston late Sunday night and met with the team when court started early in the week. So, met the three Karen Reed supporters out front of the courthouse as I was walking in. They were all very gracious, very kind. Met Karen's parents who were very, very warm, very welcoming, very down to earth and just good people. Not that that, I guess, matters in the grand scheme of things of what the issue at hand is, but still, just trying to give a whole picture of what it was like. And met with the attorneys, met with Karen herself, spoke with her quite a bit during one of the recesses. And you, it's just, everybody, again, not that it necessarily matters in this situation, but I, just trying to paint the picture, everybody was

• 6:52Annie Elise?

  very nice, very welcoming and very warm. So, then, let's talk about the jury a little bit too, because that was one of the main focuses that I had going into this week. I wanted to see the reactions on the jury's face. I wanted to see, were they paying attention closely? Were they taking notes? Were they reactionary? And I have to say, overall, as a group, they skewed much younger than I would have anticipated. Not super young, but if I had to guess, uh, I don't know, maybe 70% of them are under 40, maybe? And I think that what's interesting about that to me is, first of all, you hope that they are not looking at social media or talking to friends

• 7:37Annie Elise?

  or family, which, don't worry, we'll get to the whole individual juror questioning that happened this week too. But with a younger jury, you also are susceptible to more social media usage, or especially on TikTok, people who are scrolling their for you page, the possibility of a video on this case getting in their face. And again, hopefully, they turn it off, they don't look, or they aren't super active on their phones during the trial. That's the hope, of course, right? But I do find it interesting. I also think, we're in a day and age, not everyone, I don't want to say this as a blanket statement, but I do think a lot of the younger generations are more open-minded to the possibility of cover-up conspiracy and corruption. I don't,

• 8:19Annie Elise?

  again, I don't think that's necessarily a thing for every single person who is young, or under 40, I should say, but I do think that there are, there is more ability to have an open mind and critical thinking in that regard. So, I don't know if that means anything, we'll see, but- Out of all of the jurors, all but one was very carefully taking notes throughout the course of the trial. Their eyes were glued on everybody. They were watching, they were carefully watching. There were a few times where they started to tune out a little bit, but then there were others where they were like laser focused and I will get to the specifics on when those moments were. And yeah, it seemed like they were, you know, very, very focused

• 9:02Annie Elise?

  on the case and paying close attention. At one point too, we also did a quick little drive by, nothing to harass the new owners, or we didn't even get out of the car, but we did drive by 34 Fairview Road because I wanted to see in person what that distance was from the flagpole to Brian Albert's window. I know that in previous images, videos, drone shots, stills, it looked like a really big yard. And then we realized it wasn't that big of a yard. So I was like, I just kind of wanted to drive by and see in person, like, what is the real distance? And let me just tell you, it is not a big yard at all. It's even smaller than what I thought when I knew that it was small. So I took just a couple quick little photos and videos and I'll post them over on my Instagram so you can take

• 9:45Annie Elise?

  a look. But in my opinion, drunk or not, I don't know how somebody could be in that bedroom window, in that room above and not hear fire trucks, ambulances, sirens, screaming, despite wind howling and blizzard conditions. It is very close. It is very, very close. And so I also, given how flat the yard is, pitch black or not, I don't see how anyone who was leaving the house that night could not have seen John there. I truly don't. That's my opinion. Again, sometimes I get it. You're walking out of the house, you're just looking ahead. You're not like bird's eye viewing everything around you. But there was a video, I don't know if you've seen it or not, there was a video that somebody

• 10:28Annie Elise?

  took and posted on TikTok where it was, I don't know if it was the middle of the night, but it was dark out and they reversed out of the driveway and pulled off the same direction the majority of these partygoers went when they drove off that night, where it shows the headlights pointing directly at the flagpole, directly at where John's body was found. And at that point, there wasn't a lot of snow on the ground. Remember, they said that they could still even see grass. So I just do not understand truly how nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything. Whatever. It's beyond me. So let's get into the trial itself and a recap with all of that. So and Elena did an amazing recap this week. She was also, of course, in Boston.

• 11:11Annie Elise?

  She's been following this closely, but because I was there in person, I figured might as well just give you my take on it and walk you through it. So I might not be as eloquent as Elena is and well spoken, but hopefully I'm still getting you the gist and she'll be back, of course, next week and give you the breakdown. So first, let's talk about Karen's taillight because one of the big pieces of conversation at the end of last week was the taillight and the cup having three different DNA profiles, one of which being John, but they didn't know who the other DNA profiles belonged to. They didn't test anybody else to confirm or rule them out, but we know that there were multiple DNA profile samples. Now, as for the DNA on the exterior of the

• 11:54Annie Elise?

  taillight, I think that there could be a variety of reasons why John's was on there. Maybe he was brushing against it. Maybe he was holding on to it at one point, like when he got out of the car, like bracing his arm and leaning against the car. Maybe he was closing the trunk. There's multiple different ways that that could have been on the exterior of the taillight housing unit. I think that that's also indicative of the fact that there's two other DNA profiles, like obviously people's DNA is getting on that taillight, right? It doesn't mean that you had to have been hit. So I don't think that that necessarily was like this big revelation or this big, huge success in the prosecutor's case. Now, there's two big pieces, three actually,

• 12:37Annie Elise?

  that went down this week that I want to talk about. The timeline of the phone, the car and synchronizing those events, the head injury, and then also the glass that was found at the scene and on the bumper. So let's start with the timeline because that has been one of the biggest questions in all of this, right? When did Karen leave? When did John's phone activity stop? When did he walk and make those steps? What really happened here? What's lining up? And so Burgess was one of the main people from Aperture who was testifying to this, showing the timeline, showing the synchronization of the clocks and all of these things. Now,

• 13:18Annie Elise?

  I will say during the direct examination of him, it was a little tedious. I, it was a little bit not boring, but it was like, okay, like, let's move it along. And I get it. They were trying to identify him as an expert, which big eye roll, we're going to get to in a minute. But he was talking about the timelines, about software, about how you sync up the events, all of these different things. And one of the big pieces of events and biggest issues in this was that there was about a 21 to 29 second difference between the backup maneuver from Karen's car and John's phone last being used. So the argument, of course, being, okay, well, if the car event, the

• 14:02Annie Elise?

  last car event ended at X amount of time, and then 30 seconds later, John's phone was being manually locked or being used, or there was movement, like, clearly, she couldn't have hit him, right? But then that's when Burgess came in and he was talking about the timeline syncing up, saying how the clocks weren't in sync. And I guess the best way to describe that is, do you ever have like at home, like, I know my phone, for example, my phone clock isn't synced with the clock on my microwave at my house. It's off by a minute, maybe some seconds, but they never changed to the minute exactly. So that's basically what he was arguing. He's like, these clocks weren't in sync. So what we had to do to get them in sync was find similar events that they all went through

• 14:46Annie Elise?

  so that we can then mark up the timeline. So it was very tedious and the jury was losing focus at this point because while there were a lot of visuals up and being shown and graphs and charts and this and that, it was a lot of numbers being thrown, a lot of timestamps, timestamps being thrown out. And I could see where the jury was just kind of like, starting to lose, like, focus a little bit, starting to lose steam. But then they basically say, or Burgess, I should say, says, by synchronizing the clocks, we were able to determine that the events both lined up when the Karen's car event was at the same time when there was last phone activity on John's phone, which is pretty compelling, right? Because then that would all

• 15:28Annie Elise?

  Also align with the theory that he was hit, that both events start and stop at the same time. They even played, they even went and played supporting clips from the various different interviews that Karen gave, where she talked about the time in which they believed John was hit, the time in which she returned home to John's house, things like that, which really then support the timeline that Burgess and the prosecution presented. So then, when it was time for cross, and this is what had a ton of people talking, Alessi really started questioning his credibility. And not necessarily focusing on disputing the timeline and the data itself, which he did a little bit, but focusing more on Burgess's credibility.

• 16:10Annie Elise?

  He cited Aperture's bio on their website, his LinkedIn profile, his CV, all of these things, saying that Burgess represented himself as an expert in the field, having his bachelor's degree, having all of these credentials, all these certifications, but that when it really came down to it, he did not have his bachelor's degree. He had been pursuing it, but on multiple different CVs, LinkedIn, the Aperture website, all of these things, it showed just no even year of graduation on some of those documents, just the fact that he had a bachelor's degree. It didn't say that he was pursuing it, it didn't say a year in which he had obtained it necessarily, there were other documents where it did say that.

• 16:52Annie Elise?

  But by anybody who's just looking at these documents, it would look like this guy got his bachelor's, right? So Alessi goes in on him, saying, "Do you even really have your bachelor's?" Then he actually disputes the degree itself. That degree that he has listed doesn't even exist. A variation of it does, but not exactly as listed. So Burgess basically comes back and he's like, "No, I'm pursuing it. And if you look on any of my recent files, I say that it's, you know, that I'm currently pursuing." And then the million dollar question is, "Okay, well, how long have you been pursuing this degree then?" To which he says, "17 years."

• 17:30Annie Elise?

  Which no shame on anybody who's trying to go back to school and get a degree, but 17 years is a long time to still be claiming on a resume that you have a degree. It is a misrepresentation, like clear as day, that's what it is. And I will say, what's interesting on that is that nobody asked, and I was very curious to know this, I wonder if the jury was too, nobody asked, well, how many credits do you have? How many credits are you away from getting your degree? Because maybe if he says, okay, I have one course left and life got in the way. I haven't been able to get it done. So I'm, you know, five units away from graduating and from getting it. Okay. But if he's only like, I don't know, 12 units in or something like that,

• 18:13Annie Elise?

  I think that would be really interesting to know personally. And maybe they didn't bring it up for a very intentional reason, because maybe he is very close to graduating. I don't know. But I was curious about that, like, how far in are you? Where, where are you really? Because also, I don't know, I'm sure all schools are different, but credits expire, at least they did when I was in college. Like, I think it was like after five years, certain credits expire for certain courses. So, I don't know. Anyway, so Alessi's like definitely was like putting him in the hot seat, questioning his credibility, proving him as, you know, being an unreliable expert, unreliable witness. And that seems to have been a theme so far through this trial, right?

• 18:55Annie Elise?

  Just really trying to discredit all of these people as they come on the stand. But didn't really go super far into disputing the timeline and the synchronization events itself. He did say, you know, well, other experts have testified, things that don't align with the timeline you're presenting. We've seen data showing that the manual lock on John's phone happened after the car event, the last car event that was on file. So did question it a little bit, but definitely harped more on the credibility issue. And this is where I think it got a little bit sticky, at least for some of the things that I saw online later that day. Now, a lot of people were like, oh, my gosh, he's not credible.

• 19:40Annie Elise?

  He lied about his education. He's not a reliable witness. Like, it doesn't matter what he presented. He's, his timeline's off, his information's off. Also because his timeline, sorry, I'm like getting way ahead of myself. This is probably why I should have had Elena do this, because I'm just like spitting all this information. The timeline. Was disputed because it was 24 hours off. It was a full day off. The guy showed this timeline, showed these synchronization events, but it was a full 24 hours off. Now, that's a big deal, obviously. You're an expert. You should have had that right. You should at least know the day that John's body was found, right? It shouldn't be a full 24 hours ahead. So Alessi, when he was crossing him, not only got him on the education,

• 20:23Annie Elise?

  but also got him on this like massive error with the timeline and that it was actually showing as happening a full day later than when it really happened. However, that being said, back to what I was saying, he wasn't necessarily disputing the way that he came to the conclusion of synchronizing the events. So what I was seeing a lot after that day out there from, you know, not Karen Reed supporters necessarily, was that who cares if the timeline was off 24 hours? It matters that he was able to synchronize the clocks and show that John's last phone activity aligns with that car event.

• 21:07Annie Elise?

  It, who cares that he just typed in the wrong date? And that it was a day later, a full 24 hours? That was a typo. It wasn't like he got certain timestamps wrong by the minute or the second. It was a full, again, 24 hours. So people were saying, it, that doesn't matter. It's a typo. You're missing the point. He synchronized the data. He showed that these timelines really do sync up and that John could have been hit. Meanwhile, Alessi's focusing on his education on the typo or which, and I'm just saying typo, it's not bad. He put it on every slide, but you get what I mean. Like entering the wrong day. And so there was a lot of division. Some people felt like this was great because it disproved him as a witness. It showed that he had credibility issues, that he lied about his education, that he tried to misrepresent himself.

• 21:51Annie Elise?

  And like now because of that, nothing can be believed of what he said. But then a lot of other people are like, I'm not gonna get lost by all of the smoke and mirrors. I'm looking at the data. I don't care that he accidentally typed the wrong date or was confused on that or entered something in wrong. I'm looking at the data that he synced up from the clocks. And that is more compelling to me than him not putting in pursuant on his resume or him accidentally putting 24 hours.

• 22:22Annie Elise?

  So then I started thinking, I was like, let me put another poll out there and let me see what people are thinking in the public because I've been putting polls out every day of this trial, trying to gauge where the public's at. And the poll has three buckets, right? If you've been in the live stream, you know. One, Karen Reed is guilty. Two, Karen Reed is innocent or being framed. And three, I don't know, but there is too much doubt to convict. So for the last several weeks, guilty has been hovering between four to 6%. At one point, it went down to 2%, then it teetered back up to 4%. But let's just call it that. Around 5% is the average of guilty. The balance is split between innocent and framed and the too much reasonable doubt to convict bucket.

• 23:06Annie Elise?

  Then I put up a new poll and it was after this timeline was introduced, after Burgess testified. And I gave some context on there and you can go see the poll. It's on my community tab right now on YouTube. But I put this back up and let's see where it's actually at today because I looked at it last night. But I put a little context and I actually, you know what, let me just read to you what I wrote with the poll as well because I think that I want, you know, it gives a little bit of clarity. All right, we're going to take a quick break because we need to talk about something that is the least fun, but the most important thing that you will probably ever do, and that is protecting the people you love. Life insurance is really about peace of mind, knowing people are set up for whatever situation, no matter what.

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• 24:32Annie Elise?

  So I wrote, although the expert witness lied about his education and mislabeled parts of his timeline, it seems like a lot of people are still really compelled by the data that he presented. So I'm curious, is your opinion shifting at all based on this new timeline? Or does the fact that his education was discredited make you question everything that he said? Maybe you still view him as a reliable witness regardless of the background noise? I don't know. Let me know where you sit. As always, all polls here are anonymous. I said, I still believe that there is too much reasonable doubt to convict at this point. But that said, I do think that those of us who have followed this case very closely have a much broader view than the jury does right now, which I'll talk about later.

• 25:14Annie Elise?

  So this currently sits. I think Karen Reed is guilty is at 9%. I think she is innocent and being framed is at 38%. And I think too much reasonable doubt to convict is at 53%. So 9, 38, and 53. And so far, there have been 31,000 votes on this poll. So clearly, this is the highest we have seen the guilty percentage over the last few weeks. So despite him misrepresenting himself, the information that was presented does appear to be compelling to people. It makes people... There is clearly a sway. It was hovering

• 25:54Annie Elise?

  around 4% to 5% before, and now it's at 9%. So I do think that that's really interesting. And we do know that Alessi and the defense has been leaning heavily on discrediting multiple people, multiple witnesses who have testified. And I also think it's interesting because at one point Alessi brought up a case that Burgess was on back in, what was it, 2023? I think it was 2023, maybe 2024. And it was a federal case in which his resume... Was right there again, had been entered in, but this time it did have a graduation date of 2024, which we know he clearly doesn't have a degree. So he brought that up just again,

• 26:35Annie Elise?

  once again illustrating the credibility issue. But then it made me wonder, what does this mean for any cases that he has been an expert on? Because I'd have to know more about each individual case, but I would think at first glance, like if that was me, if that was my case, and if I know that this guy is now getting ripped apart for credibility, I would go back and throw that case out, or I would try to put it into question if it didn't end in my favor. So like, what does it mean for any cases he's touched? Will people use this to put other cases he's been involved in into question? I don't know. So then that was kind of like the big burgess of it all, the timeline. It was a great cross-examination. Alessi did a fantastic job. And but I think there were some mixed opinions out there about the root

• 27:19Annie Elise?

  of what this testimony was. How valuable was it truly? Was it valuable enough? Or not so because he lied about his education and because he got that timeline wrong by 24 hours. So then next, we go into the next day, and it started by Judge Bev Canoni, I'm trying to just like, make sure I'm saying things properly. She basically started the entire day with a sidebar, saying she wanted to talk with the both attorneys, and then she said that she needed to speak with each juror one by one. So the entire courtroom was dismissed. We were all waiting on the first floor, took a little over an hour. People were speculating, like, what does this mean? Will this be a mistrial? Will somebody be dismissed? Will an alternate be put in place? And at the end of the day, there were no jurors that

• 28:04Annie Elise?

  were dismissed. There were some rumblings of people getting swapped, two jurors actually swapping seats when everybody returned in court. I had been paying very close attention, I thought, to where all the jurors were seated. But and I didn't notice anybody personally switch. And I didn't see any shuffle of the notebooks that were on their seats, but that could have happened before we re-entered the courtroom. But other people Who have been following the case has said that there were two jurors who switched spots. I didn't personally notice that, but then again, maybe I missed it because I had only been there for a couple of days and these other people had been there much longer. So I trust them more than I trust myself at that point. But the point in all of that is, nobody was dismissed.

• 28:48Annie Elise?

  And it seems like the biggest issue that happened and why she wanted to speak with all of the jurors, one by one, was due to communication, possible communication between two jurors about the case, which they're not allowed to communicate with one another until they go into deliberations, possibly social media, possibly talking to somebody else, something around that. But ultimately, all the jurors are still there. So then the neurosurgeon came on and I gotta say, a lot of people did not like this guy. They thought that he came off as very like egotistical, narcissistic, kind of like boasting on his own credentials and how amazing he is because he's done so many brain surgeries. I really liked him. I thought he was smart. I thought he was very to the point. I thought

• 29:29Annie Elise?

  he was kind of like a no BS kind of guy and I enjoyed his testimony. Now, maybe that's because I personally have had brain surgery, so I was just very fascinated and very glued to what he was saying, but I thought it was very interesting. There was one point where the jurors don't wear a lot of emotion on their face because they're obviously not supposed to, but there was one point when the prosecutor was trying to basically say, "You're not here as an expert for money, right? You're a very successful neurosurgeon. You don't need to be here for money." Basically trying to say like, "There's no reason you would lie or try to be here. You know, you don't have other motives." So he asked the question, like, "How much of your salary and your income is from testifying

• 30:11Annie Elise?

  as an expert?" And right when he asked that question, I happened to be looking at the jury and one of the jurors kind of made like a "ugh," like a yikes face, almost like a wince, not even like a yikes, maybe kind of like a, "Why the hell would you ask that? Like, what the fuck does that even matter?" But it was a big facial expression and that caught my attention, but ultimately, he ended up saying like, "Less than 1%." So anyway, during this part of the testimony, They, he was sharing all about the injury to the back of John's head. What caused that laceration? In his opinion, from all of the multiple brain surgeries that he has done over 35 years, what was the cause of that? How, how that caused the raccoon eyes, which are the two black eyes that John had?

• 30:54Annie Elise?

  And we saw some photos. Now during this point, when the photos were brought on screen, John's mother and some other family members excused themselves from the courtroom, which I completely understand. It's not that these photos are overly graphic, but of course, nobody would want to see a loved one or even another person in this state. They, they were difficult to see. So in, he says that in his opinion, the laceration on the back of John's head could only have been caused by a linear fall on the back of his head, hitting something flat, hitting something, you know, on the ground, just a flat surface falling backward on his head. And that because of the movement and the forward momentum of the brain, when you hit

• 31:38Annie Elise?

  the back of your head, that that going forward, mixed with like the membranes and the blood vessels and all those things, that's what would then cause the black eyes to form. And that that can happen pretty quickly. Which we, there's been several other, not even cases, but just injuries out there where we've seen that a head injury certainly does cause black eyes. It doesn't necessarily need to be you being punched in the eyes or your nose or anything like that. So he also stated that in his opinion, this laceration on the back of John's head was not caused by a weapon, a sharp tool, or any sort of object. And the reason for that is because there was no sort of depression in his head, that that's why he believes it was on a flat surface.

• 32:23Annie Elise?

  And that to me, just again, personally from my own experience, makes a lot of sense. Accident was much, much different, but I had brain surgery, as I just mentioned, and I have depressions all over my head. If I had to shave my head, it would probably look like, I don't even know, like a four, like a mountain range or something. You could probably even see them when I film, like, I'm not wearing makeup today, but you can see sometimes when I film, like, the different shadowing all here by my hairline, too, because it literally is, like, rivets all the way along my hairline. So, he said that there was no sort of depressions. But what I did think was very interesting is, as he was explaining this fall on the back of his head, he said something like, "Yeah, it could be from falling backwards, possibly being pushed, being drunk." And immediately, my

• 33:08Annie Elise?

  mind went, and I was like, "Do we know what John's blood alcohol level was that night? We obviously know he was drinking, but I know we haven't been hyper-focused on that, but I am just curious. How drunk was he? We know he brought the cocktail with him, and outside of the car, apparently, when he was gonna be, when he was gonna go into 34 Fairview. Is it possible? Okay? And I'm just, this, I, you could rip me apart right now, because maybe there's things I'm not taking into consideration, just at first glance, but could it also be possible that he got out of the car, he was planning to walk into the house that night to check on everything, to like, you know, see if it was okay that they come in, and he, maybe he wanted to, like, pee near the tree? Maybe he was putting the glass down, maybe he was doing something. Could he have been so drunk

• 33:53Annie Elise?

  that he fell backwards and hit his head and incapacitated himself? Now, that, of course, does not explain the injuries to his eye, to his arm, the clothing having little tears, his shoe falling off. So, I can't explain that, obviously, but I did think it was question, I did think it was interesting that when he said, like, "Sometimes from falling and being drunk," I was just like, "Why haven't we focused on that at all more?" Not as necessarily that this was an accident that happened on his own accord, but like, as even being some sort of element involved in all this, tripping, falling, tripping on the curb, one shoe coming off, falling backwards. I don't even know. I don't know, just thinking out loud. But anyway. So, he said that that's what caused the raccoon

• 34:36Annie Elise?

  eyes, and that it was from, again, the velocity and the momentum of the brain going forward, and what happens with the blood and the membranes and all this science stuff that is way above my pay grade. But then on cross, and this his testimony, he was pretty quick, short and sweet. But on cross, Alessi brought up the cut above John's right eye. Basically just saying, okay, so from any fall backward, that wouldn't cause this cut near his eyebrow, would it? No. Okay, perfect. That's just what I wanted to know because that then shows there's this big cut, this big laceration above his eye where he has those two raccoon eyes, the black eyes. Where did that come from? If it was a clean fall on the back of his head, where did that come from?

• 35:21Annie Elise?

  And trying to like, trying to infer like, okay, well then how did he get that? Where, where's that from? And it was just really interesting too, I think, because at one point when they were talking about the laceration on his head and his eyes, and then we obviously know he has all of the lacerations on his arm. It was just trying to bring up that there are other variables that have not quite yet been not, not explored, but even explained necessarily enough to cast doubt enough to wonder, well, how did he get this injury to his eye? He just fell straight back on his head, right? Another thing that was brought up on cross was he was asked basically like, okay, you are a brain surgeon, you're a neurologist, but you don't have, you've never seen dead brains.

• 36:06Annie Elise?

  You haven't seen people, you don't do autopsies. To which he kind of, I think that might've hit his ego a little bit and he was a little bit combative in my opinion, because he was like, no, but I've seen more brains than a forensic pathologist. But he's like, and then Alessi pushed back and was like, yeah, but you've seen active, alive human brains, to which then he responded, yes. Again, trying to just put that little seed of doubt in the jury's mind, in my opinion of, he's not, he's not used to seeing autopsies. He's not used to seeing brains that are no longer active and alive. He, it, you know, not saying his credibility is in question, certainly not, but just again, is he the expert to weigh in on this specific situation? Maybe, maybe not.

• 36:51Annie Elise?

  So then the next big bucket was the glass. The glass that was found at 34 Fairview, the drinking cup, the glass on the bumper. And this is where things started getting very interesting again. Because during this testimony, we had heard about the dirt and the debris that was found inside John's clothing, like as they picked it apart, under a microscoped soup, under, can't talk, under a microscope, super small fragments, dirt, debris, and tiny, tiny red plastic fragments, which she testified were either the size of a grain of rice or even smaller. And she said that that red plastic, after being tested, was consistent with taillight,

• 37:34Annie Elise?

  but it was not confirmed to be that taillight, just that it had the same makeup of the same type of components of the taillight housing unit. So then we went through all of the glass that was found on the bumper. We were all, we also went through the cocktail cup, which I'm going to just say cup, so that you know what glass I'm referring to. So we went through the shards of glass that were found on the bumper, the cocktail cup, and the glass that was found in the yard and in the roadway. And at first, all of this, I have to say, it sounded very compelling. At times boring, yes, because she was just talking about how you see different wavelengths in glass and the, how you match it and how you might make it a physical match and a this match. And I could see when I was looking at the jury, they were losing focus.

• 38:19Annie Elise?

  They were like, okay, get to the point, like, we get it. But I think they were just, again, trying to identify her as an expert, really hone in on that. And it did seem compelling at first, because at surface level, you're hearing, okay, when we got his clothing, we collected dirt, debris, and pieces of what appears to be red taillight fragments. How did that get inside his clothing if he wasn't hit with that taillight, right? Even though it wasn't an exact match, like, what else would it be a match to? Like, it was compelling. Then when you hear, Yeah, I tested the drinking cup glass and I put all of these pieces that were found in the yard back together to make this glass not whole, but if it was starting at, if it

• 39:01Annie Elise?

  was a broken cup that was starting at, say, 25% of the cup, putting the matching pieces back like a jigsaw puzzle to where it's now back at like 80% of the cup. So then you hear that, you hear the different things that did match from the roadway and the drinking cup, the glass that was found on the bumper, all of these things to where if you're not paying super close attention, or if you don't follow all the nitty gritty details or ask the questions, it could seem like, okay, John had taillight in his clothing, there was a broken drinking glass, clearly it got broken when he was backed into or hit or whatever, that glass was then recovered, they put it back together with the piece

• 39:42Annie Elise?

  from the cup, there was also glass on the bumper, that makes sense and that tracks with being reversed into and being hit with the taillight. But then, here's where the questioning comes into play. And this was done so, so well, in my opinion, because Ellen Jackson then comes in for cross. And when I tell you, his cross was short, sweet, and to the point, but also, it was captivating. Before, when everything was going on with the direct examination of this witness, I told you, the jury was starting to lose focus. They weren't really like taking notes, they were kind of looking down, they were like, uh, kind of tracking with their eyes, but like, not sitting up straight in their seats, not really focusing intently.

• 40:25Annie Elise?

  When Jackson came up, they were glued. I'm talking every single eye, I was watching and it was almost like comical, but like in a good way because they were paying such close attention, all of them, as he was walking back and forth from the podium to the witness stand, their eyes were just tracking him. Every single one of them, every movement that he made, just listening so carefully. All right, this one might feel a little wild at first, but organ meats are some of the most nutrient-dense foods out there. I know, I know, I know, wild, right? But let's be honest, nobody is cooking liver for like everyday meals. I totally get it. However, Primal Queen takes that whole idea and it makes it actually doable.

• 41:08Annie Elise?

  It's made specifically for women and it packs grass-fed beef organs, liver, uterus, and ovaries into two easy capsules a day. And you get the B12, iron, zinc, and vitamin A that supports everyday wellness, but without the cooking. Plus, it's gluten-free, non-GMO, and third-party tested. So it's ancient nutrition that is made simple for modern women. And look, when I first heard about this, I was kind of like, what on earth are you even talking about? But then, like when I was like, eating organ meat, like, are you, do you know who I am? Like, are you out of your mind? Like, no, not for me. But when I started looking into it and the benefits from it, and, hi, you don't have to actually eat it here, you know, you just take the capsules, I was like, this is going to be a game changer for me.

• 41:52Annie Elise?

  And I'm going to do it because I realize how great these ingredients are. Now, for a limited time only, you can shop their biggest sale of the year. Just visit primalqueen.com. That's primalqueen.com and you will get their huge holiday sale. Then, after you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support the show, let them know I sent you. Go get it, check it out. I promise you, it's all the rage right now. And he was short, he was direct, and he was to the point and cast, in my opinion, some good doubt. Because his main focus was that none of the glass that had been recovered from the bumper matched the drinking cup. None of it.

• 42:32Annie Elise?

  It also didn't match any of the other two glass collection events from 34 Fairview Road, with the exception of one, and I will get to that in a second. Yet, the pieces that were later recovered from Bukenek and from Proctor at 34 Fairview Road, they start going through all of that, and the pieces from Bukenek did match the drinking cup. But then, nothing on the bumper matched the drinking cup, or the pieces recovered from Bukenek. So it begs the question, then where did that bumper glass come from? If it didn't match the drinking cup, what glass was it? Was it a different object? Was it staged? And let me just kind of, well, also, before I get there...

• 43:18Annie Elise?

  Another question with all that that has been talked about, I know between all of us, but not yet necessarily like in a big way in court is how did those shards of glass stay on that bumper? How did they stay on that bumper with the car being transported up and down on the lift into the Sallyport? All of these things like, how did all these small pieces of glass stay on that bumper? Especially on a blizzard day? Now, my mind was like, okay, well, if they were on the bumper and then it dumped snow, maybe the snow trapped the pieces of glasses on the bumper and then once the snow started melting away, once they started leaf blowing it or whatever the hell they did, like, maybe that's when they recovered. To me, you could explain why they were still intact on the bumper, but you can't explain

• 44:03Annie Elise?

  where they came from. If, if these clear pieces of glass, glass, not plastic, glass, don't match the drinking cup glass, then where the hell are they from? What do they match? Another thing that Alan asked was, when you were going through all these pieces of glass, did any of these pieces have any blood on them? Did any of them have tissue, biological material, any of that? To which she said, "That's not really my area of focus or like my expertise, but no, I didn't notice any of that." Which, if the glass had shattered and then was responsible for cutting his arm or even that laceration above his eyebrow or whatever it was, why wouldn't there be any blood?

• 44:47Annie Elise?

  Why wouldn't there be any biolog- biological material? Why wouldn't there be any tissue? Why would it just be clean? Clean glass, right? So then, Alan Jackson points out the name that the prosecution hates to see coming. He brings up Proctor. And he says how the only piece of glass that was found on the bumper that matches anything, which doesn't again, match the drinking cup, but matches anything and happens to match a piece of glass that was recovered by Proctor at 34 Fairview. Meaning, that piece of bumper glass only matched other glass that was recovered by Proctor. Didn't match the cup, didn't match the glass that was recovered by Buchanan, didn't match any of it.

• 45:32Annie Elise?

  And they, he put a chart on screen and it's easy to get confused with like all these different collections and numbers and all this. So let me just break it down as like a hypothetical for you, okay? Think of it this way. And I'm not saying this is what happened, but I'm just saying for argument's sake, for the reasonable doubt that's coming in, if Proctor took a wine glass and shattered it, smashed it on the bumper to make it appear that it was broken pieces of John's cocktail cup, the short little cocktail cup, like, I'm gonna throw this, like, I'm gonna smash this here, smash this glass on the bumper so it looks like it's John's cocktail cup, I'm gonna take a few of those pieces too, and I'm gonna scatter them at 34 Fairview Road, so that there's glass at the scene, there's glass on the bumper, great, you know,

• 46:16Annie Elise?

  this is gonna be compelling, not expecting the glass to necessarily be tested. So he scatters some pieces of the broken wine glass on the bumper and then at 34 Fairview, so again, that it looks like that broken cocktail cup, not expecting it to be tested. But then, once those pieces of glass are tested, it does not match the short cocktail cup. In fact, the pieces that are tested from that bumper only match the other pieces that was recovered or possibly scattered by Proctor in the yard. That's the only way that those pieces of glass link. So again, in my opinion, when Alan Jackson was presenting this, very

• 46:57Annie Elise?

  carefully, very well crafted, it was once again trying to make the jury question if something had been tampered with, if Proctor had staged something, if he had tampered with something. We already know, they've been introduced to the fact that he was the lead investigator and is no longer employed by the Massachusetts State Police, so it's creating that seed of doubt. And again, if it doesn't match any other glass, why would that be? What is this third-party glass? Where did it come from? What is it? There weren't any windows that were shattered, there weren't multiple glasses, there was only one, there weren't reading glasses that had lenses. Where did this glass come from?

• 47:41Annie Elise?

  Where does it belong? And how did it get on the bumper? And also, coincidentally, at 34 Fairview? How does that make sense? How does that track, right? So I talked about it a little bit earlier, where I put in my poll, like, is the jury's view being skewed? What's going on? What are people thinking? And it definitely looks like more people are voting guilty, although still only 9%. But my question with that too is...

• 48:11Annie Elise?

  Is it because they don't have the full, or let me see, how do I want to say this where I'm not going to like lose you? Because I'm, I know I'm going off on the rails a little bit during this episode. I haven't slept much this week, guys. Okay? I couldn't quite get on East Coast time, so I couldn't fall asleep until like 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. Then I was up at 5:00 to get ready for court. So just roll with me. Okay? But everyone who's voting on these polls, okay? Although it, we are seeing an uptick with guilty going up to 9%. Everybody who's voting, primarily, I would say, it's, it's a safe argument that it's people who have been following this case closely, who watched the first trial, who are watching the live chats, engaging with other commenters,

• 48:56Annie Elise?

  who have heard other theories, heard other information that has not yet been brought into the second trial, have heard all about Colin Albert, about his past, about Brian Albert, about shady things with his past, about connections with Judge Beverly Canoni, all of these things and all of these other variables that people who are very invested in the case know about, that's who's voting. The jury, they only know what has been introduced this second trial, not even the first trial. So, and we know that the witness list for the state has been very abbreviated, right? Intently so, because they don't want to call Proctor, obviously. They don't want to call Higgins. Like, they're trying not to screw up their case.

• 49:40Annie Elise?

  Now, if the defense calls them, we'll see. I have my own opinions and theories on that, which I'm not, I can't share. But they're only getting a certain view. They don't have the full broad scope that all of us have that we've been voting on these polls. So even if, my point in saying that is even if guilty is now starting to get an uptick, is that a true representation? Could the guilty percentage really be more for people who don't know all of those outside variables? So I was thinking through that while I was in the trial this week. I'm like, there's a lot of reasonable doubt, but a lot of the things that are in my mind, entering my mind as a reasonable doubt and components and variables of that

• 50:24Annie Elise?

  are things that haven't even been talked about in this trial. So it's not really a fair assumption or indication of what the jury could be thinking right now. Now, you have to hope that they're paying close attention to the, if you're, you know, hoping for a not guilty verdict or an acquittal, you'd have to hope that they're paying very close attention to the witnesses being discredited, the seeds of reasonable doubt being planted, and things like that. But then, if they are just tuning in to the big, high-level moments, the synchronization of the timelines, the data, hearing that glass, all of this glass was found, and that taillight fragments seem to have been found in John's clothing, if

• 51:09Annie Elise?

  that's all they're paying attention to, is the other credibility issues enough to sway their decision, or to sway their thought process? And granted, the defense hasn't put on their case yet. I believe that the state is going to rest probably on Tuesday. I know they have about, I think it's one more witness to go. I think they'll probably rest on Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, and then the defense is going to present their case. Now, they've already said they are going to present a much more robust case than they did the first time around. They're going to call more witnesses. They're, they have Arca coming in, who's going to be sharing their theories. They're going to talk about the dog bites. They're going to talk about Michael Proctor. They're going to talk about Brian Albert. They're going to talk about all of these people. Whether they call them,

• 51:49Annie Elise?

  or have somebody else by proxy testify and get that information in, we'll see. I could see why the strategy would not, would be to not call Michael Proctor, because you're in a really good position right now on the defense, to where it's like, the jury knows that he's been fired, the jury knows he was the lead investigator, they're questioning why. If you bring him in, is there any opportunity in which he can explain it away, or make excuses, or elicit sympathy from the jury? If there's even a question of that, or a possibility, don't bring him in. 100%. You want to just keep with this narrative. We already saw they had Buchanan read all of Higgins' text messages. I think that was done for a reason.

• 52:30Annie Elise?

  Why wouldn't you have Higgins just recite those verbatim, unless you're trying to not bring him in for a reason, because you don't want it to ruin what you think you've already planted with the jury, right? So again, we don't know what the defense is going to use to present their case, aside from Arca, and what we've already talked about, but they have said that it'll be more robust, and they have said that it'll be compelling. So, even if the jury is somewhere right now where they're split, or they're leaning one way, that could all completely change come next week. So...

• 53:03Annie Elise?

  I know I'm going off the rails again, I apologize, but I am curious to know where you're at with this. Do you, did your mind change at all with the timelines that were presented this week with any of the glass information with the neurologist who said that that laceration definitely felt caught was caused by a fall backwards? I've seen other people be like, well, yeah, but that ball could have happened in the basement. It could have happened. He could have hit his head on a stair going down to the basement. All sorts of different things. So I don't know. I still, like I said at the top of this recap, I believe there's too much reasonable doubt at this point to convict, but I am keeping an open mind. Maybe in a week, maybe in two weeks, maybe in three weeks, maybe I'll say, I think she's fully framed. I think this was a full-on conspiracy. I think that it's corruption.

• 53:48Annie Elise?

  I think she's being framed and that somebody else killed him. But I also might say, no, given all of this, I actually think now that more than likely she probably did hit him. I like, I don't know where I'm at. I'm keeping an open mind, but right now, what I know is, I don't know what the heck happened that night. I don't know what happened to John, but I don't think that there is enough evidence, concrete evidence to convict Karen of this, of manslaughter or of murder. So that's where I'm at. So that's where we're at for the Karen Reed recap. We're picking up next week. Court is off through. It'll resume back on Tuesday and then I believe the prosecution will be resting very quickly and then the defense will, you know, put on their case. So we'll be following that all next week again, still doing the live streams and still doing the Friday recaps. But today I want

• 54:32Annie Elise?

  to jump in to the Diddy updates from just the tail end of this week so that you can get fully caught up with that because there was a lot going on. So let me pull that up because we talked about, let me think, let me go back. I have all my notes here because all these different like documents going with all my notes from all these cases. So we are going to talk through, yes, okay, here. The eighth day of trial began with Special Agent Gerard Gannon back on the stand under direct examination by the prosecution and his testimony continued touching on things that were found during that March 2024 raid of Diddy's Miami Beach home. And some of the examples-

• 55:12Annie Elise?

  Things that he testified to were being found were 18 pair of platform high heels, which I would imagine are like stripper heels, three cell phones inside a Balenciaga boot in one of the closets, a Gucci bag that was described as an assortment of pills, white powder, and crystal rock-like substance. I don't know what that could be. Crystal meth, maybe. I don't know much about drugs, other than like, I know weed, I know cocaine, I know, I think I know what heroin looks like. I don't know. So I'm guessing the crystal rock substance could be meth, who knows? But something I found to be really interesting about these specific details was that he testified that some of the pills were stamped

• 55:52Annie Elise?

  with a Tesla label on them. Now, I don't know that that means anything. I'm not, you know, I'm not huge into conspiracies. I've seen some conspiracies out there about this, but I did think it's interesting that they were stamped with a Tesla label. And just for those of you who aren't like in the drug world, not that I am in the drug world, a lot of dealers usually will brand their assortment with something, whether it's a star, a sticker, a this, a that, so that like when you're on the street and you're getting street drugs and you know whose is whose, like it's easy to identify. So maybe this means nothing, maybe it's just a dealer or a manufacturer stamp, but whatever. So also inside of the Gucci bag was a plastic straw. That was tested and it came back positive

• 56:36Annie Elise?

  for both ketamine and MDMA. Then next on the stand was a woman named Dawn Hughes. She's a board-certified clinical and forensic psychologist. And interestingly enough, this isn't Dawn's first rodeo when it comes to big-name celebrity trials, because she also testified during the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial back in 2022. So her testimony focused on a clinical standpoint, and she touched on the mentality of victims of abuse, stating how they often do stay in abusive relationships, which I think we all know, but I think it was a really good thing to point out to the jury, saying that it's not easy to leave. Sometimes it's easier to stay and just try to become as resilient as you

• 57:18Annie Elise?

  can possibly be and just endure it because the threat of leaving is too dangerous. She also touched on specific things that make leaving in a partner like that more difficult. Basically, again, why it's unfair to tell somebody to just leave. And a few of the examples that she cited were trauma bonds, financial dependency, lack of overall resources, and victims developing coping mechanisms. Now, another thing that I noticed that was really helpful to back up Cassie and even her mom's testimony was that Dawn testified that it's not at all uncommon for victims to keep their abuse private from friends and family, for weeks, even years. And if you recall, her mom Regina testified that even though she had suspicions that

• 58:00Annie Elise?

  Cassie hadn't actually been telling her the truth about what was going on behind closed doors with Diddy, not until, you know, December 2011, years after they had started dating, she felt like something was going on. So that being said, there was a lot of conversation surrounding whether or not Dawn came into this trial bias. She confirmed that she had not done any research into the case, she hadn't researched any detail surrounding it, and she also confirmed that she hadn't heard any of the testimonies prior to her own. The only thing she said that she knew about this case was hearing that there was somebody involved named Cassie. So there was some back and forth on whether or not Diddy's defense team could ask Dawn about a webinar that she had hosted back in 2015, which, this webinar was for Training

• 58:43Annie Elise?

  the Battered Women Advocates, and there was apparently a section in this presentation on how to prepare for court testimony. So my best guess was that they maybe wanted to show this to try and raise doubt about her testimony and paint her as a biased witness or having some sort of confirmation bias, I'm not sure. But the judge ended up ruling that the defense could ask her about it. They were also able to get confirmation from Dawn that she had never testified in the defense of a man accused of a sex crime, which her exact quote was, "I don't evaluate offenders." So I don't know if this could have caused bias, no matter, you know, if she would have supported Diddy or not, like, I don't really know. Now, on top of that, the defense team specifically asked her about six meetings

• 59:26Annie Elise?

  that she apparently had with the prosecution, some even being since the trial has started. She defended herself, though, and her testimony, saying that the prosecution was not leading her, that this was all hers. So next to the stand was George Kaplan, the former executive assistant to Diddy, and he was called to the stand by the prosecution. He also had received a subpoena that required him to be in court testifying. However, he evoked his Fifth Amendment rights, basically saying, you know, that it would all be self-incriminating, that he wasn't going to do that, and the judge had indicated that he was going to sign an immunity order, so he wouldn't be self-incriminating, he would be fine, and now here we are.

• 1:00:06Annie Elise?

  So, similarly to David James, he was asked about his typical work duties and his work week while he was working with Diddy. He testified that he worked 80 to 100 hours a week, and that he made a little, not a little over, but he made exactly $125,000. Now, I'm assuming he made that per week, because he was asked how many hours a week, and then what he earned. So that's the number he was given. I can't imagine that that's what he earned in a year for working under somebody as big as Diddy, who has that many secrets and that many hours. I would think "week," but I don't know, it wasn't clarified. So then he went on to describe the job, and he described it pretty harshly.

• 1:00:49Annie Elise?

  Said Diddy threatened his job almost monthly, and he even told a specific story about Diddy assigning him to get one of these, like, gallon BPA-free water bottles from Whole Foods. George said they didn't have the one gallon, so because of that, he ended up getting two half gallons. But that choice, which you would think would be problem-solving and strategic, it instead just enraged Diddy. And he testified that Diddy got all up in his face, just was super angry, pissed off, yelling at him, saying, "You didn't follow my instructions, you didn't follow my rules, his commands," things like that. He also testified that he would accompany Diddy on his trips and that he was in charge of making sure that his different hotel rooms were all quote "set up properly."

• 1:01:31Annie Elise?

  He recalled that the first time he was ever given this task, he was handed a bag and he was told to unpack it. Inside the bag was clothing, a speaker, candles, liquor, you guessed it, baby oil, and lube, Astroglide. Now, as if that wasn't damning enough, he also testified that his most important role was to protect Diddy's image. Now, this specifically related to the hotel rooms where Diddy would host all of his freak-offs, never using his actual name, always using his fake name Frank Black. So, his understanding of the events taking place was that Diddy would simply have guests or different female partners accompany him in his room. Which, I guess, kind of does, yeah, hit the nail on the head. He was having

• 1:02:15Annie Elise?

  different partners and different women accompanying him in these rooms, but then, he said after Diddy was done with all of this stuff and done with his room, it was his responsibility to clean it all up. And typical things that were found in the room when he was cleaning up were Gatorade bottles, liquor bottles, baby oil, and one time he found brown crystallized powder. He said he found that on the countertop and that he cleaned it up just to be sure, not really knowing what it even was, which I would imagine it's some sort of drug, right? What drug? I don't know, but if it's brown and crystallized, I would imagine somebody smoked it. I don't know, maybe it didn't all evaporate? I don't really know. He also testified that he had picked up drugs on Diddy's behalf on at least

• 1:02:56Annie Elise?

  two occasions, once in Miami and once in LA. Diddy gave him cash and a phone number to call and then the deal was set, the rest was history. He claimed that at least one drug run was to get MDMA, and the other one, he still doesn't know what drugs that he was collecting to this day. So then, that day of trial wrapped with George on the stand and his testimony was set to continue the following day, which according to CNN, they said that the prosecution will call five witnesses forward after George is finished with his testimony. One of them, of course, being Kid Cudi, which we know now has taken the stand, and we're gonna get into that. So trial continues on Thursday and the first person on the stand was George Kaplan

• 1:03:39Annie Elise?

  again. He was continuing his testimony from the previous day. He testified that he had only seen Diddy get violent with Cassie once. It was back in 2015 on Diddy's private jet. He said it all happened very, very fast, that he had his back turned to them, but that he heard some commotion and then he heard the sound of breaking glass. When he looked back, he saw Diddy standing over Cassie, who was horizontal on her back and her legs were in the air, almost like she was trying to create space between them, like keep her legs up so that her feet could like push Diddy away. He testified that he looked away, knowing that this was something that he wasn't supposed to be witnessing, and then he said a few minutes later, he heard Cassie yell, "Isn't anybody seeing this?" Kind of like, "Why didn't anybody stand up for her?

• 1:04:23Annie Elise?

  Why didn't anybody intervene? Why didn't somebody come and protect her?" And he said, you know, he had kind of just like turned a blind eye, knowing he shouldn't have seen it, shouldn't have commented on it, so just basically ignored it, like a fucking coward, but I get it, you, he was probably scared too in that moment. But then Cassie started yelling like, "Isn't anybody seeing what's going on here? Why is nobody helping?" So he did testify that he had seen Cassie with injuries before and that he did know that they likely had come from Diddy. Diddy apparently had called him up to the master bedroom and then instructed him to go pick up some over the counter products from like a CVS or a Walgreens type place, things like witch hazel and stuff like that. And so, he testified that he knew almost immediately that it was to make some sort

• 1:05:07Annie Elise?

  of anti-swelling agent. So in order for him to walk over to Diddy, when he was getting these instructions, he had to pass Cassie. She was on the bed, crying with her face inside her palms. Despite most of her face being covered though, he says he was able to see bruises all over her face, but he never talked to her and he never checked on her. Now interestingly enough, he claimed that his reasoning for quitting his job in December of 2015 was because of a few of the things that he had seen. His exact quote was, "The central reason that I left my job as Mr. Combs' assistant was that I was not comfortable or aligned with the physical behavior that had been going on, that I had seen pieces of over the course of a couple of months."

• 1:05:50Annie Elise?

  Yet, he had told Diddy that the reason he was quitting was due to his dad getting sick. So he again made it clear that he didn't want to be there testifying that day, and he said that he had no issues with Diddy and that he just desperately did not want to testify. Again, there seems to be this like fear in everybody, saying, "The only reason I'm here is because I've been subpoenaed. I don't want to be here. I don't want to talk about it." Almost trying to like, in my opinion, vocalize that so that Diddy hears them saying how they don't want to be a part of it, so that there's no retaliation. That's my opinion. I could be way wrong, but it just, I don't know, it seems like there's fear. So next up, and the person everybody was waiting for, was Kid Cudi.

• 1:06:31Annie Elise?

  He testified that when he and Cassie first started dating in 2011, he knew that she and Diddy had problems, but as far as he knew, they were dating, like there wasn't going to be any sort of like big commotion. But then one night, Cassie called him at around 6:00 a.m. and she was explaining that Diddy had found out that they were dating. And when she said this, she apparently sounded terrified, and she asked him to come pick her up and even explained to him that Diddy was abusive and physically had hurt her, that's why she was so scared. She never, though, had mentioned any of the sexual assault allegations. So he testified that he went and he picked her up and he took her to hotel, to a hotel to keep her safe and to keep her away from Diddy. However, while the two of them were at the hotel, Kid Cudi got a phone call from Diddy.

• 1:07:16Annie Elise?

  And Diddy told him that he was at his house and that he wanted him to come home so they could talk. Now, the crazy thing is, he wasn't just at his house, like, in his driveway, waiting for him out front, like, parked out front, saying, "Come home, so we can talk." He and a few members of his team had literally broken in to Kid Cudi's house. He, of course, didn't realize this, though, at first. It wasn't until after he got to his house that he noticed that they had likely broken in. All of his outdoor security cameras had also been moved, and he had not been the one to move them. Now, inside the house was an even crazier image and picture, because some gifts that he had bought for his family, remember, this was back in December of 2011, were open and just on the counter, almost like they were going through these Christmas gifts, trying

• 1:08:01Annie Elise?

  to see if any of them were for Cassie, or something like that. On top of that, his dog was locked inside one of the bathrooms, which, it's a little confusing, but it kinda sounds to me like Diddy and his people weren't there when Kid Cudi got there, but then, Diddy called them, and then they, like, had things open, and somebody had broken in. I don't really know. It was very, very confusing. But, anyway. He decided to call the police, and he filed a police report about the break-in. He was worried about who was with Diddy, what the intentions were, and I wonder, too, if his fear was that Diddy might try to kill him, hurt him, or, you know, do something. Nothing really ever came of it, though, and there was no damage or items stolen, which, somehow, I think, even creepier than a full-blown break-in, to me.

• 1:08:43Annie Elise?

  It's like, things are just moved, things are gone through, but there's nothing to really prove that something was stolen, to where you can catch somebody. It's almost like psychological warfare, right? So, not too long after, in January of 2012, Kid Cudi's car caught fire in his driveway, and he described the car as somebody cutting the roof off of his Porsche, cutting it open, and then dropping a Molotov cocktail into it. Now, he assumed that this was, yet again, another motion or present from Diddy, kind of making it seem like that's why Cassie never left, that he would retaliate, that he was dangerous, and also, why nobody would want to testify against him, because he would do these really scary things. The defense then cross-examined him about this incident, asking him if he was aware

• 1:09:27Annie Elise?

  that the DNA test on the car came back as it being from a woman. AKA, they're trying to say, you know, "This couldn't have been Diddy. The DNA was from a woman," which, hi, that doesn't necessarily prove anything. He still could have orchestrated this, and had a woman be the one to throw this thing inside his car. So, Kid Cudi said he had never heard any follow-up from the police regarding it. Now apparently, the last time that he saw Cassie was a few days after his car had caught on fire, and he testified he finally had decided enough was enough that he should just talk things out with Diddy. So he claimed that when he first walked into the meeting, Diddy was standing up by the window, just looking out, paying no attention to him, and had his hands behind his back.

• 1:10:08Annie Elise?

  And he described him as almost acting like a "Marvel supervillain." He said that his demeanor was very calm, and that considering everything that had happened, the calmness was very off-putting. So Kid Cudi explained that during the meeting, he had taken Cassie's word when she said that him and Diddy were over with. She had told him, "You know, Diddy and I aren't dating anymore, it's over." So Kid Cudi said, "You know, I just took her word for it, that's what I believed, that's why we started dating." Then he claimed that he asked Diddy about his car during this meeting, about the car explosion, the bomb thing, the, you know, Molotov cocktail. And he said that Diddy said he didn't have any idea what he was talking about. But then, apparently, years later, he saw Diddy out with his daughter, and Diddy pulled

• 1:10:52Annie Elise?

  him to the side and apologized to him. So next on the stand, called by the prosecution, was a woman named Myla Morales. She was both Cassie and Diddy's former makeup artist. And I kind of already knew that this is probably gonna be, you know, one of the testimonies about abuse, covering up the marks and the bruises, just based on the occupation, but also probably had witnessed some things firsthand. So she testified about a time when she knew Diddy and Cassie had gotten into an argument, and she saw the injuries to Cassie's face afterwards. It was the weekend of the Grammys in 2010. She and Cassie had gone to a party at Prince's house before going back to their hotel room.

• 1:11:34Annie Elise?

  Now, at some point, once they were back in the room, Diddy stormed in and was asking Cassie, or asking her, rather, where Cassie was. He went into Cassie's bedroom, and then he shut the door. And she testified that she heard a lot of screaming and a lot of yelling. Then, after the argument, Diddy left. Cassie wouldn't say much to her, but she did testify that she could tell that Cassie was distraught. That's when she noticed, too, that Cassie had a swollen eye, busted lips, and several knots on her forehead. She also had a friend who was a doctor, so this doctor friend came to examine Cassie under the table, not at the hospital, not on file, nothing like that. And the guy told her she needed to go to the emergency room, but Cassie refused.

• 1:12:17Annie Elise?

  She said she didn't go to the police because she was scared of Diddy and she was scared for her life. After that night, both she and Cassie never talked about the incident again. Then next on the stand was a man named Frederick Zamore, who was an employee at one of the hotels in Beverly Hills, California. Now, while Frederick was on the stand, the jury was shown hotel records for a profile that was originally created in December of 2006. The name originally on file was Sean Combs, and over the years, though, it changed from Sean Combs to Frank White, Frank Black, and eventually Ryan Lopez in 2019. There were also notes written in the profile that were shown to the jury, and these notes

• 1:13:00Annie Elise?

  were things like, "Please monitor outside of his room and down the hall to spray air freshener. Always spills candle wax on everything and uses excessive amounts of oil. Place the room out of order upon departure so that it can have a deep cleaning. Please authorize an extra $1,000 when guest stays with us so that it'll cover any room damages." Now, I thought that this was really interesting because apparently it's like money talks, right? They didn't care that he always left the hotel room in shambles, they didn't care that they always, he always spilled candle wax, they just said, "Collect a bigger deposit for incidental so that we can clean up."

• 1:13:42Annie Elise?

  But I did think it was really gross where they said, "Monitor the outside of his room and down the hall and spray lots of air freshener." Because we already heard in earlier testimony how those rooms would freaking reek and have like the worst odor ever because it was like three or four days of sex, lots of bodies, sweat, oil, candles, like it makes me want to vomit even just thinking about it. It's literally my worst nightmare. Imagine like the most musty, disgusting room that it is like, the odor is now seeping from under the hotel room into the hallway, so they need to be spraying air freshener. Ew, it is so foul and sick.

• 1:14:25Annie Elise?

  So that's where we landed this week with Diddy. There of course is some testimony happening right now as I'm recording this, which I will be back with you early next week and recapping all of that, plus the early week updates with you, but wanted to just throw everything in one episode for you. It's a supersized episode, but it's a lot. I know, there was a lot to go over and I apologize that I was kind of all over the place in this episode. You know, it's not necessarily my normal format. I usually like to write my things out, have a clear cut outline, but because things have been so chaotic this week, I just had all these bullet points in my phone of things I wanted to mention and things I wanted to talk about. So a little more chaotic than usual, but my Monday deep dive that is coming on the podcast is well organized.

• 1:15:08Annie Elise?

  It is very thought out, very careful and freaking wild. It's once again, a reason why online dating just scares the absolute shit out of me. So that's where we're at this week. That's where we're wrapping up. I, it's Friday. I am exhausted. I need to just like sleep all weekend, but I also have a lot to do with my kids and we have birthday parties to go to and lots of birthday parties actually, so I probably won't get any sleep, but I will be back with you here on Monday with an all new deep dive. And again, probably another episode on Tuesday outside of the normal release schedule with more Diddy updates. So like I've said, I said it once, I will say it

• 1:15:49Annie Elise?

  again. Take a second. Make sure you're following the podcast because we are releasing episodes outside of just the Monday, Thursday and Friday. And bonus episodes still come out every Friday too, with extra deep dives that you can access on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. Alright guys, other than that, that is all I've got for you. I need to go take a long snooze and I appreciate you sticking with me today. I know it was a little chaotic. Alright, thank you guys so much. I will talk with you very soon. Until the next one. Be nice. Don't kill people. Don't go to any freak offs. Don't go hang out with Michael Proctor or Brian Albert at the waterfall and just, you know, watch your back. Watch who you can trust. Alright, thanks guys.

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