Diddy’s lawyers grill Cassie stylist about secret affair with NFL star Andre Branch: Live trial updates

During cross-examination, Diddy’s attorney grilled stylist Deonte Nash about whether he knew about Cassie’s affair with an NFL player in 2016.

Xavier Donaldston asked him if he knew former Miami Dolphins player Andre Branch.

Nash replied: ‘Oh the cute football player? Yeah, but I’ve never met him.’

The attorney then asked Nash if he was aware that Cassie was in a relationship with ‘Brandon’ from the NBA around that time.

Social media users quickly reacted to Branch being mentioned in court on Thursday.

To hear all the explosive testimony from singer Cassie Ventura and the other witnesses in Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs’ trial, tune in to Daily Mail’s hit podcast The Trial.

From sworn testimony to video evidence and the rapper’s every subtle move, our team of journalists take you inside the courtroom of the world’s biggest celebrity case.

Daily Mail has been following Diddy’s downfall from the very beginning. Join us as we hear from experts involved in the case, and members of the rapper’s inside circle.

Mia said that on her first day working for Diddy in 2009, she didn’t sleep at all.

She was initially sent to his home in Alpine, New Jersey, to do an inventory of what work needed doing.

But at night time she was ordered to go and meet Diddy in the studio. She didn’t get back home until 1pm the following day.

‘I remember being too nervous to risk it by taking a nap’, Mia said, telling the jury she was told she was on a two-week trial period at the beginning of her employment.

‘I took it as a challenge or maybe this was for the trial period. Or maybe it was like is this how it is’.

Mia’s salary was supposed to be $55,000 but she was only paid $50,000 – with no overtime.

On Wednesday, Diddy’s lawyers have the judge for a mistrial after arguing the prosecution made an unacceptable suggestion in front of the jury.

The defense said it was ‘outrageous’ when prosecutors appeared to suggest the mogul had destroyed fingerprints taken from Kid Cudi’s house after the January, 2012 bombing of his car.

Prosecutors had asked LAFD official Lance Jimenez about the fingerprints, and he said the evidence was destroyed in August 2012.

Jimenez said ‘somebody within LAPD’ authorized the destruction of the evidence.

This is when Diddy’s team objected.

‘They know what they were doing,’ the defense said of prosecutors.

‘They were suggesting that someone in this courtroom has something to do with improper and suspicious destruction of these fingerprint cards and that’s outrageous.’

The attorneys added: ‘The only proper remedy to cure the outrageous prejudice is a mistrial.’

However, the defense’s motion for a mistrial was denied.

The jaw-dropping images showed the guns, drugs, industrial quantities of ‘freak off’ paraphernalia and boxes of women’s high heels that were seized by investigators from Combs’ $40 million home on the ultra-exclusive Star Island.

The mogul’s trial is not being televised, and recording devices are not allowed in the courtroom, because it is a federal case.

Federal trials generally do not allow recording devices.

An alleged victim who is going by the pseudonym Mia has taken the stand for the prosection.

She told the court she worked for Diddy from 2009 until 2017 first as a personal assistant and then director of development and aquisitions for Revolt Films.

Mia testified that Diddy was often violent towards her and sexually assaulted her several times.

Much of the case presented by prosecutors so far has revolved around accusations that Combs physically and sexually abused Cassie for years, and coerced her into sexual encounters called ‘freak-offs’ with men who were paid thousands of dollars to have sex with her.

Yet Combs isn’t simply charged with sex crimes. He’s charged with racketeering. Prosecutors say they will prove that Combs used his businesses and employees ‘to carry out, facilitate, and cover up his acts of violence, abuse, and commercial sex.’

Some of those employees testified in Week 2.

George Kaplan, a personal assistant for Combs from 2013 to 2015, told jurors he’d toss out liquor bottles and drugs and clean up baby oil from Combs’ hotel rooms after the music producer finished freak-offs.

He said he never reported abuse to authorities, even after Combs beat up Cassie on a private jet.

Another personal assistant, David James, testified that Combs had him stock hotel rooms with Viagra, condoms, baby oil and lubricant, among other supplies.

He also recounted how Combs had three handguns on his lap as they drove to a Los Angeles diner looking for his record industry rival, Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight.

Cassie was content celebrating her 29th birthday with drinks, drugs and karaoke with friends, but her boyfriend Diddy had a different idea, Diddy’s ex-stylist Deonte Nash told the court.

The hip-hop mogul insisted on taking her to a Los Angeles hotel for another of his ‘freak off’ sex marathons, her friend and former stylist testified at Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial.

Nash told jurors that he saw the temperamental Combs berating Cassie as she pleaded for him to let her enjoy her birthday on her own terms.

Later that night, Nash said, Cassie told the stylist, ‘I don’t want to freak off,’ but that she had to because Combs was making her.

Nash testified that the 2015 conversation was one of several times Cassie confided to him that she didn’t want to engage in Combs’ drug-fueled hotel encounters.

Deonte Nash seen leaving the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Lower Manhattan

Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey said they are running ahead of schedule and even looking to cut some witnesses.

The prosecution is hoping to rest their case by the second week of June, but noted it may continue into the following week.

Deonte Nash told the court that he was the one to set up Cassie with actor Michael B Jordan while the two were in South Africa working on different projects.

‘He fine. She fine. Why not?’ Dash replied when asked about it.

Nash said during this time, Cassie was upset that Diddy was seen out in Miami with another girlfriend, Gina.

‘[Cassie said, “Why does he keep humiliating me and trying to ruin my career?”

Nash added: ‘[Cassie] wasn’t that pressed about Gina. When Puff be with Gina, she be like alright girl it’s time to go out.

‘The issue with Gina is Gina kept popping up and it was hurting her career with Puff running around with other women.’

Diddy’s mom, Janice, has stood by her 55-year-old son’s side while he is on trial for sex trafficking.

The 85-year-old has been pictured at the Manhattan federal courthouse most days of the trial.

She is seen arriving on Thursday.

Cassie’s friend and stylist is being cross-examined by the defense on Thursday morning.

Nash is being questioned about his relatoinship with Diddy’s former assistant Capricorn Clark.

He told jurors on Wednesday that he saw the temperamental Combs berating Cassie as she pleaded for him to let her enjoy her birthday on her own terms. Later that night, Nash said, Cassie told the stylist, ‘I don’t want to freak off,’ but that she had to because Combs was making her.

Along with shedding light on Cassie’s feelings about freak offs, Nash also corroborated her testimony that Combs frequently beat and tormented her. Combs would threaten to hinder Cassie’s fledgling music career and said he’d ruin her reputation by releasing recordings of their sexual encounters, Nash said.

So far, the blockbuster trial has consisted of a number of bombshell testimonies from his ex-girlfriend and main accuser Cassie Ventura, rapper Kid Cudi, Dawn Richard, a former member of Combs’ pop group Danity Kane, and his former executive assistant George Kaplan, among others.

Here is a full list of everyone who has taken the stand so far:

Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard said on the stand during the first week of the trial that Diddy punched Cassie in the stomach during a private argument at a West Hollywood restaurant in 2010.

She claimed several celebrities were at the dinner, including Usher, Ne-Yo and superstar music executive Jimmy Iodine.

‘Mr Combs punched Cassie in the stomach,’ Richard told the jury.

‘They were having a private conversation, we were all sitting eating at the tables together. Some of Bad Boy label mates, some celebrities were in the room.

‘They were secretly arguing [and] he punched her in the stomach.

Richard added: ‘[Cassie] immediately bent over and he told her to leave, I could see him point out and she went out.’

Prosecutors on Thursday asked the court to cut the witness box from the live feed shown in the court’s overflow room when Mia takes the stand.

The judge declined the request, saying there was not enough space and the overflow room ‘is an extension of this room.’

However, the judge ruled that no sketches be made of Mia when she’s testifying and that there are no cellphones to document her appearance in any way.

Mia’s lawyer, Michael Ferrara, said his client will tell about the worst things ever to happen to her.

Those things, he said, she otherwise would have taken ‘to her grave.’ He said she will want emotional support during her testimony.

‘Candidly, her nerves are through the roof,’ he said of Diddy’s former assistant.

‘I don’t know how to support her if we can’t discuss the pain she’s going to experience from having to tell the world about her worst experiences.’

Taking the stand on Tuesday, Capricorn Clark said she was left ‘petrified’ after being brought to an abandoned building in New York and locked in while being questioned about the hip hop mogul’s missing jewelry.

Another time, she claimed Diddy kidnapped her at gunpoint and drove her to a love rival’s house where he intended to shoot the man dead, the court heard.

The extraordinary claims emerged during the testimony of Clark, 46, who repeatedly broke down in tears while describing her nightmarish employment with Diddy.

Buried in a file submitted as part of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ defense is a black and white photograph of two world famous female stars lying on a bed in bikinis beneath a seedy mirrored ceiling.

The disgraced mogul is wearing a beige sweater and is currently locked in conversation with his lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo.

Diddy is allowed to wear his own clothes to the trial but with some conditions.

He can only have up to five pairs of pants, shirts and socks and only two pairs of shoes – with no laces.

Diddy’s former assistant Capricorn Clark told the jury on Tuesday that Cassie once suggested she wanted to date Jay-Z.

In a meeting with Diddy’s lawyers in April 2024, Clark said she once told Cassie to date other people than Diddy – but Cassie apparently replied that Jay-Z was taken.

Agnifilo asked Clark: ‘Do you remember saying at the meeting that … you told Cassie, you have to — you should move away from [Diddy] and date other people, right?’

The attorney added: ‘And she said to you that Jay-Z was taken, who would she [date]?’

She added: ‘She did [say that.]’

Diddy, Beyonce and Jay-Z are pictured together in 2005.

Cassie Ventura welcomed her third child with husband Alex Fine just days after testifying in her ex Diddy‘s sex trafficking trial.

TMZ reports the Me and U singer welcomed baby number three on Tuesday at a hospital in New York City, citing sources with direct knowledge.

The insiders say the baby arrived slightly ahead of schedule, but Cassie and her child are healthy and well.

The missing Diddy ‘victim’ who mysteriously vanished during the first week of testimony has haunted his trial ever since.

The woman – referred to only as ‘Victim number 3’ – was scheduled to testify for the prosecution after Cassie Ventura.

Her testimony was going to bolster the prosecution’s case against the beleaguered rapper and support the racketeering charge that Diddy’s team says is completely out of the blue.

When she vanished, there was an onslaught of conspiracy theories coupled with a strategic scramble from the prosecutors.

No one could find the woman. They still can’t.

Read the whole story here:

Diddy’s lawyer Xavier Donaldson will continue cross examining stylist Deonte Nash, pictured below, in the morning.

Diddy’s ex-assistant Mia and radio personality Enrique Santos are expected to take the stand following Nash.

A new report claims that panicked celebrities are so worried about possibly being called as a witness in the Diddy trial that they are lawyering up.

‘I have heard that there are some celebrities worried about being called to testify and have even lawyered up trying to fight that,’ TMZ founder Harvey Levin said on Fox News Digital.

Harvey did not specify which celebrities are reportedly concerned abotut being called as witnesses, but several A-list stars have been named-dropped throughout the bombshell testimony.

Diddy’s ex-assistant Capricorn Clark exposed the mogul’s list of celebrities enemies and many other A-listers have come up in testimony.

The trial has even inspired deep fake videos that use AI-generated images to falsely claim that certain celebrities, such as Oprah and Jennifer Lawrence, have been mentioned in the mogul’s sex-trafficking case.