Diddy comes face to face with drug mule who turned on for immunity

First up on the witness stand today is Diddy’s former ‘drug mule’ Brendan Paul.

Paul was named in a civil lawsuit filed last February by Rodney Jones Jr who accused Diddy of forcing him to hire prostitutes to engage in sex acts.

Jones accused Paul of being Diddy’s drug ‘mule’ who transported drugs for him, as well as guns.

Paul, 25, a former Syracuse University basketball player, was arrested in March last year at Opa-locka airport in Miami.

He was charged with cocaine and marijuana possession but was given a six month drug intervention programme, which he completed and so avoided jail time.

Paul testified in court under an immunity order signed by the judge.

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.

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.

Diddy denies all allegations against him. His lawyers admit he’s a woman beater – although he does not face domestic abuse charges – but that he is not guilty of sex trafficking or racketeering.

In texts from March 18th 2017 beween Cassie and Diddy, the mogul’s former longtime girlfriend expresses her frustration over her stalling career and focus on constant freak offs.

‘You’re at a point where you you want to party and have a good time,’ she wrote.

‘I have to focus or I’ll never become anything….doing that opened the door to being my sole purpose in seeing you.

‘You treat me like a hooker to be honest. This hooker [Ventura] has been here for 10 years.’

Diddy’s former assistant Brendan Paul is done testifying for the day.

Before he left the stand, he called Diddy ‘extremely creative’ and claimed he had good experiences ‘for the most part.’

When asked about how he feels about the mogul in redirect by prosecutor Mary Slavik, he said it was ‘complicated.’

Paul did not look at Diddy as he left the stand.

Internet trolls have tried to connect some of America’s biggest names – from Barack Obama and Kamala Harris to Beyoncé and Jay-Z – to Diddy’s alleged misconduct.

Prince and Kim Porter were brought into the discourse posthumously with theorists alleging both detailed Diddy’s alleged exploits before their deaths.

Diddy’s mom and son Justin, whom he shares with Misa Hylton, were pictured arriving to court on Friday.

Various members of Diddy’s family have shown their support for the mogul over the course of the six-week trial.

In cross examination by Diddy lawyer Brian Steel, the former college basketball star testified he understood that a drug mule was ‘someone who trafficks kilos and kilos of drugs across the world.’

Paul confirmed that he collected drugs between 5 and 10 times out of 18 months of working with Sean Combs. He claimed it was a ‘minor’ part of his job.

After Paul was arrested at a Miami airport in 2024 on drug charges, they were dropped.

‘I have a really good lawyer. I went into a pretrial diversion programme, took over 20 drug classes and a bunch of random drug testing,’ he claimed.

Texts shown to the court between Paul and Combs’ assistant Kristina Khorram in February 2024 showed how Diddy’s employees would help set up freak off nights for him and Jane at hotels.

At the time, they were referred to as ‘wild king’ nights.

‘PD active now, running to Walmart for them,’ Paul texted Khorram. ‘PD’ was a shortened nickname for Diddy.

‘I went to get soups, towels, a few things he’d requested,’ he testified.

‘Before he got there, [I’d] call room service, have them bring up extra sheets, extra towels fruit plates, I’d bring lights, Astroglide, baby oil, liquor, chapagm, toothpaste, cologne.’

For one wild king night, Paul collected $5,000 in cash from security to give to Diddy.

He also claimed he would help clean up hotel rooms when ‘wild king’ nights were finished. Paul testified that he would send photos to Diddy’s property manager knowing there would be damage charges.

Lawyers asked Brendan Paul in court on Friday if he took drugs with Diddy.

‘Once at after party at Coachella,’ he testified

‘He had tusi with him and asked me to try it if it was good.’

Although the young assistant had never tried tusi before, he said ‘I wanted to prove my loyalty.’

While working for Diddy, Paul testified he saw Diddy use cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy and marijuana.

He was instructed to buy these drugs with cash, including ‘tusi’ and ketamine lollipops, for the mogul.

He would contact a mix of drug dealers named Guido, One Stop, Baby Girl and Ovi for the exchanges.

Paul testified he would text or call the dealers, but would emphasize the importance of discretion to keep Diddy’s identity anonymous.

‘It was very important to keep his profile low, people could screenshot it…(people could say) hey I was asked to get drugs for Diddy.’

Paul would keep the drugs in Diddy’s designer Gucci pouch ready for him to access.

Paul told the court Friday while he was employed by Diddy, his duties were to ‘help organize suitcases, Amazon returns, pick up things from the pharmacy’ as well as ‘pack a lot of joints in the garage,’ meaning stuffing marijuana into cones.

He claimed he had ‘almost zero’ interaction with Diddy in the first few weeks of his employment.

Diddy’s longtime personal assistant Kristina Khorram told Paul ‘to stay clear [of Diddy] while [he] got used to the environment.’

He claimed he worked 80-100 hours a week and was always on call. He started on a $75k salary but January 2024 was raised to $100k.

Brendan Paul, Diddy’s former ‘drug mule’ testified that he worked for Diddy as an assistant for 18 months between late 2022 to March 2024.

He began working for Diddy shortly after he graduated from Syracuse university.

A separate assistant to Diddy at the time, Eli Maroun, warned Paul of the extent of the time it would take as Diddy’s assistant.

‘If you have a girlfriend, break up with her, and you’re never going to see your family,’ Maroun told him.

Juror no.7 will remain on the case after Diddy’s request to have him removed was rejected.

Prosecutors said the juror may have been speaking to a former colleague about the case, which is strictly against the rules of the court.

TMZ reported the juror had got a text from an unknown number asking if he was a juror on the case.

The judge said he had questioned the juror and decided not to remove him.

From his wardrobe to his courtroom props and even interactions with witnesses and jurors, the 55-year-old is leaving nothing off the table when it comes to fighting for his freedom.

Diddy’s trial is back on Friday after two days off on Wednesday and Thursday.

Judge Arun Subramanian cancelled testimony on Wednesday over a juror having a vertigo episode on their way to court.

The juror’s issue was apparently ‘unexpected and momentary.’

There was no testimony on Thursday as it was federal holiday Juneteenth.

More photos of damning evidence against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs came to light on Thursday, including a collection of high-powered rifles, drugs and hundreds of bottles of baby oil.

The trove of photos were released by federal prosecutors as the trial at Manhattan federal court was stalled due to the Juneteenth holiday.

The items were collected by Homeland Security officials during the March 2024 raid at the disgraced Bad Boy mogul’s mansion in the exclusive Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles.

Audio of a distraught Cassie Ventura threatening to kill a man over a ‘freak-off’ video was released as part of the evidence in Diddy’s trial.

DEEP DIVE delves into Diddy’s 30-year reign of excess and debauchery in unprecedented detail, starting with his ‘crazy’ fits of rage as a student in the 1980s that earned him the disturbing ‘Puff’ nickname.

Contained within hundreds of pages of civil court documents are the horrifying details of his tempestuous relationship with Cassie Ventura – which ultimately led to the floodgates opening.

Among the many allegations contained within the papers are claims that Diddy filmed fellow A-list celebrities taking drugs and having sex with prostitutes. In many cases, the name of the celebrities involved have been kept anonymous by court order.

Read the interactive story here:

Sean Combs has pushed the boundaries of how animated he can be in the courtroom, having been seen ‘tapping his leg a lot’ and taking ‘copious notes’.

Sketch artist Christine Cornell, who has drawn the trial since the start, told Business Insider ‘it’s like he sees what he thinks is the light at the end of the tunnel’.

She recalled how he ‘half stood up’ in his chair as his attorney Teny Geragos returned to her seat after cross-examining one of the prosecution’s witnesses.

He allegedly pulled out her chair and pushed it back after she took her seat, before the pair exchanged whispers. This was in front of jurors.

Combs was even more animated when the jury was absent, with Cornell alleging he smiled and waived his hand over his head when answering a question from the judge.

‘He’s at peak Diddy,’ she added.