David James

David James testified over Day 10 and Day 11 about his work as Sean Combs's personal assistant from May 2007 to May 2009. He described long hours, travel, hotel-room preparation, staff and security arrangements, and conversations involving Cassie, including her statement that Combs controlled parts of her life and career.

On continued direct examination, James described preparing hotel rooms under the name Frank Black, transporting cash and a medicine bag, and making certain purchases in cash because, he said, Combs did not want the expenses submitted through the company. He also described disagreements involving Combs and Cassie, a food delivery to Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel, security searches and lie-detector tests after items went missing, drug-related errands, and seeing Cassie in a Miami hotel room with an unidentified naked man.

James also testified about the Mel's Diner episode, saying that he drove Combs and D-Roc back to the diner after seeing three handguns on Combs's lap. Before that testimony, the court overruled a defense objection and held that testimony about Combs and alleged associates acting to intimidate or threaten Suge Knight could be relevant to the government's enterprise theory, subject to cross-examination.

On cross-examination, defense counsel questioned omissions and changes in James's accounts of Mel's Diner, his memory of events from years earlier, and his uncertainty about who was connected to a cocaine purchase in Saint-Tropez. James acknowledged that his first account to the government ended before later events involving the return to the house and guns. On redirect, he said he had declined to file a requested police report after the Chef Jordan incident because he did not want to lie to police. On recross, James acknowledged that he told Combs he had filed the police report but never told him that he had not.