Frank Piazza
Appearances
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
accurate it was important of course for the prosecution to remove any doubt whatsoever about that video
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Well, it was interesting. Tenny Garagos, who was doing the cross-examination, tried to just talk about how many gaps there were in time, which didn't really land because at points it was three seconds, five seconds missing from the video. But again, it was just because...
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
of a little glitch and, you know, the video correcting itself or motion detection not catching certain points, but nothing dramatic.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Well, the balcony incident was mentioned within a few seconds of her testimony. But then we return to it in greater detail. She said that it happened at Cassie's apartment in Los Angeles, that her apartment was on the 17th story. This was September of 2016. And that she said she was there with Cassie and her ex-girlfriend. Cassie was in the bedroom.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
She said Bonna and her ex-girlfriend were on the couch. She couldn't recall if they were doing drugs, but she just remembers Diddy banging loudly on the door and waking her up. She was sleeping. And she says she was stressed out, woke her ex up and rushed her to the bathroom. And on the stand, she put her finger to her mouth and she said she told her ex to, you know, shh.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
not to say anything because she didn't want to expose her, is the way she put it, to Diddy and the things she had witnessed between him and Cassie. Then she said she ran to the balcony to kind of look casual.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Now, we see in court at that point a picture of the balcony of Cassie's apartment, and Bonna describes how the ledge we're seeing came about to her waist, that she's 5'1", she was weighing about 100 to 115 pounds. And she says she was looking out at the view and all of a sudden Diddy came up from behind her, put his arms under her armpit and lifted her up.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Now, she says he held her up with her feet on the railing and she was trying not to slip, that she was pushing back on him. And that, for a split second, she was worried she was going to fall, but he just kept repeating, you know what the F you did, you know what the F you did. And she said she was screaming back, no, I don't know what I did.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And she said to this day, she still doesn't know what it was. And she just remembers him throwing her back on the balcony furniture. This is her testimony. And she said it hurt, but there was just so much adrenaline in the moment that she just got back up.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And she remembers as she's falling, hearing Cassie's voice just in disbelief, saying something along the lines of, did you just hang her over the balcony? And she said after that, she heard Diddy and Cassie essentially talking about how her girlfriend was there in the apartment and that he swiftly left after that.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Yeah, she talks about how after she left Cassie's home, she went back to her apartment and she was shaking, she said. She was shaking a lot. She felt disgusting. She wanted to shower. And she said at that point she realized she had a huge bruise on the back of her leg with a puncture in the middle of it. She said she also had back and neck pain.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And at that point in court, we are shown photos that she said she took that day. And you can see it's like this big red bruise with this tiny piercing as if something kind of ruptured the skin in the middle. And she also talks a little bit about the fact that she was just too scared to get any medical treatment.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
So she said she spoke to her managers who told her, look, if you don't want to say what happened, at least go to a chiropractor. And she said she got a neck brace from the chiropractor, was asked who did this to you, but she was too scared to say. And in terms of lasting impact, she does say that she still has nightmares about it, that she just the other day had a nightmare, that she has paranoia.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
She screams in her sleep. She says that's dissipated a little bit. And in terms of the pain to her neck and her back, she's like, look, I was on a lot of drugs at the time, so I didn't quite realize how much pain I was under. But once she got sober, she realized how much of a lasting impact the neck and back pain became.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
She basically said that he just FaceTimed her a little bit later, him or someone in his entourage. And she just remembers saying in a FaceTime video, look, I don't want any issues with you and him putting, his hand on his head in the video and that they just kind of moved on because they both wanted to be cool. They just wanted to have a good relationship.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
She said her and Cassie first crossed paths when she was working at Young and Reckless Streetwear in 2013 to 2014. She said that they started to bond over time, that she would stay at Cassie's house a lot, that their drug use increased as their relationship got closer and closer, and that there were times where they both tried to get sober.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
They would kind of fall back into addiction because it was hard, but that they were... hanging out together with the same group of friends. They were working together. They were doing drugs together. And she said they're still friends to this day.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Yeah. Barna talks about how he was a best friend of hers, that they hung out all the time, that She knew him even before Cassie, but she details getting a FaceTime call from him in early 2024 from what looked like Diddy's backyard in Los Angeles. And essentially what prosecutors were trying to get at was that he had been authorized by Diddy to talk about a settlement with her.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And they kept asking, you know, what offer, if any, was conveyed. There were a lot of objections to that. And essentially she says she declined the offer that was made to her. and that they've never spoken since that moment.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Yeah. So she says that she got a lawsuit a month or two later filed. She insisted it was because she wanted to seek justice for what happened to her. And she was asked, you know, how much her lawyer on her behalf requested. And they requested $10 million. She says it's a figure her lawyer came up with, not from her. And she says, look, I'm not expecting to get any money from the criminal trial.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And yes, I would give the money back if I could take away everything that happened to me.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
was a day that the defense were celebrating, probably. I mean, in my notebook, I can't tell you how many I don't remembers I wrote or I can't recall, or can you rephrase the question? So we go back through several different incidents. But if you look at the balcony incident in particular, Nicole Westmoreland, the defense lawyer, really zeroed in on the inconsistencies in their story.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
We started with Frank Piazza, who is a forensic video expert essentially hired by the government. He was asked to compile the various videos from the hotel incident, the CCTV footage from 2016 that we've seen numerous times now of Diddy beating Cassie in the hotel hallway. And he basically was on the stand just to show that the videos weren't tampered with. Because remember, this was a big issue.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And she suggested under cross-examination that actually Cassie and Bona spoke. They were working together in November of 2023 and December of 2024. Bonna was aware of Cassie's lawsuit and that they were speaking throughout this whole entire time discussing past claims. Well, in cross-examination, Nicole Westmoreland made it seem like the two of them were essentially plotting together in a way.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
She said, you know, isn't it true that you discussed the locations of where you said this happened? Cassie said it happened at a hotel. You said it happened at her apartment. Isn't it true that you two were discussing specific dates? She said one, you suggested another. Isn't it true that you were asked who was there? And on and on and on it went.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And it was to kind of give this sense to the jury that, you know, here are two people who are still talking and are colluding to go after Diddy and make money off of him. That's the impression they were trying to leave the jury with.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
doing drugs almost every single day. And they said, weren't you competing with the likes of Beyonce and Rihanna? And Bana agrees with the defense that the reason, you know, the company didn't work out was not because Diddy was holding Cassie back in any way, but it was actually because of their own problems in getting the business together. And there was one very pointed question where she says,
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Isn't it hard to be productive in business when you're getting high every day? So it was an attempt by the defense to show that Cassie was failing at other ventures and other things at a time when she was also pursuing a music career.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
And that Vonna was somebody who wasn't just doing drugs with her, but was acting almost as her supplier, actually getting part of her income on the drugs she was selling to Cassie. And that was a big part of their dynamic and why Cassie wasn't able to be successful.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Yeah, that's right. And this is another point where we heard a lot of these I don't recall or I don't remember from Barna. You know, Nicole Westmoreland was saying, isn't it true that you first told the government that you were at a party, not that you were sleeping? Wouldn't you agree that sleeping and being at a party or two different claims.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Then she said, you know, you never told the government that Diddy came in banging the first time you made the allegation of him banging on the doors in your civil complaint. Also, you said at one point you were smoking weed, another time you were smoking a cigarette or pretending to smoke weed. She says those are three different things.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
She also says you told the government that you saw Diddy charging directly at you from across the room. Again, she says, I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember when this Nicole Westmoreland kind of tries to hammer her on that. And then she says, you know, didn't you accuse Combs of sexually assaulting you?
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
putting his hands on your chest and groping you after your demand letters, essentially, when you spoke to the government. And so Nicole Westmoreland telling her, you know, are you lying, trying to bring up any inconsistency in their stories to attack their credibility?
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
The defense suggesting the videos were manipulated. They wanted them out of this case. But what Frank Piazza said on the stand was that this was an accurate video. It was not tampered with. That even though the system was not able to produce smooth motion throughout, that was just because of motion sensors and other things. But the video was absolutely accurate.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
I mean, every answer toward the end was almost, I don't recall, I don't remember. And the defense, at one point, the judge asked them, how much time do you have? And they said, how much time will you give us? They didn't want this to go into the next day. They wanted to finish with her on the stand then and there because clearly they felt they were in a position of strength with this questioning.
Diddy On Trial
Bryana 'Bana' Bongolan testifies about ‘balcony dangling’ by Diddy
Let's not forget that Jane is the second alleged victim that underpins the sex trafficking allegations. Her testimony is going to be so critical to this case alongside Cassie's. And sure, prosecutors would have loved to have started the day fresh with her, but we are going to have more time with Bonna on the stand.