The Assistant, The Mogul, and the Diddy Trial End Game

On Friday morning, as the government approached the finish line of its case against Sean “Diddy” Combs, a federal prosecutor announced to the court that the government was calling Brendan Paul to the stand.

Paul was, for about a year and a half leading up to the hip-hop mogul’s downfall, one of Combs’s several personal assistants. It was his third day in court after a series of delays earlier in the week—a special agent’s testimony went longer than expected, a juror called in sick with vertigo—and he showed up on each in a tightly cropped suit, a fully buttoned shirt with no tie, and Y2K-era wraparound sunglasses. Paul was arrested in March 2024 at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport for cocaine possession when he landed there with Combs, the same day that federal agents raided Combs’s Miami and Los Angeles residences.

When he finally spoke in court, he seemed at ease and unhurried.

“My charges have been dropped,” Paul told the jury, “because I have a really good lawyer.”

A few months before Paul’s arrest, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura had sued Combs for sexual and physical abuse, setting into motion a wave of further civil suits and a federal indictment on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. (Ventura and Combs quickly settled; Combs had denied wrongdoing in connection with the additional suits and pleaded not guilty in his criminal case.) With intrigue around Combs’s legal troubles peaking, and Paul’s mugshot appearing on TMZ, the 26-year old music producer quickly became a minor but absorbing player in the overall saga. The little that was known of him came primarily from his days as a walk-on college basketball player. At Syracuse University, he roomed with his former prep school teammate Buddy Boehim, the son of the basketball team’s long-tenured coach Jim. There, he told The Athletic in 2020, he was among the two best dressed players on the team: “For us, it’s the way you put it together.” In press coverage surrounding his arrest, Paul was typically described as Combs’s “drug mule,” with his name appearing in a similar capacity in three of the civil suits filed against Combs. (Paul was not named as a defendant in those suits and has denied wrongdoing in connection with them.)

Paul’s drug charges were dismissed after he completed a pretrial diversion program, and he testified at Combs’s trial after he was subpoenaed and granted immunity. He volunteered on Friday that he had been carrying the cocaine in a Goyard bag; he said that it belonged to Combs and that he had found it after sweeping Combs’s hotel room, forgetting that he was carrying it on his flight.

After Paul graduated from college in 2022, he testified, he moved back to his hometown of Cleveland, where he and his father built a music studio in the basement of his parents’ home. An associate made him aware of the opportunity to work as Combs’s assistant, offering some advice: “If you have a girlfriend, break up with her.” He was told he wouldn’t see his family, such were the demands of the role, and that his goal should be to “get in, get out” after amassing a Rolodex from the adjacency to Combs.

Given Paul’s background in music and sports, his responsibilities included plans for the release of Combs’s 2023 album and workout and meal regimens. He was also tasked, he testified, with rolling joints in Combs’s Los Angeles garage and obtaining weed, cocaine, ketamine, and tusi for Combs that he would carry with him in a Gucci pouch. At a Coachella afterparty, Paul said, Combs asked him to test some tusi for him to ensure that it was good. He said he did so out of loyalty—the same reason, he said, that he didn’t tell law enforcement whom the cocaine really belonged to when he was arrested. Combs, Paul said, “used to say he wants us to move like Seal Team Six.”

Over the course of his tenure, he testified, Paul was fired two or three times, including in one instance when Paul forgot Combs’s Lululemon fanny pack when he wanted to go on a walk. “I don’t want to see your face,” Paul remembered him saying. A few weeks later, Paul returned to the fold after Combs’s chief of staff smoothed things over. “Oh hey,” Combs said when Paul appeared back in his life.

On three or four occasions, Paul said, he set up and cleaned up Combs’ hotel rooms for “wild king nights,” another term for what are now known in the public imagination as “freak-offs”: the elaborate, days-long sexual performances involving male escorts that Ventura described in her suit. This, in large part, was the focus of a cross examination undertaken by Combs’s attorney Brian Steel, whose name served as the title of a recent Drake song following his successful representation of Atlanta rapper Young Thug.

“Good morning,” Steel said as he began.

“How ya doing?” Paul said.

On further questioning, Paul testified that he was “absolutely not” a drug mule. The transportation of Combs’s drugs, he said, amounted to a minor aspect of his job, typically involving a few hundred dollars’ worth of contraband for the purposes of personal use. He said he never noticed the girlfriend who he knew to be involved in Combs’ king nights, who testified last week as a Jane Doe, to be hesitant or apprehensive before or after these occasions. Paul testified that he wouldn’t work for a criminal, nor did he believe during his work that the king nights contained a criminal element.

In charging Combs with racketeering, prosecutors have alleged that he operated a criminal enterprise in the manner of a Mafia boss—the strain of criminal for whom such laws were designed. The idea behind a racketeering charge is that the boss uses the people in his employ to carry out his crimes.

In his testimony, Paul said he hadn’t spoken to Combs since his own arrest. Moments before he left the stand, a prosecutor asked him how he feels about Combs today.

“It’s complicated,” Paul replied.