Brendan Paul, a former assistant to Sean Combs who was arrested last year amid federal raids, testified on Friday at the music mogul’s trial that he obtained drugs and prepared hotel rooms for nights of sex and partying as part of his job.
While Mr. Paul was a low-level employee — his duties included packing bags and coordinating meals — he also became one of the most prominent members of Mr. Combs’s entourage in March 2024, when he was charged with cocaine possession after sweeping searches of Mr. Combs’s properties.
On the day of the raids, which involved searches of two of Mr. Combs’s homes, Mr. Paul was at a Florida airport with the mogul, en route to a Combs family vacation in the Bahamas. Federal agents intercepted the group and found cocaine in a bag that Mr. Paul was carrying. Mr. Paul testified that he found the drugs — amounting to 0.7 grams — in Mr. Combs’s room early that morning and had forgotten about it as he was packing for the trip.
Mr. Paul, who had been working for Mr. Combs for about 18 months at the time, testified that he did not tell law enforcement that it was Mr. Combs’s cocaine.
“Why not?” a prosecutor, Christy Slavik, asked Mr. Paul.
“Loyalty,” he replied.
The case against Mr. Paul was dropped last year after he completed a drug intervention program.
Mr. Paul, who is testifying under an immunity deal with the government, is the only Combs aide known to have been arrested in connection with the federal investigation into Mr. Combs’s conduct. He is the second to last witness before the prosecution is expected to rest its case.
Over six weeks, prosecutors have sought to prove that Mr. Combs commanded a racketeering enterprise — an inner circle of employees who helped facilitate the sex trafficking of two women, in addition to other crimes. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Combs coerced the women, both of them long-term girlfriends, into drug-fueled, sometimes dayslong sex marathons with male escorts that Mr. Combs directed and masturbated during.
Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his lawyers have argued that the sexual encounters were entirely consensual. They have denied the existence of any criminal conspiracy.
Drugs are a key element of the government’s case. The women at the center of the sex-trafficking case — Casandra Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane — said that Mr. Combs would give them drugs, typically Ecstasy or MDMA, which they said they took to distance themselves from the unwanted sexual encounters with escorts.
Mr. Paul, a former Syracuse University basketball player, was not long out of college when he was hired to work as a personal assistant to Mr. Combs in 2022. Another Combs employee told him that the job would be all consuming, Mr. Paul testified, telling him, “if you have a girlfriend, break up with her” and, “you’re never going to see your family.” The job involved logistics such as advancing travel, returning packages and getting Mr. Combs anything that he needed.
“He used to say that he wants us to move like SEAL Team 6,” Mr. Paul testified, referring to the unit best known for killing Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Paul was directed by either Mr. Combs or other assistants to buy drugs, he said, which included marijuana, cocaine, ketamine and a pink-colored substance called Tusi — which he described as a pink-colored mixture of ketamine and MDMA — as well as prescription drugs.
“You get me zans,” Mr. Combs texted Mr. Paul in early 2024, referring to Xanax, a benzodiazepine.
The hard drugs would often be put in a Gucci bag, which turned into a kind of shorthand among employees. In a text message about cash reimbursements to other Combs aides, Mr. Paul wrote that he had spent $780 on “personal Gucci items.”
Mr. Combs would bring that Gucci bag to hotels for nights known as “wild king nights,” Mr. Paul testified, which he said he knew to involve “partying, alcohol, sex, drugs.”
Mr. Paul is among a series of assistants who have taken the stand and recalled setting up hotel rooms for Mr. Combs with supplies such as baby oil, lubricant, liquor and lighting. Mr. Paul recalled being instructed by Mr. Combs’s chief of staff at the time, Kristina Khorram, to set up for the nights three or four times, testifying that there was a running list of required supplies that assistants shared on a notes app.
Three former assistants, including Mr. Paul, testified under immunity orders after telling the government that they intended to assert their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.
In the aftermath of Mr. Paul’s arrest, news reports began referring to him as Mr. Combs’s “drug mule,” citing language from a lawsuit filed by a music producer who had briefly been a part of Mr. Combs’s entourage.
During cross-examination, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Brian Steel, sought to underscore the infrequency of Mr. Paul’s purchases of hard drugs, which he testified was fewer than 10 times during his 18 months of employment.
“You made it clear to the jury, and you’ve always made it clear, you are not some ‘drug mule,’ right?” Mr. Steel asked.
“Absolutely not,” Mr. Paul replied.
Mr. Paul’s employment overlapped with Mr. Combs’s relationship with Jane, who testified that she was pressured into sex nights with male escorts over a period of about three years. Asked by Mr. Steel whether Jane every seemed “hesitant” or “apprehensive” about those nights, Mr. Paul said she did not. He testified that he never thought the nights included anything criminal.
“You would not work for a criminal, would you?” Mr. Steel asked.
“Absolutely not,” Mr. Paul said.
Anusha Bayya and Olivia Bensimon contributed reporting.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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