Defense attorney Alexander Shapiro has put further argument on the record about the defense mistrial motion, which Judge Arun Subramanian denied this morning. You’ll recall the motion was based on last week’s testimony of Bryana Bongolan, which defense attorneys said was “demonstrably” false.
Shapiro accused Bongolan, a friend of Cassie Ventura’s, of perjury and said the government knew or should’ve known that the alleged balcony altercation with Combs couldn’t have occurred when Bongolan claims because Sean “Diddy” Combs and Ventura were not in Los Angeles at the time. Bongolan had testified that Combs held her over a 17-story balcony and threw her onto the balcony furniture at Ventura’s apartment in Los Angeles in September 2016.
Assistant US Attorney Madison Smyser said Bongolan could’ve misremembered when she took the photos of her purported injuries and that Bongolan testified that she didn’t remember all the details of the incident.
Subramanian ruled that the defense was not prejudiced by the testimony in part because the defense was able to conduct a vigorous cross examination of Bongolan about the timing of the incident. The judge likened Nicole Westmoreland’s cross-examination of Bongolan to a “Perry Mason moment” that he thought the defense would be celebrating.
