During Kid Cudi’s time on the stand in Diddy’s federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial on Thursday, Brian Steel, an attorney for the Bad Boy Records founder, who has denied the allegations against him in the case, pushed for a mistrial due to a question he deemed “outrageous.”
As shown in a court transcript viewed by Complex, Steel raised multiple objections during Cudi’s questioning, at one point leading to a sidebar with Judge Arun Subramanian in which he said he was going to “move for a mistrial.” This sidebar came amid questions directed at Cudi about his time with Cassie, specifically comments he made about concerns for their safety and related “drama” having contributed to their brief relationship’s end.
“Your Honor, I’m going to move for a mistrial,” Steel is quoted as saying in the court transcript. “The government knows that the answer is about to be that Mr. Combs has had other people killed. This is an outrageous question.”
Steel and the court then had a seemingly tense back-and-forth about this argument, leading to the lawyer elaborating further. Per Steel, his objection came on the grounds that he expected Cudi’s answer to a question about being “scared of” Diddy to be, in Steel’s words, “because Mr. Combs is violent, he has had other people killed.”
The back-and-forth continued from there, with Steel citing a document that said that Cudi had called friends “who told him that Mr. Combs had had other people killed.”
To be clear, Cudi did not go on to say this. Instead, his testimony then moved on to more questions about a meeting he says he and Diddy had at a Soho House in Hollywood. Per previous reporting by Complex’s Shawn Setaro, who has been in attendance for Diddy’s trial, Cudi at one point likened Diddy to “a Marvel supervillain” when describing the meeting, a comment that drew laughs in the courtroom.
Breakout moments from Cudi’s time on the stand centered on questions about a Molotov cocktail-spurred Porsche blaze, an alleged home break-in, and Cudi’s dog. The dog is alleged to have been locked up during the break-in incident, with Cudi testifying that this led to the pet acting “jittery.” As seen in Thursday’s transcript, the dog was made the subject of another back-and-forth with Steel and the court.
In response to Steel questioning the nature of then-imminent testimony from Cudi about the impact of this alleged incident on Cudi’s dog, prosecutor Emily Johnson was careful to note that Cudi was “not going to testify what the dog thought” as he is “not a dog psychic.” Steel, however, maintained his concerns over this aspect of Cudi’s testimony, eliciting a humorous response from the court.
“Let the record reflect the smirk on Mr. Steel’s face,” Judge Arun Subramania said, marking another instance of laughs being heard in the courtroom.
Diddy’s trial will resume on Tuesday. In a statement to fans following his testimony Thursday, Cudi thanked fans for their support, calling the experience “stressful.”
