With three guns on his lap, Sean “Diddy” Combs ordered his driver to “motherfucking go” as they lit out for a Los Angeles diner — itching to confront longtime rival Suge Knight, Combs’ ex-personal assistant testified Tuesday.
David James, Combs’ then-personal assistant, described the dramatic 2008 ordeal — in which an early morning cheeseburger run nearly escalated the notorious East Coast-West Coast rap feud— while on the stand at Combs’ federal sex-trafficking trial.
“It was the first time I realized my life was in danger,” James told the Manhattan jury during his second day of testimony.
Knight, the Death Row Records cofounder, had been spotted at Mel’s Drive-In diner some 20 minutes prior, James testified. It was James who drove Combs and one of the hip-hop tycoon’s trusted security guards back to the diner, guns at the ready.
“I remember complete silence” during the 10-minute drive from Combs’ Hollywood Hills home to the diner, James testified, adding, “I remember thinking there are three guns and three people in this car” should anything happen.
James, who said he served as Combs’ personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, told the jury that by the time Combs got to the diner, Knight had already left.
“We didn’t see any black Escalades or black SUVs” in the lot by the time they returned, James said, referring to the four cars he said Knight had been traveling with.
In the end, Combs just went home.
“We eventually drove back to his house in Hollywood Hills,” James told the jury.
James said that Combs’ human resources director tried to talk him into continuing to work for the rapper’s Bad Boy companies. She offered him a job with the Sean John fashion line, or in marketing, he said.
“I told her no,” he testified. “I just wanted to get out.”
Last week, Combs’ ex-girlfriend — star prosecution witness Cassie Ventura — described the Combs-Knight incident from her vantage point, back at the rapper’s home.
On Tuesday, James described it from his own perspective, telling jurors what he heard and saw from behind the wheel.
It was 4 a.m., and Combs wanted cheeseburgers after a late-night recording session at his rented Hollywood Hills mansion.
James and one of Combs’ security guards, Damian “D-Roc” Butler, were sent to Mel’s, a popular all-night diner.
“I drove the staff truck, a silver Lincoln Navigator,” James testified.
James had just pulled the Navigator into a parking spot at Mel’s when Butler saw Knight at the wheel of an Escalade parked a few spots over.
“That’s motherfucking Suge Knight!” Butler said, according to James.
James testified that the security guard walked up to Knight’s car and said, “What’s up? It’s me D-Roc, Biggie’s boy,” referring to rapper Notorious B.I.G.
“Oh, what are you doing in my city?” Knight asked Butler, who replied, “I’m just here getting money, you know how it is,” James testified.
“I know what it is,” Knight responded.
The two men shook hands, and parted ways.
But as James and Butler were placing their order inside Mel’s, they saw someone pass a gun to Knight — and saw four SUVs drive into position at different corners of the parking lot, James testified.
“We gotta’ fucking go,” Butler said, and they sped back to Combs’ home, James testified.
Knight, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence in connection to a fatal 2015 hit-and-run, has recently commented on Combs’ criminal case in interviews. An attorney for Knight did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Outside of Combs’ home that early morning, James told jurors he saw Combs arguing with Ventura.
“She was telling him not to go. She was very upset,” James said of Ventura.
Ventura said there was a ‘freak-off’ right before the incident
In her testimony last week about the situation, Ventura said that she had been involved in one of Combs’ “freak off” sex performances at the time.
“I just remember we were kind of, like, just chilling at this point and D-Roc came in and he said that Suge was down at Mel’s diner, which was just right down the hill,” Ventura had testified. “And they quickly packed up and drove down there.”
Ventura said she got upset.
“I was crying. I was screaming, like, please don’t do anything stupid. I just was really nervous for them,” Ventura testified. “I didn’t know what it meant, what they were going to do.”
Ventura testified that Combs and the other men put on black clothes, covered up their heads, went into a safe, and grabbed guns.
“And next thing I knew, they were in the SUV,” she said.
They returned to the house in about half an hour, Ventura testified.
Prosecutors say that for two decades, Combs led a “criminal enterprise” that involved the sex trafficking of Ventura and another woman. Combs is accused of coercing those women, plus two additional women, into sex through a pattern of threats, manipulation, and violence.
Combs and his associates also committed other crimes, including forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, drug offenses, and obstruction of justice, prosecutors allege.
If convicted on the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him, Combs could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
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