Taking a look at life behind bars if discovered responsible on fees of intercourse trafficking and extra, Sean “Diddy” Combs and his attorneys are actually occurring the offensive towards the Division of Homeland Security.
In a dangerous tactic, Combs’ protection are accusing DHS brokers of leaking grand jury data and orchestrating a smear marketing campaign towards the “It’s All Concerning the Benjamins” performer. Because the bail denied Combs stews within the raucous Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn, his Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos staff are demanding an pivotal listening to in entrance of Choose Arun Subramanian ASAP over the alleged DHS “misconduct.”
“Defendant Sean Combs strikes for 4 types of aid associated to what the protection believes was a collection of illegal authorities leaks, which have led to damaging, extremely prejudicial pre-trial publicity that may solely taint the jury pool and deprive Mr. Combs of his proper to a good trial,” declares a doubtlessly perturbing memorandum of regulation in help of movement for an Evidentiary listening to filed late Wednesday in federal court docket.
Read Sean Combs’ defense’s memorandum of law accusing DHS of misconduct here
Coming in the future after the September 16 arrested Unhealthy Boy Data founder began his enchantment for pre-trial launch with claims of the feds concealing evidence, the newly filed doc beats on a really related drum. Nonetheless, not like the Hail Mary enchantment, which saves its ire for the U.S. Lawyer’s workplace for the Southern District of New York, this submitting is nearly all concerning the DHS – virtually. In actual fact, enjoying on the same old jockeying and in-fighting amongst bureaucracies, Combs’ staff say “the rationale a listening to is required is to find out precisely what the DHS did, and didn’t do concerning these leaks, and what the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace did and didn’t do to cease them.”
Lamenting “underhanded techniques” by DHS, right now’s submitting hopes to reframe the March 25 raids by the feds on Combs’ Miami and LA homes as being “particularly designed to be public spectacles of brutality and weren’t primarily centered merely on buying potential proof.”
In that vein, the protection invoke the claims of rape, abuse and extra horrors that Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura made towards the rapper in her short-lived and rapidly settled swimsuit of November of final yr. Whereas Combs is alleged to have paid Ventura round $30 million to finish her swimsuit, he at all times denied her allegations of what went down over time they had been collectively. That facade fell fairly quick when security footage of Combs attacking and beating Ventura in the corridor of an upmarket LA hotel in 2016 hit the airwaves on CNN and elsewhere in May.
On the time, Combs apologized for his “inexcusable habits,” saying what the video confirmed “disgusted” him. Now, citing the general public airing of the eight-year-old surveillance video as “probably the most egregious instance” of presidency trial by public opinion, the protection needs a “gag order” and “suppression of any proof leaked by authorities workers.”
Looking for to maintain that brutal video away from a jury, the protection says: “The videotape was leaked to CNN for one purpose alone: to mortally wound the repute and the prospect of Sean Combs efficiently defending himself towards these allegations. Reasonably than utilizing the videotape as trial proof, alongside different proof that offers it context and that means, the brokers misused it in probably the most prejudicial and damaging method doable. The federal government knew what it had: a frankly deplorable video recording of Sean Combs in a towel hitting, kicking and dragging a lady in full view of a digicam within the hallway of the resort.”
“The potential downside for the federal government is that if an agent supplied this videotape to CNN, this might be a violation of grand jury secrecy,” Combs’ staff provides sticking within the shiv Roy Cohn type.
However right here’s the factor, it isn’t clear from right now’s submitting that the protection actually assume they’ve DHS on the run. “After the undersigned notified the federal government that we might be submitting this movement, prosecutors responded that the video broadcast by CNN was not obtained by grand jury course of and that DHS didn’t have possession of the videotape previous to CNN’s publication of it,” a footnote in Wednesday’s 17-page memo states. “Nonetheless, authorities attorneys haven’t given any indication that they’ve investigated any of the leaks associated to this case.”
To that, neither reps from SDNY US Lawyer Damian Williams workplace or DHS responded to request from Deadline on right now’s filings and the allegations that comprise. if both entity get again to us, this publish will probably be up to date.
With all this occurring and the bail enchantment course of starting, tomorrow will see Combs, his attorneys and prosecutors again in court docket for a pre-trial standing convention.
Among the many points more likely to be raised are discovery, sealing of sure proof and scheduling a trial for Combs. “Mr. Combs continues to say his proper to a speedy trial and intends to request a trial date in April or Might 2025, and as per the Court docket’s trial schedule,” Agnifilo and Geragos stated in a correspondence to Choose Subramanian.
With these new accusations by the protection, and the state of bail enchantment, that trial begin date may be too optimistic.
