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The outgoing U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York warned a federal judge today to beware of bail efforts for Sean “Diddy” Combs, as the Bad Boy Records founder has an ongoing “history of obstructive conduct” and has “physically abused his personal staff.”
The ‘All About the Benjamins’ performer is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. The 55-year-old Grammy winner entered a not guilty plea when first arrested a couple of months ago. Facing a flood of civil suits filed almost every day over the years of his celebrity-attended, drug-enhanced and videotaped “freak offs,” Combs is looking at life in prison if found guilty in this crimimal case’s a trial set to start on May 5.
In fact, citing the September 16 arrested and currently incarcerated Combs for “his decades-long pattern of violence,” Damian William’s office drew a portrait Monday of the dependent for Judge Arun Subramanian that is far more vivid than almost anything we heard from the circumspect U.S. Attorney so far.
Over the years, the defendant’s physical and sexual abuse has taken many forms, often in the context of long-term romantic relationships. Throughout, there was a common theme: the defendant repeatedly and consistently forced and coerced women to satisfy his sexual desires. Often behind closed doors, the defendant engaged in acts of violence against women, including throwing them to the ground, dragging them by their hair, kicking, shoving, punching, and slapping them. He manipulated, coerced, and extorted women, including by plying them with drugs, threatening to withhold financial support, and threatening to disseminate sex tapes that the defendant had made of their sexual encounters. He intimated women, including by displaying firearms, threatening them, showing up at their homes unannounced, and attempting to beat down the door—on one occasion with a hammer. Beyond his romantic partners, the defendant also physically abused his personal staff. Former staff members have described the defendant threatening to kill them, throwing objects at them, and being struck, punched, and shoved by the defendant, and seeing him do the same to others.
This significant history of violence must be taken into account when viewing the defendant obstructive activity. Taken together, there can be no doubt that the Government has proven the defendant’s dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence.
After a sometimes-rough going hearing at NYC’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse on November 22 on the third attempt by Combs’ lawyers to get him sprung from with a $50 million bail package, the judge told all parties he wanted “further submissions” by 9 am PT Monday before making a decision.
With the conflicting accounts of what really went down in an alleged pre-planned raid a few week ago on Combs’ cell at the hardcore Metropolitan Detention Center, the ruling from Judge Subramanian on whether or not Combs could get bail and end up under 24/7 security surveillance in a three-bedroom Upper East Side apartment is expected any time before Thanksgiving.
Though the defense has an inclination to link itself to some of Donald Trump’s more recent legal battle, today they are very much planting a flag of family and free speech for their client.
“For months and months, government agents, plaintiffs’ attorneys, and others with questionable motives have been polluting the airwaves with false and outrageous claims about Mr. Combs,” the eight-page correspondence signed by attorneys Alexandria Shapiro, Mark Agnifilo and Teny Geragos exclaims.
“This nonstop drumbeat of negative publicity has destroyed his reputation and will make it virtually impossible for him to receive a fair trial. Mr. Combs is not required to sit idly by and acquiesce to all of this. He has a right to a fair trial and a constitutional right to speak out on his own behalf,” they add in terms used before in previous filings. “The government’s arguments that asking his children to post birthday wishes on Instagram and that he is not entitled to publicly express his opinion that this prosecution is racially motivated are, quite simply, an unconstitutional effort to silence him.”
The defense says: “The government is essentially arguing for a standard in which the entire Press community—and civil plaintiffs and the government itself—can wage war against Mr. Combs’ reputation but Mr. Combs can’t even try to influence public opinion himself in response. That is simply not the law.”
Filing after the defense this morning, the slightly redacted document from Williams, who soon to be replaced by Trump appointee Jay Clayton, for the most part sidesteps Constitutional issues and rips the Agnifilo and Geragos-led defense for the lack of “meaningful guardrails” in place in this latest swing at bail for Combs.
The SDNY USAO also hit hard at “defense counsel’s blasé attitude toward breaking these rules while simultaneously asking this Court to release their client.” They added this “does not give the Government any confidence that counsel will be able to police the defendant’s conduct with any rigor.” And, with what would be called a hard kick in any bar fight went on to say: “Indeed, contrary to representations by counsel just days ago, the defendant has continued to engage in unauthorized communications with family members from the MDC by using another inmate’s ContactMeASAP account as recently as yesterday.”
While a bit more inside baseball than the other comments the U.S. Attorney’s office made in their 13-page letter Monday, the prosecution’s assertion of the shell game being played by the defense may prove the most damning in any bail determination.
“After defense counsel represented unequivocally at the prior bail hearing before Judge Carter that the defendant would not reach out to grand jury witnesses, it became clear that the defendant had done just that: phone records and electronic evidence shows that the defendant contacted Witness-1 repeatedly leading up to and after his appearance in the grand jury, and then the defendant apparently deleted the messages from his phone,” they stated, with reference to Combs’ ex-long time girlfriend Cassie Venture (AKA Witness-1), who sued him for abuse and rape in a short live suit last year that was settled in 24 hours for around $30 million.
“Finally, it cannot be ignored that the defendant’s proclivity for obstruction appears to have continued as recently as last week in court, when it appeared that the defendant provided falsified documents to the Court during a hearing convened to address his accusations of Government misconduct,” the feds added of Combs accusation that documents and notes labelled “legal” had been improperly taken and photographed by MSC staff during the raid on his cell and locker.
Splaying egg all over the face of the defense, it turned out a number of those pages didn’t not actually have the term “legal” on them on the original documents — a fact that out and out pissed off Judge Subramanian last week.
Acknowledging the error, as it were, of papers not labelled “legal” and then suddenly labelled “legal” in the November 22 hearing, the defense were noticeably silent on the issue today as well as the more specific matters of obstruction the government have raised.
However, in a second filing after court hours Monday, the defense did say: “Mr. Combs objects to the government’s submission to the extent it goes beyond responding to the Court’s specific question, and requests that the Court not consider any new or repetitive information in the government’s letter.”
All of which is saying, we plan to try to again if you deny us bail this time.
