The jurors of the next trial of sex trafficking and racketeering of Sean “Diddy” Hepbs will see a security video showing him his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura in a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016, tried a federal judge on Friday.
In addition, during the hearing, the defense lawyers seemed to suggest that they would defend Combs by arguing that his lifestyle as a scum was not criminal.
And American deputy lawyer Madison Smyser revealed that the government offered Combs a advocacy agreement, but he rejected it. Smyser did not provide details on the offer.
In a setback for the Combs legal team, the judge of the American district court Arun Subramanian said that the video, issued by CNN last year, was eligible as proof. The defense had sought to exclude evidence in a request filed this month, arguing that the video “is completely inaccurate, having been modified, manipulated, accelerated and edited to be out of the sequence” – says that CNN denied forcefully.
The prosecutors said that video is a critical evidence and denied that it was misleading.
Combat lawyers also accused CNN of destroying the original images that showed Combs, having only a white towel, beating, cutting and dragging Ventura to the hotel. The video also showed him throwing a vase in his direction.
In a statement last month, CNN said that he had “never changed the video and had not destroyed the original copy of the images, which was kept by the source”.
Ventura, which was signed once in the Combres record company as Cassie, continued it in 2023 for what she said years of sexual, physical and emotional violence. They quickly settled and a combat lawyer said it was not an admission of reprehensible acts. After CNN broadcast the video in May, Combs apologized publicly and declared “he took full responsibility” for his actions.
“I was disgusted so when I did it,” said Combs in a statement. “I’m disgusted now.”
Ventura described the hotel’s assault in his trial. The video was part of the government’s argument on the reasons why Combs had to be denied release on bail. Combs has been detained in a Federal Brooklyn prison since its arrest in September.
Combs appeared in a prison uniform at the hearing Friday before the Manhattan Federal Court. Prosecutors allege that Combs directed a criminal business that has engaged in sexual traffic, kidnapping and criminal fire, among other crimes.
The prosecutors said that the 2016 surveillance video showed that Combs trying to bring Ventura back to a hotel room where a “panic” occurred.
The accusation act with five counts of Combs, which accuses him of sexual traffic, racketeering and transport to engage in prostitution, describes “Flices” as elaborate sexual performance that Combres would have “arranged, directed, masturbated for and often recorded electronically”.
They “occurred regularly, sometimes lasted several days and often involved several commercial sex workers,” according to the indictment.
When the federal agents made a descent into the Combes houses in Los Angeles and Miami Beach last year, they seized various supplied supplies, including narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, as well as electronic devices that contained images and videos of monster bumps with several victims, in accordance with the act of access.
The Combs legal team said the meetings were consensual.
Smyser said that the jurors would see some of the Freak off videos and asked the court to show them only to the jury And lawyers and that no audio will be made public. She said that the videos will show victims, escorts and sometimes combs.
Subramanian also ruled that Dr. Dawn Hughes, a clinical psychologist whose Combs Combres legal team had sought to block, cannot testify about coercive control but can inform jurors of adaptation strategies, delayed disclosure, memories and why people remain in relations.
Subramanian said the defense could also show an expert as a Hughes refutation witness in a limited context.
“Juries can understand what abuse and violence is, and they don’t need Dr. Hughes for that,” said Subramanian.
Marc Agnifilo, one of the combat lawyers, argued that the prosecutors wanted to prevent the defense from saying that combat actions were part of a lifestyle.
“We are not saying that it is a selective prosecution,” said Agnifilo. “There is a lifestyle, call it swingers, or whatever you want, that it thought appropriate, because it is common.”
