Jurors at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ upcoming intercourse trafficking and racketeering trial will see a safety video displaying him assaulting his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura at a Los Angeles lodge in 2016, a federal judge dominated Friday.
Also throughout the listening to, protection attorneys appeared to recommend they’d defend Combs by arguing his way of life as a swinger was not prison.
And Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser disclosed that the federal government provided Combs a plea deal, however he rejected it. Smyser didn’t present particulars in regards to the provide.
In a setback for Combs’ authorized staff, U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian mentioned the video, first broadcast by NCS final yr, was admissible as proof. The protection had sought to exclude it from proof in a movement filed this month, arguing the video “is wholly inaccurate, having been altered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited to be out of sequence” — claims NCS has forcefully denied.
Prosecutors have mentioned the video is a vital piece of proof and denied it was misleading.
Combs’ attorneys have additionally accused NCS of destroying the unique footage that confirmed Combs, carrying solely a white towel, beating, kicking and dragging Ventura at the lodge. The video additionally confirmed him throwing a vase in her path.
In an announcement final month, NCS mentioned it had “never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source.”
Ventura, who was as soon as signed to Combs’ document label as Cassie, sued him in 2023 over what she mentioned was years of sexual, bodily and emotional abuse. They rapidly settled, and an lawyer for Combs mentioned it was not an admission of wrongdoing. After NCS aired the video in May, Combs publicly apologized and mentioned “he took full responsibility” for his actions.
“I was disgusted then when I did it,” Combs mentioned in a video assertion. “I’m disgusted now.”
Ventura described the lodge assault in her lawsuit. The video was half of the federal government’s argument as to why Combs should be denied bail. Combs has been detained at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his arrest in September.
Combs appeared in a jail uniform throughout the listening to Friday in Manhattan federal courtroom. Prosecutors allege Combs ran a prison enterprise that engaged in intercourse trafficking, kidnapping and arson, amongst different crimes.
Prosecutors have mentioned the 2016 surveillance video confirmed Combs attempting to tug Ventura again to a lodge room the place a “freak off” was occurring.
Combs’ five-count indictment, which accuses him of intercourse trafficking, racketeering and transportation to interact in prostitution, describes freak offs as elaborate intercourse performances that Combs allegedly “arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.”
They “occurred regularly, sometimes lasted multiple days, and often involved multiple commercial sex workers,” in accordance with the indictment.
When federal brokers raided Combs’ properties in Los Angeles and Miami Beach final yr, they seized varied freak off provides, together with narcotics and greater than 1,000 bottles of child oil and lubricant, in addition to digital gadgets that contained photographs and movies of the freak offs with a number of victims, in accordance with the indictment.
Combs’ authorized staff has mentioned the encounters have been consensual.
Smyser mentioned jurors would see some of the freak off movies and requested the courtroom to point out them solely to the jury and attorneys and that no audio be made public. She mentioned the movies will present victims, escorts and generally Combs.
Subramanian additionally dominated that Dr. Dawn Hughes, a clinical psychologist whose testimony Combs’ legal team had sought to block, can not testify about coercive management however can inform jurors about coping methods, delayed disclosure and reminiscence, and why victims keep in relationships.
Subramanian mentioned the protection may even have an skilled testify as a rebuttal witness to Hughes in a restricted context.
“The jury can understand what abuse and violence is, and it doesn’t need Dr. Hughes to explain an umbrella term of interpersonal violence or to expound at length about different types of abusive conduct as a precursor to offering opinions that the Court has permitted,” Subramanian mentioned.
Marc Agnifilo, one of Combs’ attorneys, argued that prosecutors wish to preclude the protection from saying that Combs’ actions have been half of a life-style.
“What I think we absolutely can say, and have to say, is that it’s relevant to the defendant’s intent that there’s a lifestyle — call it swingers, call it whatever you will — that he was in that he might have thought was appropriate,” Agnifilo mentioned. “And part of why he would have thought that was appropriate is the same reason many people think it’s appropriate. And part of the reason people think it’s appropriate is because it’s common.”