1 week Ago By Kevin Dolak
Prosecutors in New York building a case against Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ahead of his sex trafficking and racketeering trial asked the court to introduce evidence from the rap mogul’s past that they insist is relevant to the testimony slated from their four key witnesses, but the defense team is crying foul, claiming such a “horror show” would paint him in an unfair light to the jury. On Monday, federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York revealed in a filing that they believe that testimony regarding the “sexual abuse of other victims” by Combs over the past several years should be admitted and heard by the jurors to stand in contrast to the hip-hop star’s assertion that the relationships he shared with the women victims were consensual. “[The newly introduced testimony] powerfully establishes that the defendant made no mistake when he coerced other victims into unwanted sex,” prosecutors wrote in their filing this week.
“It proves that the defendant intended to take the sexual gratification he wanted, regardless of consent.” Which specific instances and sexual encounters the prosecutors are seeking to include in their case against Combs is unclear, and much of the details in the lengthy indictment of the mogul have been redacted. However, many of the accusations are similar to those in the multiple civil lawsuit filed against the fallen music industry icon since he was sued by his ex, Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, in late 2023.
Ventura, it was revealed late last week, will testify under her name and not be anonymous as the first of four witnesses in Combs’ federal trial, set to begin May 5. Combs faces five counts on three charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pled not guilty to all charges and is awaiting his trial in a Brooklyn jail.
The civil cases against Combs run the gamut from some credible allegations to other cases that have already been dismissed by the court, including one by a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted by Combs and rap star Jay-Z at the former’s home in 2000 after the MTV Video Music Awards. That now-dismissed case was brought by Texas attorney Anthony Busbee, who has taken on several of Combs’ accusers despite not having filed paperwork to be admitted as an attorney in New York’s courts. Team Combs is arguing that the new testimony stay out of the trial, refuting the prosecutors’ notion that who they are calling “prior bad act” witnesses paint an accurate picture of him.
They are arguing that including this testimony constitutes allowing evidence that invites a conviction and serves no other purpose than to bring jurors through a “horror show” led by the government. “These are entirely new, untested, uncorroborated, and uninvestigated allegations,” the filing states. “All but one of the alleged incidents happened over 20 years ago, with the oldest dating to the 1980s.
Some of the allegations are demonstrably false but would nonetheless require an enormous amount of trial time to disprove.” Prosecutors argued that the four witnesses tied to their indictment of Combs are set to deliver testimony that will also be discussing from the stand “years’ worth of beatings, drug-fueled coercive sex marathons, and multiple rapes.” Defense attorneys have requested a preliminary hearing on the matter ahead of the early May trial.
The defense also stated that prosecutors are withholding a list of names of individuals who make up this testimony until April 18 — a mere two weeks ahead of the trial. “The allegations implicate dozens of unidentified witnesses and alleged co-conspirators around the world — and some of the key witnesses to the supposed incidents are dead,” Combs’ defense attorneys wrote. “Collectively, these new allegations require many months if not years to investigate, and if admitted, would require a series of mini-trials certain to double the length of a trial the government originally said would last ‘three weeks.
’” The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Combs’ legal team for further comment on the matter on Tuesday, but did not immediately hear back. Last week, prosecutors filed a third superseding indictmen t that added two more charges. The indictment now accuses the rap mogul of one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution related to the woman set to testify as “Victim 2.
” “The government should not be permitted to pollute the trial with decades of dirt and invite a conviction based on propensity evidence with no proper purpose by painting Mr. Combs as a bad guy who must have committed the charged crimes,” Combs’ lawyers wrote..
