Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who’s awaiting trial after being charged with intercourse trafficking and racketeering, was denied bail for a 3rd time on Wednesday.
Final Friday, Combs appeared earlier than a federal choose in Manhattan to request bail on a $50 million bundle proposed by his attorneys. The small print of the bail bundle included situations that the hip-hop mogul would stay below 24-hour surveillance, not have a cellphone and stay within the state of New York forward of the trial. Combs has been held in a Brooklyn jail since September, the place he awaits a trial scheduled to start in Might 2025. He’ll spend the Thanksgiving vacation in jail.
In September, Combs pleaded not responsible on all expenses and he has repeatedly denied, through his attorneys, that he has ever trafficked, drugged or assaulted anybody.
Earlier this month, Combs’ protection staff, led by Marc Agnifilo, in contrast his case to that of former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries, who was arrested in October in relation to a intercourse trafficking investigation and was launched on a bail bundle that included a secured $10 million bond and residential detention with digital monitoring.
In a letter filed to Decide Arun Subramanian earlier than Friday’s listening to, the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace said that apart from the high-profile visibility of the defendants and the intercourse trafficking expenses, Combs’ case is completely different from Jeffries’ for a number of causes that embody Combs’ “repeated acts of violence” and “acts of obstruction” that they allege he continues to have interaction in by utilizing different inmates’ cellphone privileges to try to contact witnesses. Prosecutors additionally pointed to surveillance footage revealed by CNN that depicted Combs beating and kicking his then-girlfriend Casandra Ventura in a Los Angeles resort in 2016 as proof that Combs might behave violently if launched.
Protection attorneys for Combs asserted that the surveillance video of their consumer assaulting Ventura doesn’t depict trafficking, however quite a home dispute. “It is our protection to those expenses that this was a poisonous, loving 11-year relationship,” Agnifilo said. As a part of their plea for bail, Combs’ attorneys claimed that the federal government submitted a doctored model of the surveillance footage to the choose.
The protection additionally argued that personal notes from Combs’ jail cell had been unlawfully seized to attempt to maintain him behind bars. The prosecutors argued that these notes present that Combs had been making an attempt to coordinate a social media marketing campaign with folks, together with his grownup sons, so as to sway public opinion forward of the trial.