Sean “Diddy” Combs is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court Thursday for a pretrial conference in his sex trafficking and racketeering case as he works to get out of prison and stand trial by next spring.
Combs’ lawyers are expected to ask a judge to set a trial date for next April or May and expand on their allegations that the government leaked explosive and widely viewed video surveillance footage showing him assaulting Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, his former partner, with whom he ultimately settled a lawsuit for $30 million.
In documents filed Wednesday, Combs’ lawyers accused the Department of Homeland Security of being behind the leak to CNN, drawing on the defense playbook of Mayor Adams, who last week accused federal prosecutors of leaking grand jury information to the press in his murder case corruption.
“We are not claiming that the leaks were orchestrated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Rather, we contend that the false media statements and grand jury leaks denounced below were planned and executed by DHS,” Combs’ attorneys wrote in their Wednesday evening motion for an evidentiary hearing.
“The reason a hearing is necessary is to determine exactly what DHS did and did not do regarding these leaks, and what the U.S. Attorney’s Office did and did not do to stop them,” they declared.
Following his arrest on September 16Combs is behind bars at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center. In written arguments this week before the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals, his attorneys challenged a judge’s decision to incarcerate him before trial based on the prosecution’s witness tampering allegations. The music mogul proposed pay 50 million dollars required to remain under house arrest in his Florida mansion.
Combs, 54, potentially faces decades in prison if convicted of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation for prostitution. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan says he ran a massive criminal enterprise from 2008 until last year, in which he forced women to participate in highly orchestrated “freak offs” with male sex workers, often under the influence of sedative drugs to keep them “obedient”. and compliant.
Combs has pleaded not guilty and maintains that participants in the violent and debauched sexual performances he allegedly directed and recorded gave consent.
Authorities say victims sometimes suffered injuries so severe that they were forced to hide for weeks and were hooked up to IV bags after “freakouts” due to physical exertion and consumption of drugs. drugs involved.
The founder of Bad Boy Records allegedly relied on his employees to facilitate the abuse, and several of them were allegedly involved in his sex trafficking, as well as forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, according to the indictment.
Federal authorities are expected to shed light on the evidence disclosed at Thursday’s hearing, which they say is “voluminous, totaling several terabytes of electronic material,” and set a timetable for when they will turn it all over to Combs’ defense .
