Diddy prosecutors deny leaking Cassie assault video

Prosecutors are vigorously denying Sean Combs’ claims that they leaked a stunning video showing him brutally beating his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in a hotel hallway in March 2016. In a lengthy rebuke filed late Wednesday, prosecutors said the copy of the surveillance video was still the same one they downloaded from a CNN broadcast breaking the news last May. In more than 39 pages of arguments, they said Combs’ three recent motions seeking to exclude the video from the upcoming trial, gain early access to a list of names of prosecution victims and seek gag orders against witnesses and their lawyers should be denied. .

Combs, 54, was arrested Sept. 16 on federal charges and is in federal custody in Brooklyn awaiting trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. The billionaire former founder of Bad Boy Entertainment has pleaded not guilty. His trial in midtown Manhattan is scheduled for May 5, 2025.

“All three of Defendant’s motions should be denied in their entirety,” prosecutors wrote, saying Combs’ motion for an evidentiary hearing and “suppression” of Ventura’s video at trial “should be denied.” They said the video was not protected material when CNN obtained it, and readily acknowledged that their own attempts to obtain the video had failed. They said that as of Wednesday they had still “not received CNN’s intercontinental video feed from any source other than the public broadcast.”

“As the defendant knows, the video was not in the government’s possession at the time of CNN’s publication, and the government never, at any stage, obtained the video through the grand jury process,” prosecutors for the Southern District of New York said. York wrote.

“The defendant refuses to admit that several individuals other than government agents…
including some of (Combs’) employees may have had access to intercontinental video,” they continued. “Indeed, the government continues to investigate who had access to and was able to obtain video, including, for example, hotel employees, a security team hired by the hotel, and members of defendant’s staff who, as discussed on the record, attempted to obtain video surveillance following the March 2016 incident. ”

As for Combs’ request to name the victims through a so-called “indictment,” a written listing of the claims in the lawsuit, prosecutors said it was too early. “Here, all discovery will be made by December 31, 2024, more than four months before trial, and government programs deliberately prioritize items such as search warrant affidavits that contextualize the charges in the indictment, as well as other materials requested defendant.” They said if Combs later argued he didn’t have enough time to prepare for trial, “appropriate relief” would be to ask for a delay to the May trial he specifically asked for. “Given the defendant’s history, the government has serious concerns about the safety of victims and the potential for witness tampering if the defendant is provided with a list of victims’ names,” they said.

They said Combs’ third motion asking for a witness suppression should also be denied as “grossly undue relief.” They described it as “nothing more than another attempt to force the government to prematurely release its witness list.”

Combs’ camp did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the government’s statement. When his lawyers filed a motion earlier this month seeking to name the victims, they said prosecutors were “unfairly” forcing Combs to “play a guessing game” while he prepared his defense. They said Combs’ 14-page indictment lacked “specificity” to the point that they could not determine who the other unidentified alleged victims were – at least beyond the main victim, whom many believed to be Ventura.

“The government is unfairly forcing (Combs) into a guessing game,” attorneys Mark Agnifilo and Teni Geragos wrote. “Without clarity from the government, Mr. Combs has no way of knowing which charges the government is relying on in filing its indictment.” The lawyers said Combs’ situation “has been made even more difficult by the onslaught of unfounded allegations that desperate plaintiffs are making against him – mostly anonymously – in civil suits designed to exact bribes from Combs and others.”

A preliminary hearing in the criminal case is scheduled for December 18. The indictment accuses Combs of “abusing, threatening and coercing” numerous unidentified victims to “gratify their sexual desires.” Prosecutors alleged that Combs engaged in “persistent and widespread abuse,” but they were very vague about dates and details regarding people other than Ventura, who were not named.

Talking to Rolling Stone Last month, Elizabeth Geddes, the former federal prosecutor who delivered closing arguments in the successful prosecution of R. Kelly in Brooklyn, described Combs’ racketeering indictment as following the “Glacier format,” a simplified style named after the famous case. , United States v. Glacier. According to her, this format gives more protection to witnesses. “By operating this way, they don’t have to list every single predicate racketeering they plan to prove in court. They may simply list broad categories of crimes (without mentioning specific cases or specific victims), Geddes said.

In addition to the criminal case, Combs also faces more than two dozen lawsuits filed by plaintiffs making allegations ranging from sexual assault to rape. The flood of civil lawsuits began when Ventura filed a graphic sex trafficking complaint last November. Combs agreed with Ventura to pay an undisclosed sum within 24 hours, but her 35-page complaint, which has now become the basis of the criminal prosecution of the music mogul, opened the floodgates. Combs’ home was raided in March, and in May CNN obtained and published harrowing hotel surveillance video of Combs throwing, kicking, stomping and dragging Ventura in the hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles. After initially denying Ventura’s claims against him, Combs released a video apology regarding the incident, admitting that his “conduct in that video was inexcusable.”