A lawyer for Sean “Diddy” Combs protested the rising tide of secrecy on the hip-hop icon’s federal intercourse trafficking and racketeering trial on Thursday after Combs and the general public have been excluded from prolonged arguments over whether or not one other well-known rapper’s title may very well be disclosed.
Protection legal professional Marc Agnifilo complained to Choose Arun Subramanian after Combs was neglected of an hour-long assembly in a non-public room exterior the courtroom the place attorneys and the choose mentioned a resort room “event” in January 2024.
That assembly added a two-hour delay to the beginning of the sixth and closing day of testimony from a girl recognized in court docket solely by the pseudonym “Jane,” who dated Combs from 2001 till his arrest final September.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not responsible to prices that carry a possible jail sentence of 15 years to life in jail if he’s convicted. Prosecutors say he used his fame, fortune, violence and threats to govern girlfriends into intercourse with paid intercourse staff in multi-day occasions that they later mentioned they regretted.
Protection attorneys say the federal government is attempting to prosecute consensual intercourse between adults.
Below cross-examination, Jane testified Thursday that she flew to Las Vegas in January 2023 with a well-known rapper and his girlfriend.
Protection legal professional Teny Geragos didn’t determine the rapper however requested Jane if he was somebody who had recorded with Combs, “an individual at the top of the music industry as well … an icon in the music industry.” She additionally requested if Combs and the rapper have been “really close to one another.”
“Yes,” Jane replied to every query.
As soon as in Las Vegas, Jane testified, she went with a gaggle together with the rapper to dinner, a strip membership after which a resort room social gathering, the place a intercourse employee had intercourse with a girl whereas a half-dozen others within the room watched.
She mentioned there was dancing within the room and the rapper mentioned, “hey beautiful,” and advised her that he’d all the time wished to have intercourse along with her. Jane mentioned she did not recall precisely when she did it, however mentioned she flashed her breasts within the room as she danced.
The testimony got here quickly after the closed-door session Thursday, when attorneys mentioned what information may very well be disclosed concerning the resort room encounter.
Agnifilo mentioned the necessity for a public trial was “an important issue, a constitutional issue” and objected to a lot taking place out of the earshot of his shopper.
In response, the choose provided extra secrecy, saying “If your client wishes to be heard … we can clear this courtroom if need be to address it.”
Agnifilo turned down the supply.
“Part of the reason trials are fully public is so if other people realize they know something about an event discussed in a public courtroom, they can come forward and share their recollection of it,” the lawyer mentioned, including: “That is kind of the practical side of the constitutional right to a public trial.”
A monitor that’s used to point out displays to spectators has been shut off all through Jane’s testimony, though attorneys, the choose, Combs and jurors can view them. Some sidebar conversations between attorneys and the choose through the testimony have been sealed.
The choose additionally has banned the general public from viewing any displays containing sexual content material, despite the fact that the protection has mentioned photographs from the group intercourse episodes proves they have been consensual acts between adults, and never proof of crimes.
And lots of the letters to the choose from attorneys every day are filed beneath seal, stopping the general public from rapidly figuring out, as an illustration, the grounds beneath which prosecutors are attempting to get a Black juror ejected from the jury in mid-trial. The choose has mentioned he’ll rule on the request on Friday.
Protection legal professional Alexandra Shapiro has known as the prosecution’s effort a “thinly veiled effort to dismiss a Black juror.”
Jane and Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who testified for 4 days within the trial’s first week about her relationship with Combs from 2007 by way of 2018, each mentioned they participated within the intercourse marathons for years, with Cassie calling them “freak-off” nights and Jane referring to them as “hotel nights.”
Agnifilo mentioned the protection consented to Jane testifying with a pseudonym however didn’t consent to different occasions associated to her testimony and the testimony of different witnesses not being public.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Maureen Comey attacked Agnifilo’s rationale for disclosing extra data publicly with the chance that it might be simpler for somebody to guess Jane’s identification, saying it was an “attempt to harass and intimidate this witness.”
