Sean “Diddy” Combs and federal prosecutors are locked in a pre-trial battle over a crucial question: Whether jurors can hear testimony from numerous other accusers beyond the four women at the core of the government’s case.
In dueling court filings Monday, attorneys for the two sides exchanged heated arguments over the prosecution’s plan to call witnesses that it identifies as “non-statutory victims” – women who say they were sexually assaulted by Combs but whose claims don’t form the basis for the actual charges.
Diddy’s lawyers say the feds are trying to “pollute the trial with decades of dirt” by adding last-minute “incendiary” claims to paint him as a “bad guy”; prosecutors say Combs is “desperately” trying to keep relevant testimony about his other intent and knowledge “hidden from the jury.”
“That testimony powerfully establishes that the defendant made no mistake when he coerced other victims into unwanted sex,” the government wrote in its filing Monday. “It proves that the defendant intended to take the sexual gratification he wanted, regardless of consent.”
Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation that aimed to “fulfill his sexual desires.” The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.
A trial is currently set to start on May 5. If convicted on all of the charges, which include sex trafficking and racketeering, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
The actual criminal counts against Diddy center on four alleged victims, identified in court documents as Victim-1, Victim-2, Victim-3, and Victim-4. While Victim-1 is known to be Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, the identities of the others are unknown and prosecutors are seeking to keep it that way.
On Monday, attorneys for Combs lodged a scathing filing claiming the government had “suddenly” moved to add new accusations from other alleged victims beyond those four women. They claimed the “incendiary” new claims of sexual assault were “substantially more serious” than the actual sex trafficking and racketeering allegations – and would “make it impossible for Mr. Combs to receive a fair trial.”
“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,” his lawyers wrote.
Diddy’s lawyers say such testimony would not only “double the length of a trial,” but is improper “character evidence” – material not directly linked to the alleged wrongdoing that’s designed to convince jurors that a defendant could have committed the crime.
“This tactic cannot be allowed to succeed,” Combs’ lawyers wrote in their filing. “If the government’s evidence were allowed, it would mark one of the worst abuses of the character evidence rule in the history of American law.”
Later on Monday, prosecutors fired back to defend their plan, arguing that Combs himself had opened the door to such testimony by planning to argue that the alleged victims had consensually partaken in the “freak offs” and other sexual activity. They say testimony about other numerous other assaults will clearly disprove such a defense strategy.
“When the defendant inevitably argues at trial that he had no clue these four women did not want the sexual experiences that he demanded, the government should be able to point out that someone as practiced as he is in sexual assault surely recognized the signs of non-consent,” prosecutors wrote. “And when the defendant claims that he only ever intended to have consensual, loving sexual experiences with the [charged] victims, the government should be able to point out his repeated intent to sexually gratify himself with unwilling participants.”
Neither side disclosed in court filings who the new alleged victims are, or how many of them the government plans to call as witnesses. But Combs’ lawyers said that “all but one of the alleged incidents happened over twenty years ago” and that the new accusations “implicate dozens of unidentified witnesses and alleged co-conspirators around the world.”
