Main: Hotel video from 2016 shows Diddy abusing ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura (CNN/YouTube). Right inset: Sean P. Diddy Combs at the premiere of Lawless held on August 22, 2012 at the ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California (zz/RE/Westcom/STAR MAX/IPx).
After defense lawyers for rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs raised claims that the government leaked to CNN a damning video of him beating his ex-girlfriend, federal prosecutors in New York told the judge that there was no merit to the allegation that grand jury information was compromised.
Early on Wednesday, as the government shed light on “voluminous” discovery in the RICO and sex trafficking case, the defense revealed it would demand a hearing on alleged “unauthorized and prejudicial leaks of grand jury information.”
Later in the same day, a memorandum from defense attorney Marc Agnifilo claimed that the government was “most likely” CNN’s “source.”
“In the midst of this seven-month campaign to impugn Mr. Combs’s reputation before trial, on Friday, May 17, 2024, a 2016 videotape from the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles was leaked to CNN. By far the most likely source of the leak is the government. That is true for several reasons,” the filing began.
For the defense, Ventura was “not a likely source of the leak” and neither was “an unrelated third party.”
“If a person not in law enforcement were to leak the videotape to a news source, that person likely would have sold the tape rather than simply give it to CNN. Outlets such as TMZ are known to pay tens of thousands of dollars for such footage,” the memo said. “That it was leaked instead to CNN shows a motive other than financial profit. It shows a motive to damage Mr. Combs’ reputation without remuneration—a motive held by federal agents.”
Most eye-popping of all, Agnifilo attempted to make the case that the tape was timed to leak on May 17 because former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan was on pause for that day as he attended son Barron Trump’s high school graduation — making it “a slow news day” and a “perfect time” for the abuse video to come out and “mortally wound the reputation and the prospect of Sean Combs successfully defending himself against these allegations”:
Fourth, the timing of the leak suggests government involvement. The tape was leaked on one of the few days the Trump trial was not being held as Barron Trump, Donald Trump’s youngest son, graduated that day from High School in Florida with his father in attendance. One of the more contentious issues in the Trump trial was whether trial would be stayed so Trump could attend his son’s graduation. Eventually, the court announced that May 17 would not be a trial day. This was a fact that would have been known to federal agents—and they also would have known that May 17 was thus a perfect time, as it was a slow news day given the break in the Trump trial.
That wasn’t the last Trump reference in the filing. When discussing potential remedies for the alleged “government misconduct,” the defense suggested that U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian could issue a gag order [emphasis ours]:
Moreover, this Court has authority to impose a gag order—that is, an order prohibiting “extrajudicial statements by any lawyer, party, witness, or court official which divulged prejudicial matters.” Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 361 (1966); accord Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada, 501 U.S. 1030, 1072-76 (1991). Courts have an “ongoing obligation to ensure that speech about a criminal case” does not prejudice the proceedings. United States v. Trump, 88 F.4th 990, 1004 (D.C. Cir. 2023). And while court have only limited authority to limit the speech of the press, they have much broader authority to police attorneys and other trial participants.
The overall defense strategy here in calling for an evidentiary hearing is geared towards keeping the video out of evidence and undermining the whole indictment.
“[A]fter the evidentiary hearing, and the extent and nature of the misconduct has been clarified, Mr. Combs will submit requests for any additional appropriate remedies, including disqualification of witnesses, suppression of evidence including the 2016 video, or dismissal of all charges in the indictment,” the memo concluded.
Prosecutors responded later Wednesday that the defense’s theories were “false and misleading” and “absurdly” claimed that the Department of Homeland Security “covertly possessed the video before CNN published it, and then ‘leaked’ it to CNN but never gave it to the prosecutors assigned to the matter.”
“[A]s the Government made clear to the defense both orally and in writing before it filed the motion, the Government was not in possession of the video before its publication by CNN,” prosecutors said. “Indeed, at the time of CNN’s publication, the Government did not possess any video of the March 2016 incident. Moreover, the Government also informed the defense that the Government never obtained the CNN video—at any point, then or now—through Grand Jury process, and DHS is without power to unilaterally obtain the video via Grand Jury process. The Government likewise does not understand DHS to have been in possession of the video prior to CNN’s publication of it.”
“There is thus no colorable factual basis for the defendant’s claim that the Government leaked the video to CNN, let alone that it was leaked ‘in violation of grand jury secrecy,”” the response continued.
After the 2016 video went public in May, four months before his indictment, Diddy did not dispute what the hotel footage showed but claimed he was “disgusted” when “I did it.”
“My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video,” Diddy said in a video he posted on social media. “I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
From there, Diddy said that he “sought out professional help” and “got into going to therapy, going to rehab.”
“I had to ask God for his mercy and grace,” he said, before offering an apology. “I’m so sorry. But I’m committed to be a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.”
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