Diddy sued again | Hunter Biden's LA trial delayed | Rundo's strange lawyer situation
I've got the new complaint against Diddy, the latest on Hunter Biden's Los Angeles cases and an update on Young Thug's never-ending criminal trial in Atlanta.
Another woman has sued hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs for sexual assault, and her lawyers say she still has the clothes she wore when she was attacked.
The complaint says Diddy attacked the woman after they met during a Men’s Fashion Week event in New York City in 2003.
“Following the assault, Plaintiff’s modeling opportunities quickly began to dwindle and then evaporated entirely,” according to the 15-page filing by Michelle A. Caiola and Jonathan Goldhirsch of Phillips & Associates in New York. “Upon information and belief, Combs had Plaintiff ‘blackballed’ in the industry and utilized his significant influence to impede Plaintiff’s career growth.”
You can read the complaint here.
ICYMI, I wrote about the current litigation in Diddy’s other lawsuits last week.
Anything related to Diddy continues to draw huge interest from my followers. The new lawsuit has been in the news for a day, but my tweet this afternoon still is getting tons of attention, and HotNewHipHop.com framed an entire article around it. “Now, new details of the suit highlighted by legal reporter Meghann Cuniff on Twitter/X are making their rounds online.”
Given that, I will continue to report on the legal twists and turns of all things Diddy, and I’m planning a YouTube live where I’ll go over all his cases. Stay tuned.
Judge delays Hunter Biden’s tax trial to September
A federal judge on Wednesday moved Hunter Biden’s tax crimes trial from June 20 to Sept. 5, saying the need for the president’s son to prepare outweighs concerns about witness inconvenience.
“The court does apologize to witnesses who have made plans,” said U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi in Los Angeles.
Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell also represents him in a federal gun case in Delaware that’s to begin trial on June 3, and he told Scarsi he’s still preparing an expert witness in the California case who wants information that prosecutors have so far not provided.
Biden hasn’t decided if he’ll testify in either trial, but Lowell said his team is preparing him for witness stand appearances in both.
Biden testifying in Delaware would lengthen the trial there and shorten the time available to get to California, said Lowell, a partner at Winston Strawn LLP. And while some case watchers will criticize anything regarding Biden, “the real public” has no real interest in the trial commencing in September instead of June.
“Let’s have a fair trial that I can say is fair,” Lowell told the judge during the 80-minute hearing, which Biden did not attend.
Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise said 30 prosecution witnesses already plan to be in Los Angeles for a trial that’s to begin June 20 and “that’s a lot of people to inconvenience.”
Wise also pointed out that many of Lowell’s reasons for wanting a delay to September are personal: He has a 10-day family gathering planned in August, and he spoke of wanting to “take a deep breath” after the Delaware trial. Wise said the case is “a simple gun case” and not “uniquely challenging.”
You can read Lowell’s 12-page request here, and Wise’s opposition here. Wednesday’s hearing also discussed Lowell’s application for a temporary restraining order, which I’m not going to get into because it’s clearly not going anywhere. You can read the filing here and the U.S. Department of Justice’s opposition here.
Scarsi took the TRO issue under submission on Wednesday. He said he’ll also issue a written order explaining the trial delay.
The defense also recently filed several motions in limine, including to exclude: statements Biden made during a July 2023 hearing in Delaware, his administrative discharge from the Army, his “’extravagant’ lifestyle and salacious details about spending on personal expenses” and to exclude references to “alleged improper political influence and/or corruption.”
Nearly all filings are available for free through Courtlistner.
Biden’s lawsuit against Garrett Ziegler:
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera in Los Angeles is considering a dismissal motion brought by the defense in Biden’s lawsuit against a former Trump White House aide who distributed the contents of Biden’s laptop.
Judge Vera heard about 70 minutes of argument on May 16 from Biden’s lawyer Paul Salvaty, a partner in Winston Strawn’s LA office, and Garrett Ziegler’s lawyer Robert Tyler of Tyler Law LLP in Murrieta. He’s not yet issued a ruling.
Ziegler’s lawyers last month lost their effort to disqualify Vera, a 2023 Biden appointee who donated to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign campaign.
“A reasonable person would question whether Judge Vera has a bias in ensuring that President Biden stays in office, given his political contributions to President Biden’s 2020 presidential election campaign and his appointment to the federal court by President Biden just three months before this case was assigned to him,” according to the motion.
In their opposition, Biden’s lawyers said none of the disqualification arguments “come close to supporting the law’s standard for establishing a basis for recusal in this case.”
The motion went to U.S. District Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadan, a 2023 Biden appointee who said in an 11-page order she “is not persuaded that a ‘reasonable person,’ with knowledge of all the facts and circumstances of this case, ‘perceives a significant risk’ that Judge Vera will not resolve the case based solely on the merits.”
I went to the hearing on the dismissal motion and will write an article when Judge Vera rules. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox and support my work.
Ex-FBI informant’s case:
Wise and the DOJ’s Special Counsel’s Office have another case in Los Angeles: The false statements and conspiracy case against former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who’s accused of lying to federal officials about the Bidens.
Smirnov’s case is with U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II, who has twice rejected requests from Smirnov’s lawyer David Chesnoff for Smirnov to be released from jail for eye surgery in San Francisco. Now the judge has a third chance: On Tuesday, Chesnoff filed an emergency “second renewed motion” that he said is prompted by Smirnov’s doctor’s “dire warning of Mr. Smirnov’s deteriorating eye condition and imminent blindness.”
In their opposition filed Wednesday, prosecutors said Smirnov, who’s currently in the Santa Ana Jail, “is being moved (imminently) to a different prison facility where the U.S. Marshals Service expects he will have access to medical care he needs.”
A 9th Circuit panel of Judges William C. Canby, A. Wallace Tashima and Lucy H. Koh on May 1 rejected Smirnov’s appeal of Wright’s detention order as well as a renewed request to remove Wright from the case.
ICYMI, my article on Smirnov’s detention hearing:
Neo-Nazi’s new lawyer can’t practice before 9th
Neo-Nazi leader Robert Paul Rundo is now represented by longtime Los Angeles lawyer Stephen Yagman, who managed to get his law license back in California after being suspended for money laundering, bankruptcy fraud and tax evasion convictions.
Yagman filed a notice of appearance on May 16 in Rundo’s case, which is currently with the 9th Circuit as the DOJ appeals U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney’s dismissal order. (Rundo is accused of attacking protestors and inciting violence at pro-Trump rallies in 2017.)
Rundo has been represented by the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Central District of California since he was first charged in 2017. Defenders Julia Deixler and Erin Murphy have twice gotten his case dismissed: They brought the first motion to dismiss in 2019 on First Amendment grounds. Then after the 9th Circuit overturned Carney’s order, they brought the selective prosecution motion that argued the DOJ unfairly targeted Rundo because of his political beliefs instead of left-wing activists. That’s the motion that led to Carney’s Feb. 21 order, which the DOJ is appealing.
The office represents Rundo in the appeal, along with Peter Swarth, a criminal defense attorney in West Hills. Swarth signed the 88-page answering brief filed Wednesday, as did Deputy Federal Defender Caroline S. Platt. Oral argument is scheduled June 18.
After Yagman filed his appearance notice in U.S. District Court, Deixler asked Judge Carney to strike it because she believe it’s “procedurally improper.”
“Mr. Yagman’s filing was not accompanied by an application for substitution of counsel, nor was it accompanied by any written consent of Mr. Rundo,” according to the filing. “The Office of the Federal Public Defender has not sought to withdraw as counsel in this matter and is not proceeding as co-counsel with Mr. Yagman.”
Carney struck Yagman’s notice, but Yagman filed another later with Rundo’s signature. He also filed an opposition to Deixler’s filing that said he didn’t know about it until Carney ruled.
“Mr. Yagman re-confirmed with Mr. Rundo, in a face-to-face meeting at the MDCLA on the morning of May 17, that Mr. Rundo wishes Mr. Yagman to represent him in this action, as is indicated in the immediately-prior filing,” Yagman wrote. “Mr. Yagman does not now, nor has he ever, communicated via email. See Munoz v. Superior Court, 2022 WL 7150155, *2 (C.D. Cal. 2022) ("counsel [meaning Mr. Yagman] has every right not to use email except for filing and to communicate only by mail and phone . . . .").”
Carney said in an order on Wednesday that he no longer has jurisdiction over the case, and Yagman can’t practice before the 9th Circuit because he’s disbarred in New York.
“Because the Ninth Circuit holds jurisdiction over this case, the Court is reluctant to and will not schedule a status conference at this time. Should Mr. Rundo, Mr. Yagman, or the FPDO believe that there is an issue over which this Court may exercise jurisdiction and it is imperative that the Court resolve it immediately during the pendency of the government’s appeals to the Ninth Circuit, they may file an appropriate emergency application providing the Court with sufficient information to assess its jurisdiction and the necessity of an immediate hearing.”
The Young Thug trial returns next Tuesday
We’re 80 days into testimony in the rackteering conspiracy trial against Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams, and we’ve seen 70 of the 209 prosecution witnesses. A recent highlight was Shawonna Edmond, the mother of murder victim and gang leader Donovan Thomas.
Thomas was shot to death outside an Atlanta barbershop in January 2015 in what prosecutors allege was a gang-related murder on behalf of Williams’ Young Slime Life gang. Investigators say YSL was feuding with Thomas’ Inglewood Family or Atlanta Bloods Gang, which included rappers YFN Lucci and Rich Homie Quan as members.
Thomas’ murder is the basis for several of the 191 overt acts supporting the racketeering conspiracy charge against Williams and his five trial co-defendants, Shannon Stillwell, Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, Rodalius Ryan, Marquavius Huey, and Quamarvious Nichols. Kendrick and Stillwell also are charged with murder.
Prosecutors say Williams’ song “Slime Shit,” which includes Kendrick, is him confessing his involvement in Thomas’ murder when he raps, “Hundred rounds in a Tahoe, N****, lighting up your tacos, hey Give him surgery, no lipo.”
The next major trial witness should be Rich Homie Quan, legal name Dequantes Lamar, who has officially been subpoenaed and could be on the stand as early as next week. It’s going to be absolutely major when he testifies; the Internet might break. Now that I’m settling into my new place, I plan to host YouTube lives each week to discuss the trial, and I’ll start a weekly email roundup of testimony highlights. Check out my YouTube channel for the latest.
Kendrick’s lawyer Doug Weinstein joined me and Bryson Paul for a discussion on X Spaces a couple weeks back. You can listen here. I plan to host more discussions as this trial drags on.
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