Diddy's lawyers say federal agents edited video of him assaulting Cassie
The federal judge deciding whether to release the hip-hop mogul on bail also is deciding if attorney-client privilege protects the jail notes obtained by prosecutors.
Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs say prosecutors edited the video of Combs assaulting his now-former girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
Combs’ attorneys hired a forensic analyst who said the video prosecutors submitted for his Sept. 18 bail hearing “omits footage corroborating the defense account, changes the sequence of events in material respects, and does not accurately depict the events.”
“The government had the more complete [redacted] during the initial hearings, but chose not to share it with the Court. Instead, it offered its edited version of the CNN video as its most powerful evidence of danger and obstruction,” according to a 20-page filing supporting Combs’ bail request, filed Thursday.
Combs’ lawyers said he ran after Ventura, who is “Victim-1” in the three-count indictment, to retrieve his clothes and phone, but a prosecutor said “that’s not what happened” and asked why Combs dragged Ventura back into the room if he simply wanted his clothes back. A prosecutor also said Combs threw a vase at Ventura.
“The government apparently stands by those arguments again here, but they are false, and the government knows it,” according to the filing in Manhattan’s Southern District of New York. “The more complete footage of the incident—in contrast to the government’s sensationalized CNN cut—contradicts the government’s representation.”
Combs only threw the contents of the vase at Ventura, his lawyers said, which were “presumably flowers.”
“The true facts corroborate what Mr. Combs has stated all along: The video is not evidence of a coerced ‘freak off’ and sex trafficking, but rather a sad glimpse into a decade-long consensual relationship between Mr. Combs and Victim-1,” Combs’ lawyers wrote.
The filing also says prosecutors have “never even spoken” to the woman they’ve said is another sex trafficking victim. It redacts some details, apparently in accordance with a protective order prohibiting the public dissemination of case discovery.
Combs’ lawyers filed exhibits sealed from public view, including a 20-minute video made by Conor McCourt, a retired police video forensics expert hired to analyze the video of Combs assaulting Ventura.
Combs already has reason to be optimistic about his renewed request for a $50 million bail package, which U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian will consider at a hearing in Manhattan on Friday at 2 p.m. ET.
According to journalist Matthew Lee Russell, Subramanian on Tuesday told prosecutors to be ready to discuss the case of Michael Jeffries, the former Abercrombie Fitch clothing executive charged with sex trafficking who was released on $10 million bail and an ankle monitor in the neighboring Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn.
In a filing on Thursday, Combs’ lawyers said prosecutors “consented to release on conditions of two defendants in the Jeffries case since the initial bail hearings here.”
“The government also offers no response to many of the cases cited in Mr. Combs’ motion—including two other sex trafficking cases in which bail was granted,” the attorneys wrote, citing Jeffries’ case as well as the prosecution of James P. Fox, a New York resident who was sentenced in September to 30 years in prison.
Subramanian said Tuesday he won’t consider notes seized from Combs’ jail cell when deciding whether to release him on bail after Combs’ lawyers complained that prosecutors violated Combs’ constitutional rights by accessing his case-planning notes.
“The targeted seizure of a pre-trial detainee’s work product and privileged materials — created in preparation for trial — is outrageous government conduct amounting to a substantive due process violation,” according to the letter signed by Marc Agnifilo of Agnifilo Intrater in New York City.
Prosecutors cited the notes when arguing Combs is trying to obstruct justice and influence witness from behind bars, including by paying one to post a statement on social media. They also accused Combs of violating prison policy by using phone accounts belonging to “at least eight other inmates.”
Combs’ lawyer Teny Rose Geragos said in a declaration on Thursday that she believes inmates “will frequently use other inmates’ minutes to allow for (1) more than one call in a one-hour period; and (2) more phone calls once their 300 minutes expire.”
She also said she knew Combs was using ContactMeAsap.com in jail “though I did not have an understanding that this was unauthorized.” The BOP monitors the site and can “monitor every message Mr. Combs sends and receives,” Geragos wrote.
Prosecutors say they obtained the notes through a document request to the Bureau of Prisons as part of their ongoing grand jury investigation. They said they sent everything through a filter team to check for attorney-client privilege.
“The Government’s use of a Filter Team to review the Photographs in the first instance is entirely appropriate and adequately protected any potentially privileged documents,” prosecutors wrote. “As is consistent with the practice in this District, the Filter Team’s review segregated potentially privileged materials — as evidenced in the redactions contained in the Photographs.”
Subramanian still is deciding if the notes are protected by attorney-client privilege, and he issued an order on Wednesday that questions a key claim from Combs’ lawyers: That a notepad taken from his cell had “legal” written on the binding. In last Friday’s filing, they only said that the notepads were located below a folder marked “legal.”
Subramanian wants Combs’ lawyers “to address why this label doesn’t appear on the photographs in the Court’s possession” and why they didn’t mention it in their filing on Friday.
Court documents:
Nov. 8 Combs’ renewed bail motion
Nov. 15 Prosecutors’ opposition to bail
Nov. 18 Combs’ evidentiary hearing request
Nov. 18 Prosecutors’ opposition to evidentiary hearing
Nov. 18 Combs’ reply to opposition
Nov. 21 Combs’ reply in support of bail
Nov. 21 Teny Geragos declaration
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State refutes Tory Lanez’s missing gun claim
The California Attorney General’s Office has debunked rapper Tory Lanez’s false claim that the gun he shot Megan Thee Stallion with is missing.
A Los Angeles Police Department senior property officer said in a declaration that the Evidence and Property Management Division “has the firearm, the firearm magazine, and all the bullet casings and the bullet fragments that were booked under DR no. 2006-12515 are still in the Los Angeles Police Department’s custody.”
Deputy Attorney General Michael C. Keller filed the declaration this week with his 24-page informal response to Lanez’s second habeas petition that said he can’t test the gun for DNA because it’s missing.
“His unsupported claim that the LAPD has misplaced or lost evidence is demonstrably false,” Keller wrote.
Lanez’s attorneys have 15 days to file an optional reply, then his appeal will be fully briefed. The 2nd District Court of Appeal likely will hear oral argument next year.
Court documents:
Oct. 23 Lanez’s second habeas petition
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Judge sanctions lawyer suing Megan Thee Stallion over missed court appearance
A federal judge has sanctioned the lawyer representing Megan Thee Stallion’s photographer in his lost wages and hostile work environment lawsuit after he missed a status conference.
Ronald D. Zambrano of West Coast Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles is to pay the fees charged by Megan’s lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP and Roc Nation’s lawyers at Reed Smith LLP for attending the conference.
“The Court does not find that Mr. Zambrano’s failure to attend the November 6, 2024 conference was substantially justified,” according to the Nov. 19 order from U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. “The Court’s orders make clear that the November 6, 2024 conference would be held in-person, so his erroneous assumption that he could attend the conference via telephone was not substantially justified.”
The lawyers are to file their attorney fees request no later than Dec. 2. They said recently that the total is $6,000.
Zambrano represents Emilio Garcia, who accuses Megan and her management company, Jay Z’s Roc Nation, of owing him lost wages for misclassifying him as a contract employee instead of a full-time employee. He also accuses Megan, legal name Megan Pete, of hostile work environment harassment and says she disparaged him after he complained about her having sex with another woman him front him while they were in a car.
Megan’s attorneys said Garcia is a “con artist” who is “manipulating the judicial system to act as his publicist and bullhorn” through a “factually and legally frivolous” lawsuit that’s “plagued with falsehoods, misrepresentations of fact, and outlandish claims.”
They said in a May 29 filing that Garcia never witnessed Megan having sex with another woman in a car, and that Zambrano only included the allegation to bolster the “media firestorm” that followed.
Zambrano initially filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, but Megan’s lawyers moved it to federal court in Los Angeles, then persuaded U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera to transfer it to New York because Garcia’s contract specifies disputes have jurisdiction in New York.
Judge Woods filed an order to show cause regarding sanctions after Zambrano missed the Nov. 6 pretrial conference.
Court documents:
Nov. 19 Judge Woods’ sanctions order
Nov. 15 Megan’s lawyers’ response
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Illinois Supreme Court vacates Jussie Smollet’s convictions
The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction for lying about a hate crime. His case will be dismissed.
“We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction,” according to the opinion.
“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” the opinion continues. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.”
Closing arguments are Monday in the YSL RICO, gang and murder trial
Attorneys in the Young Slime Life gang racketeering conspiracy trial will give closing arguments nearly one year to the day after opening statements began.
Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker finalized the schedule for jury instructions and closing arguments on Wednesday. Jurors will hear argument first, beginning Monday.
Whitaker said everyone will stay late to get them done, then the jury will be instructed on Tuesday and begin deliberating. They’ll deliberate Wednesday and return after Thanksgiving if they don’t reach a verdict.
Also on Wednesday, Whitaker rejected the defense’s motion for directed verdict on the racketeering conspiracy, gang and murder charges. She issued her ruling after hearing argument from Deamonte Kendrick’s lawyer Doug Weinstein and Shannon Stillwell’s lawyer Max Schardt.
Whitaker gave Weinstein and Kendrick a win by declaring Kendrick not guilty on three drug/gun possession charges. She also reduced but the major charges are all going to the jury. Also, she reduced three gun charges lesser charges because prosecutors failed to prove/allege all of the elements of the higher crime.
Both Kendrick and Stillwell are charge with racketeering conspiracy and participating in criminal street gang activity. Kendrick also is charged with the Jan. 10, 2015, murder of rival gang leader Donovan Thomas Jr., and Stillwell is charged with Thomas’ murder as well as the March 14, 2022, murder of Shymel Drinks.
They are the only two on trial after four defendants pleaded guilty earlier in November. Rapper Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams is on probation for 15 years after pleading guilty to drug, gun and gang counts and no contest to racketeering conspiracy and leading criminal street gang activity.
Whitaker on Thursday scheduled a Dec. 3 status conference for the remaining 11 defendants.
I’ll stream closing arguments on my YouTube channel beginning at 5:30 a.m. PT / 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday.
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