Judge rejects Sean 'Diddy' Combs' 3rd bail request in federal sex trafficking case
The order cites his lawyers' 'misrepresentation' in court when explaining why no condition can reasonably assure public safety.
Sean “Diddy” Combs will spend Thanksgiving in jail after a federal judge on Wednesday rejected his third request for bail.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said the evidence against the 55-year-old hip-hop mogul shows “a serious risk of witness tampering” and demonstrate his violence.
Combs’ lawyers’ “misrepresentation” that notebooks taken from his jail cell were marked legal also “bears on whether the Court can be reasonably assured that any conditions it imposes will be followed, or whether inadvertence or active subversion—they will be broken, and the community’s safety threatened,” according to the four-page order.
Combs’ lawyers hired private security they said would constantly monitor a New York City home where Combs would live without access to the Internet and with a phone accessible only through security. Subramanian, however, said he “doubts the sufficiency of any conditions that place trust in Combs and individuals in his employ—like a private security detail—to follow those conditions.”
“The Court finds that the government has shown by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community,” the judge wrote.
The private security company was part of a proposed $50 million bail package that included Combs’ mansion in Florida and his mother’s home as equity. He’s been in jail since Sept. 16 on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Prosecutors say another grand jury investigation is ongoing, which could lead to a superseding indictment with coconspirators and more charges.
Subramanian said prosecutors “presented direct evidence of Combs’s violence,” including a video of him assaulting his alleged victim, his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. They also included text messages from after the beating in which Cassie told Combs, “I have a black eye and a fat lip. You are sick for thinking it’s OK to do what you’ve done,” and “I still have crazy bruising.”
“Nevertheless, Combs argues that the weight of the evidence does not support a charge of sex trafficking,” Subramanian wrote. “In his view, it supports at best a toxic, sometimes violent, long-term relationship between Combs and Victim-1. But regardless of whether that’s true, there is compelling evidence of Combs’s propensity for violence.”
The judge differentiated Combs’ case from the cases of Michael Jeffries, the former Abercrombie Fitch clothing executive charged with sex trafficking who was released on $10 million bail and an ankle monitor, and James P. Fox, a New York resident who was sentenced in September to 30 years in prison but released on bail before trial. The appellate case affirming Fox’s bail didn’t address the issue of obstruction of justice, and Jeffries has no criminal history and his alleged crimes ended almost 10 years ago.
Jeffries also is 80 years old, and his charges don’t involve “the kind of violence or RICO allegations made here.”
The judge also declined to temporarily release Combs, saying he can access his lawyers and case documents in jail while preparing for his May trial date.
Subramanian is the third judge to reject bail for Combs. The first was U.S. Magistrate Robyn F. Tarnofsky during his first court appearance in September, followed by U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter. The case transferred to Subramanian when Combs refused to waive his right to a speedy trial and Carter couldn’t accomodate an early trial date.
Combs’ lawyers planned to appeal Carter’s decision to the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, but they put the appeal in abeyance to pursue a third bail request in U.S. District Court based on what they described as “significant changed circumstances that could not be presented to the district court at his initial bail hearing.” They’re expected to pursue the 2nd Circuit appeal now that Subraminan has issued his order.
Their renewed bail request to Subramanian focused defended Combs’ contacts with a woman identified in court documents as “Witness-2” as “not in any way obstructive.”
The witness is Kalenna Harper, who was a member of the music group Diddy - Dirty Money with Combs and Dawn Richard. Richard is suing Combs alleging sexual assault, harassment and unlawful imprisonment. Prosecutors say notes taken from Combs’ jail cell give the “strong inference” that he paid Harper to post on Instagram last September that she never saw him abuse Ventura.
Subramanian still is deciding whether the notepads are protected as legal work product or by attorney-client privilege.
Prosecutors cited the writings about Harper in their opposition to Combs’ renewed bail request, which is how his lawyers say they learned that prosecutors had them. Subramanian said he wouldn’t consider the notes when deciding Combs’ bail request, but his lawyers, who include Marc Agnifilo and Teny Rose Geragos, put their credibility at issue when they told the judge during a Nov. 19 emergency evidentiary hearing that the notepads were marked “legal.”
“After the hearing, the Court inquired why, in light of counsel’s representation that the notes at issue were on legal pads that were clearly marked as legal, photographs taken during the sweep show no such,” Subramanian wrote in Wednesday’s order. “At the November 22, 2024 hearing, defense counsel admitted that ‘it has to be the case that as of the day of the search . . . legal wasn’t written on every legal pad’ and that they were ‘not sure’ whether the pad presented to the Court had ‘legal’ on it at the time of the sweep.”
Subramanian heard argument about the bail request during a two-hour hearing Nov. 22, then requested briefing on the types of communication Combs can lawfully engage in while in custody.
In a 13-page letter filed on Monday, prosecutors said a “holistic view” of Combs’ “obstructive and violent conduct—conduct that is still happening presently—makes clear that there is no way to rebut the applicable presumption of detention in this case.”
They cited U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision to revoke Samuel Bankman-Fried’s bond in his cryptocurrency wire fraud case after Bankman-Fried “funneled diary entries of a key cooperator to the press,” used a virtual private network to hide his Internet activity from U.S. District Court Pre-Trial Services and “reached out to a witness on an encrypted messaging service.”
“That case is instructive because unlike here, the defendant was charged with a nonviolent crime—specifically perpetrating a multibillion-dollar fraud related to his operation of cryptocurrency companies that he founded and controlled—and was initially released on a $250 million personal recognizance bond, subject to conditions, including home detention,” prosecutors wrote.
Combs’ lawyers said all communications cited by prosecutors, including about his children’s social media posts for his birthday, “concern core protected speech.”
“The cited examples do not even remotely implicate the types of possibly prejudicial speech that courts have previously considered,” they said in an eight-page filing.
“For months and months, government agents, plaintiffs’ attorneys, and others with questionable motives have been polluting the airwaves with false and outrageous claims about Mr. Combs,” the attorneys wrote. “This nonstop drumbeat of negative publicity has destroyed his reputation and will make it virtually impossible for him to receive a fair trial. Mr. Combs is not required to sit idly by and acquiesce to all of this.”
Judge Subramanian said evidence shows Combs has violated Bureau of Prisons policies “to obscure his communications with third parties.”
“The Court makes no determination that the content of Combs’s communications through these channels was improper,” Subramanian wrote. “However, his willingness to skirt BOP rules in a way that would make it more difficult for his communications to be monitored is strong evidence” that no condition can sufficiently ensure his safe release.
The judge observed that the violations “occurred when Combs was seeking bail, and when he knew the government’s concerns about witness tampering and obstruction were front and center.”
Combs’ lawyers said in their reply to prosecutors’ bail opposition that the government edited the 2016 video of Combs assaulting Ventura to make it appear as though he dragged Ventura back to the hotel room when he was actually trying to retrieve his clothes. They also say the unedited video shows Combs throw the “contents” of a vase at her — “presumably flowers” — not a vase as prosecutors said.
But Subramanian said “there is clearly violence even in the version of the footage submitted by Combs.”
The judge said he will “promptly address any issue that arises with respect to Combs’s trial preparation, and if the circumstances materially change, he may renew his application.”
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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