Diddy Hires Death Penalty Attorney as Sex Trafficking Case Builds

amid facing a staggering amount of new sexual assault allegations sha Diddy Colmes is prepping for the trial of his life and assembling his own version of a Dream Team to take on the federal prosecutors in his sex trafficking case on Monday comes' attorneys filed a third request to appeal his detention order that order requires the Bad Boy Records founder to remain in jail until trial but in those new court documents new names have been added to the hitmaker council and those new names who agree to join his team are legal Giants who are up for

the challenge so who are they Anthony Rico is a well-established death penalty attorney he reportedly led the defense in up to 45 Federal death penalty cases according to his bio on the forom law University website some of the notable yet controversial cases included Rico serving on the council in the World Trade bombing conspiracy case and Embassy bombing case in 1998 some of his other cases included people versus Corey Arthur Arthur was charged in the murder of the son of former Time Warner CEO Gerald LaVine Rico was able to get the death penalty off the table

and litigate Arthur's sentence to life in prison he also previously represented the undercover NYPD officer acquitted in the 2006 killing of Shawn Bell according to his bio he doubled as an Adjunct professor of law at forom and has been practicing law since 1982 another new addition to the Diddy defense team is Alexandra Shapiro according to her firm's website She's labeled as one of the nation's leading appell lawyers and her work is recognized in the reversals of both civil and criminal cases she graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 91 and began working as a

clerk to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before going on to work in whitecar defense Shapiro even landed her own huge wins in the Supreme Court and narrowed the scope of the federal fraud statutes to reverse the wire fraud convictions of Western New York developer Lewis simonelli and former Andrew Cuomo Aid Joseph percoa she's also representing convicted cryptocurrency frauder Sam bankman freed who is reportedly in the same unit as Shapiro's newest client Shan combes AKA Diddy and if you're wondering if she's related to the Robert Shapiro from the OJ Simpson case the two are not

related Shapiro and Rico now join Mark agnifilo and tiny gagos tiny gagos is the daughter of the attorney to the Stars Mark gagos who famously represented the likes of Winona Ryder Michael Jackson and Chris Brown but according to atin's bio she's making a name for herself she was a founding partner of annif and Trader and has defended clients in federal and state cases at the trial and app pellet level her experience is in defending and investigating allegations of sexual misconduct and she's represented a number of people accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment but on

the flip side she's also represented victims of sexual assault and violence but her range doesn't just include sex crimes according to her bio she's also defended a wide range of criminal matters including Securities fraud wire fraud public corruption tax evasion deportation and narcotics cases and of course there's Mark agnifilo who seemingly has been the face of Diddy's defense team thus far according to his bio on his firm's website he's won aitt in many of the most complex and difficult trials in America in the past several years he secured three acquittals in cases ranging from assault

to International tax fraud to political corruption and has tried more than 200 cases over his 30-year career with all four combined legal experience it seems they're all up for taking on a music mogul accused of sex trafficking as Diddy faces another hearing slated for next week we can expect his new additions to argue for bail once again but will it be successful well that's up for a federal judge to decide if third times the charm there are a lot of difficult stories that we cover here at lawn crime and part of the reason we're able

to keep bringing you these types of stories is because of our great sponsors so I really want to take time to thank upside for sponsoring us if you're wondering what's upside well it's a free yes free app that gets you cash back on daily Essentials like gas and groceries and it's actual real cash back too money appears in your upside app that you can transfer straight into your bank account so here's what you do you download the upside app then claim an offer for whatever you're buying on upside I went to 7-Eleven got candy some

other snacks used the app and honestly it's super simple you can use the app at places like shell Exxon and fast food favorites like taco belt and that's just to name a few so to find out how much you could earn download upside or click the link in the description and use our promo code LC news to get 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas again that's promo code LC news for an extra 25 cents back on your first gallon of gas I'm joined Now by criminal defense attorney and former

prosecutor Florina altshiler now Florina I really appreciate you joining me today Diddy has hired some pretty Heavy Hitters to join his defense team is significant to you at all that he he added a wellestablished death penalty attorney in to his case that being Anthony Rico certainly he's not charged with any crimes that expose him to the death penalty but anytime anybody is charged with a crime especially somebody with significant money they're going to hire established attorneys with experience and they're going to hire a team of attorneys and he also added Sam bankman Freed's attorney that

being Alex Andra Shapiro what do you make of that addition to his team given she's still representing Sam bankman freed and he's reportedly housed in the same unit as Diddy you know that's actually not all that surprising um often times defendants will speak to other defendants um they'll have exposure to other in defendants while in custody and will sometimes by recommendation of other defendants hire an attorney that um is representing one of them I've many times seen uh clients hire the same attorney as somebody else that's in the same cell block with them just because

of uh you know references it's not much different than how people uh find their estheticians or their Physicians or pick the gyms that they go to um it's by word of mouth and just looking through their bios they all have very well established careers each in their own right of Defending clients accused from different ranges assault sex crimes white collar crimes death penalty cases Etc but in your opinion what will make Diddy's case different in terms of defending the biggest issue with his case is the number of alleged victims that are coming forward and normally

when you have a case of one complainant against one defendant in es of Prior situations with other complainants are not going to be relevant they're going to be entirely too prejudicial and they're not something that's going to come into evidence at trial think of the Weinstein case where they did and then the case in New York was reversed because of those three other women's incidents that came into evidence and the court determined were entirely too prejudicial for purposes of determining whether or not he committed the offense charged with that one in this case what I

expect is going to happen at least on the Civil end is there's over a hundred different complainants coming together suing together almost like a class action lawsuit um which for purposes of a a sex crime is really unique um and that's going to allow all of the all of that evidence cumul atively to come together in one case I would not be surprised in fact I fully expect that in the criminal case the same thing is going to happen because he's charged with sex trafficking and so they're going to be able to put into evidence

before the same one jury this long list of women and men who are the victims of his actions and that while it's overwhelmingly prejudicial is relevant to the charges and so it's going to come in and it's going to be really difficult to overcome you know I've had clients who have had this slew of charges that for factual reasons under those circumstances are able to be brought together and I explained to them listen I could beat the first I could beat the second maybe I could even beat the third but when you have 27 different

ones we're just not going to be that lucky after a certain point there's this Tipping Point and it's just too many people saying the same thing that the jury is not going to find Reasonable Doubt and I think that's going to be his biggest issue unless he's somehow able to convince the judge to separate those claims and keep the different complainants apart but given the nature of the charges I just don't see how that's going to be possible and given their kind of range of experience in the criminal defense world what are your thoughts also

on how that'll kind of play into the appeal process you know they're already appealing his bail order right now they're going they're hoping to go for a third time hoping that Diddy will get bail but how important is the appeal process all throughout this even given that we're not even at trial yet so every good trial attorney has to have a keen ear for appeals everything that we do in preparation for trial during oral arguments and during the trial itself is to preserve the record for purposes of appeal and to preserve any legal issues that

come up where there might be a ruling that we believe could be reversed the best thing to do which they're doing is to have a team of attorneys because a trial attorney is not always an appeal attorney and an appeal attorney is most certainly not a trial attorney and so when you have a team of attorneys with different Specialties you can have a pet counsel watching um overseeing and identifying those issues as they come up you can also have that appeal attorney counseling the trial attorney to highlight things that that trial attorney may not know

to argue and to preserve without the two working together that trial attorney has to also be an salid expert which is not often the case and you said something interesting you said Team now some are also saying this is kind of Diddy's version of setting up like an OJ Simpson like Dream Team what are your thoughts on that um kind of comparison Elizabeth I've been thinking that our entire conversation um that that's absolutely correct and that's a great point right you know OJ Simpson had someone who was an expert in DNA OJ Simpson had someone

who really was able to hone in on racial issues he had excellent trial attorneys he had excellent writers excellent appellate attorneys you have to have that team come together to collaborate especially in a case where the volume of evidence is going to be so great that it is just TimeWise impossible for one attorney to have the hours in the day and the days in the year to review everything everything and you know I have cases sometimes where the case that I am trying right now 6,600 jail calls there's not enough minutes in the day or

days in the week to be able to sit there and listen to them you need to have support you need to have additional humans to go through all of that evidence in federal cases I get Discovery on diss that are in the terabyte of data it is just too much for one person to be able to do regardless of how brilliant they may be and as the attorneys are appealing that bail order and going hopefully to get Diddy bail for now a third time do you think that'll be successful unfortunately I do not uh federal

law as it comes to bail is not the same as State Court law now in State Court you can argue whether or not the person is a Flight Risk argue that they are not Flight Risk and either get them released on their own recognizance or have bailed lowered in federal court Flight Risk is a question to be addressed however the judge is allowed to can and should consider the nature of the charges and in this case the nature of the charges is bad it's really bad you have to consider the number of alleged victims the

time span of the crime and the gravity of the incidents that are alleged and based on that I am not at all surprised that a federal judge is holding him in custody and I would not expect him to change his mind and release him all right Florina I really appreciate your insight into this case before I sign you off anything else you'd like to add I I think this is going to be an interesting case that's going to have to go to trial because I just don't see how the the government is going to offer

a plea that's not going to involve prison time and I don't see Diddy taking a plea that is going to involve prison time so this is definitely one to watch all right Florina again thank you so much I appreciate your time today thanks for having me Elizabeth Shan Diddy Colmes has pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking through his attorneys he says he's innocent and will fight to clear his name and has denied the most recent wave of more than 120 sexual assault allegations against him the music mogul is slated to

appear in court again next week on October 9th reporting for Law and crime I'm Elizabeth Milner