7 Major P. Diddy Updates as Defense Pushes for Quick Trial in Trafficking Case

I'm not going to talk about anything that I haven't said in court or in the papers these are all great questions but I'm just not going to get into it so can you speak about your concerns about the leak uh and the video SP about I I I I did I did it in the court papers and and I'm I'm just going to stick to the court papers from a new trial date to allegations of government misconduct to issues surrounding an accuser to a third attempt to get out of pre-trial detention we are breaking down

some major recent updates in sha Diddy home's case welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber hey guys this is a law on crime legal alert recent Studies have uncovered a link between depro pra aka the Depo shot and an increased risk of brain tumors and now lawsuits are being filed against fizer the manufacturer of depro pra alleging that they failed to warn patients and doctors about this risk and instead Rush the drug to Market while downplaying the adverse event reports so if you've been diagnosed with a brain tumor or experiencing symptoms

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is give you some of the top recent updates on the case so that you're caught up to speed now before I even get into the updates I have to set the stage the 54-year-old music mogul still locked up still locked away in the Metropolitan Detention Center out in Brooklyn as he awaits trial on federal sex crimes charges racketeering conspiracy sex trafficking transportation to engage in prostitution essentially prosecutors from the southern district of New York alleged that Colmes used his business Empire and resources and Associates to lead a criminal Enterprise that was engaged in a legal

activity like arson bribery kidnapping even the assault and sex trafficking of women and that this was going on for years and more specifically they alleged that he brought in male sex workers for these events called freak offs these elaborate sexual performances that he forced threatened or coerced people to be a part of even drugging people filming these sessions that's what the allegations are and it's a complicated case which brings me to the first update when on Earth is this trial actually going to happen well at a status hearing last week prosecutors the defense attorneys and

the new judge overseeing this case The Honorable Arun subaran agreed to a trial date of May 5th 2025 now obviously that can change now obviously ly that can change for a variety of reasons but it seems to me that the defense has been pushing for this early trial date I mean we were suggesting this trial wouldn't happen till the end of 2025 maybe even 2026 but the reason that it seems to me that Colmes is wanting an early trial date is because he's locked up he doesn't want to be there anymore and even though he

is appealing his bail or his denial of bail I should say to a new court and we're going to get into that in a minute he and his team may be thinking let's get him to trial as soon as possible with the hope that he's acquitted and he can go home and put it all behind him we don't want him languishing behind bars for another year or two years as he waits to go to trial but there are a few things with that you know what could change the trial date you know what could delay

it if combms is hit with new charges if there is a superseding indictment that's when prosecutors go back to the grand jury with new evidence in an effort to indict Combs on a add charges they they may also upgrade charges they may even replace a charge and that means more Discovery more evidence more material that needs to be shared more motions the timeline would shift you won't see a May 5th 2025 date if he's ultimately hit with more charges very very very unlikely and in a major update during that hearing we found out that's not

so far-fetched assistant us attorney Emily Johnson told the court that the investigation is very much ongoing and that there is a possibility of a superseding indictment and why would that happen well it could be that through their investigation analyzing the digital and physical evidence they collected speaking with more witnesses including maybe new people who may have come forward prosecutors May believe they have probable caused that coms committed more crimes and by the way it's interesting during this hearing that prosecutors said their case as it currently stands will take them about 3 weeks and the defense

said their case will take them one week first of all if there's additional charges that will change but the current case taking three weeks the defense saying they'll have one week what that tells me is that the defense is going to mostly focus upon cross-examination of the government's Witnesses instead of really calling Witnesses of their own I mean maybe the defense will call these alleged male sex workers to say that all of these fre offs were consensual that no one was pressured no one was threatened no one was forced to do anything and overall that

idea of this being all consensual seems to be what the defense's main theme will be particularly if you believe that victim one in the indictment who is not named but a lot of us believe is Cassandra Ventura home's ex-girlfriend who accused him in a separate lawsuit of physically sexually and psychologically abusing her in this criminal indictment prosecutors say hex trafficked victim one through Force fraud or coercion meaning forced her to perform commercial sex acts now it would seem to me that if she were the government's star witness com's defense attorneys would spend a lot of

time cross-examining her suggesting that everything was consensual that she agreed to everything and by the way going back to the timeline here yes the government says that their case would take three weeks to prosecute but does that account for the time that the defense would cross-examine their Witnesses how long would the cross-examination of a Cassandra Ventura take would it take several hours would it take a day by the way his defense attorney has also suggested that Colmes may take the stand would that be the majority of the week as well what would the cross-examination of

sha com's take so even though we're saying it could be four weeks I would imagine it would take a little bit longer by the way going back to Cassandra Ventura his defense team most certainly will cross-examine her try to get her to say everything was consensual that yes she was his girlfriend of course Colmes flew her around of course he had sexual activity with her but he didn't pay her he didn't promise her anything to engage in sex acts that she was a willing participant in these essentially orgies so the estimate from both sides of

how long their case will be is very interesting to say the least but of course again that could change if there are new charges now there was another major update that happened and it was also addressed in this hearing the defense's argument that the government engaged in misconduct in a filing from last week com's defense Council blames the government more specifically the Department of Homeland Security of leaking information and making inappropriate comments to the media and the defense is now asking for an evidentiary hearing to get to the bottom of all this more specifically they

alleged that the Department of Homeland Security agents leaked the infamous 2016 videotape of com reportedly beating Cassandra Ventura in a hotel hallway which was published by CNN in May of 2024 and remember that was after the raids on his houses by Homeland Security before his arrest they say they leaked it so com's defense Council in this filing wrote quote the available evidence makes a prima fasy showing that the government primarily through DHS has engaged in a seven-month campaign with three objects one preventing Mr Colmes from getting Fair consideration by the grand jury two preventing him

from getting a fair trial and three strategically leaking confidential grand jury material and information including the 2016 InterContinental vide tape in order to Prejudice the public and potential jurors against Mr Colmes pretty startling allegation there but they continue the government's scheme to undermine Mr com's rights to a fair proceeding has several methods and means first there has been a steady stream of false and prejudicial statements made by DHS agents to various press Outlets over the last 7 months for example Coles lawyers alleg on March 27th 2024 2 days after the searches of Mr colm's residences

an agent specifically identified as working for DHS made public statements to among other media the New York Post that he believes there is a disturbing history of sex trafficking we are responding to concrete detailed explicit allegations this is not random we didn't choose his name out of a hat we had allegations that we're following up on second com's lawyers right the agents encouraged in a particularly brutal and public search of Mr com's homes during which they handcuffed Mr com's innocent sons and then marched them before a news helicopter in the press this was an apparent

effort to convey that they had overwhelming evidence against Mr Colmes justifying the public and brutal treatment of even his children who were handcuffed and manhandled by federal agents armed with assault rifles third government employees have repeatedly leaked grand jury information and materials to the press to raise public hostility against Mr Colmes and advance of trial and when it came to the source behind the leak of the 2016 tape Colmes lawyers wrote an unrelated third party is not a likely Source 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 so prosecutors they responded to this by providing the court with a copy of an email that they had sent to col's lawyers on October 9th and it reads to be be clear to our understanding DHS did not have possession of the videotape prior to CNN's publication of it only the government has authority to obtain grand jury material and the video broadcast by CNN was not obtained through grand jury process so very interesting there now at the hearing prosecutor Johnson said that

all the defense is trying to do is exclude a damning piece of evidence seemingly referring to the 2016 videotape and that is something col's lawyers have asked for because if this evidence was impr properly leaked by the government that there is an argument it should be suppressed that it shouldn't come into com's trial that would be a big win for him well judge subber manian reserved ruling on whether to order an evidentiary hearing to sort all of this out he said he wants to wait to review each side's arguments which are due by November 7th

and then he'll see if a hearing is warranted now what the judge did do during this hearing and this is going to have an impact is impose a gag order now this was something that the defense had asked the court to do as well they wanted to stop the government from disclosing material to the media the federal prosecutors at the hearing were like okay we'll agree to that but the defense they need to agree to the same because they say the defense hasn't been so innocent in all this they called out col's attorney Mark agnifilo

for doing an interview with TMZ right after comes was arrested in September where called the criminal case quote a takedown of a successful black man prosecutor Johnson said this sounded like he was accusing the feds of engaging in a racist prosecution Johnson said statements of this sort seriously risk a fair trial in this case so judge subber Manan instructed colm's team to propose an order that would govern public statements by both sides and when reporters flocked around agapo after this hearing he definitely wasn't as forthcoming as he'd been in the past I'm not going to

talk about anything that I haven't said in court or in the papers these are all great questions but I'm just not going to get into it so can you speak about your concerns about the leak uh in the video spoken about I I I I did I did it in the court papers and and I'm I'm just going to stick to the court papers as as you guys all know just finished as you all know I made a request today for what we were calling a gag order and I'm I'm not going to walk out

of court and do anything other than live up to that so talk about his demeanor in jail and what it's been like so so here's what I'm going to do um um I'm I'm not going to answer any more questions I I want to help you guys out but I'm not going to do it I'm going to go back and speak to my colleagues and um and and then you know I'm going to be done just tell us about the MDC it's can we see him being transferred anytime soon can we see him being moved

anytime soon or which way you head okay yeah let's go this now there was something else that happened during the course of this hearing that we have to address the amount of Discovery in this case the prosecution indicated the vast amount of material for their forensic teams to extract and review and I'll give you an example prosecutor Johnson said this week that 96 devices were seized in those March raids on com's properties phones laptops hard drives 51 of the devices were from the LA raid 36 were from the Miami raid and nine were taken from

Shan comes himself in fact eight of the devices in that Miami raid contain over 90 terabytes of information think about that 90 terabytes what do you have like two terabytes on your iCloud storage think about how much that is and she indicated that extracting that data as been a process the reporting indicates though that the prosecutors have been in constant contact with com's attorneys regarding this discovery in fact we learned that the government made its first production of material over to the defense on October 7th so this is ongoing and what the defense received was

search warrants col's iCloud reports com's iPhone activity so that's going to be a lot to go through as well and the prosecution expects to turn everything over to the defense by December 31st again given the sheer am ount of data it is surprising that we expect the defense to be able to go through all of this and be able to mount a defense by May by May 5th very very ambitious in my opinion so to be clear though we don't know what all of this evidence contains but at the very least as based on reporting

and prior comments from the prosecutors they appear to be in possession of videotapes of perhaps the freak offs perhaps other alleged criminal activity but there's probably text messages and photos and a lot to go through as well also while discovery is due by December 31st I will also let you know that the Motions in this case are due by February 17th 2025 oppositions by March replies by March 10th and then trial on May 5th again ambitious assuming there are no snags assuming there no further issues we'll see now there is another update in this case

that we have to talk about that wasn't addressed at that hearing it's something that is happening in a different Court you see Colmes has appealed his denial of bail to a higher Court the second Circuit Court of Appeals and remember two different judges already denied him pre-trial release they said given the gravity of the allegations the weight of the evidence the potential danger he is to society the risk of flight and moreover allegations that he had been improperly contacting Witnesses and alleged victims com should not be led out pending trial well com's attorney Alexandra Shapiro

filed a motion for pre-trial release last week with the second Circuit Court of Appeals and chapiro opened the motion by writing quote this case does involve extreme and unusual circumstances but none that typically foreclose bail or warrant forcing Shan Colmes to defend himself from a prison cell what is extremely unusual about this case is that Mr Colmes was detained immediately after he was charged even though he has been in the spotlight his entire life with many of his purported Antics and episodes being widely reported in the press and known to law enforcement authorities indeed hardly

a risk of flight he is a 54-year-old father of seven a US citizen an extraordinarily successful artist businessman and philanthropist and one of the most recognizable people on Earth the sensationalism surrounding his arrest has distorted the bail analysis Mr Colmes was not released pending trial even though he offered to comply with restrictive conditions that would have prevented any conceivable risk of flight or danger and remember Colmes had offered a 50 million bail package putting up his Miami home and his mother's home is collateral promised to stay in constant contact with authorities only speak to certain

people would have visitor logs handed over to the court only certain people would come to the house he even proposed having a third-party security team monitor his house when he would be under home confinement and in this motion Colmes denies the government accusations of obstruction his attorneys concede yes he spoke with people about the civil lawsuits he was facing but says he wasn't aware that the southern district of New York was investigating him and once he realized he was being investigated the appeal motion says he made sure not to continue contact with those people the

motion reads although the government vaguely described contact with two grand jury Witnesses it proferred no evidence of any threats or intimidation the government could only state there were 14 total contacts between Mr Colmes and one witness and another witness who was contacted multiple times defense Council explained those contacts involved no obstruction or witness tampering for example one witness contacted Mr Colmes not the other way around she read reached out to Mr comes and told him I'm a grand jury witness after Mr comes informed defense counsel he was instructed not to contact the witness anymore and

didn't so Shapiro argues the prosecution didn't meet its burden to hold combes until trial they've raised a number of very compelling and interesting arguments not clear when the court will hear arguments on this or what a decision will be or when a decision will be handed down but very very interesting uh arguments put forward by Shan col's defense Council now I will say this if col were to make bail would he still want a May 2025 trial date would he not want to see this trial much later on after all he faces a significant risk

in possibility of conviction and being sentenced to Serious prison time perhaps a minimum of 15 to 20 years behind bars if he's convicted why wouldn't he want to be on house arrest for as long as possible and try to delay this trial as much as he can now he could feel confident in his case maybe he wants to hold the prosecution's feet to the fire maybe he wants to get this trial over with as soon as possible but all I'll say is if he's granted bail and he has released pending trial do not be surprised

if he then tries to delay the trial date I just put in that warning now I will say this Mark agnifilo did indicate that comes is not trying to move from the MDC while he awaits the issue on bail there was reporting that he was requesting to be transferred to a facility in New Jersey but agilo seemed to say that the MDC C had been responsive so it appears he is going to stay there as he fights this bail issue and when we talk about major updates in the Sha comes case as we talk about

potential new charges I would be remiss if I didn't mention another major update in the com's case a Texas attorney named Tony Busby announced that his law firm plans to pursue legal action against the music mogul and this would be on behalf of more than 100 victims more than two dozen of those future plaintiffs say they were just kids when Colmes allegedly assaulted them including a 99-year-old and attorney Busby says it's not just comes caught up in the crosshairs the wall of Silence has now been broken and victims are coming forward our team has had

at this point more than 3,285 individuals contact us with people claiming people claiming to have been victimized by Sha comes we now represent 120 individuals who intend to bring civil claims in civil court against sha Diddy combes as well as claims against many other individuals and entities that we will name as defendants as we file these individual cases I expect that through this process many powerful people will be exposed many Dirty Secrets will be revealed we know what we are potentially up against as is always always the case in situations like this when a celebrity

is involved people can be downright mean and nasty you shocked at the length fans will go no matter the evidence to the contrary to defend celebrities they love I mean there's a reason for this word fans they're Fanatics I've personally already been threatened multiple times on social media and when I agreed to pursue this I expected as much this isn't my first rodeo but victims who step forward to have their voice is heard should not be subjected to that kind of conduct they should not be targeted and by the way according to TMZ Busby has

already sent out demand letters to a bunch of celebrities in order to get them to settle before he files lawsuits against them those he says who were complicit or participated in this alleged abuse by Shan K and he also claims that some high-profile people have already settled now he says that he's going to first file lawsuits against corporate entities who facilitated the abuse and then file the lawsuits against the celebrities so it's going to be a very interesting series of weeks ahead but here's the thing and I've said this from the beginning Busby is the

latest in a long line of accusations from other people who have sued Combs that claim he abused minors and yet nothing in his criminal indictment nothing in Shan com's criminal indictment is about minors yet given this announcement could we expect a potential superseding indictment to include such allegations regarding miners Not only would that delay a trial date but it would make com's defense much more complicated there is no consent defense when it comes to Miners and legal experts I've spoken to have indicated by the way that Colmes may move to stay meaning pause all of

these potentially 120 lawsuits until the conclusion of the criminal case which is something we have seen before and finally one more update for you on the civil front that may affect the criminal case and this is with respect to Adria english's lawsuit against Shawn Colmes this is the person who claims that she was sexually assaulted and trafficked by Shawn combes at his Infamous white parties while her lawyers have withdrew from the case and here's the thing her attorneys were Ariel Mitchell kid and Stephen a metf Ariel Mitchell kid as you might remember has been making

the news recently most famously telling news nation that a sex tape of Shan comes and an unnamed high-profile celebrity is currently being shopped around now what happened here well english's former attorneys cited a breakdown in the attorney client relationship and irreconcilable differences in fact Mitchell kid told the New York Times on October 3rd that quote she never lost faith in english's actual case just in her Mitchell kid said her case is great my issue was with her undermining my work and going behind my back doing things in congruent to advancing her case but English seems

to be celebrating that these attorneys are no longer on her case in a statement over the weekend English wrote I am happy with the decision to withdraw and this has made it easier for her to secure new professional non clout chasing councel wow now she is indicated that she has until November 11th to find new lawyers or she will represent herself in this case now we don't know if Adria English is a cooperating witness for the government's criminal case against Shan Colmes or not but when you see these headlines and you see accusations against attorneys

who may be representing potential Witnesses for the government it does make you wonder about the credibility of these Witnesses now what will cross-examination be like if perhaps Adria English is a cooperating witness and is going to testify against Shan Colmes will she continue to be a witness interesting to think about how strong is the prosecution's case this is what I think about anyway I think this is a good summation of where we are currently the latest in Shan com's case and as always we will keep you updated on the very latest that's all we have

for you right now here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcasts I'm Jesse Weber speak to you next time [Music]