Lawyers for Diddy have claimed his sex trafficking case may have to be dismissed due to “prosecution errors” during a recent raid on the rap mogul’s prison cell.
Lawyer Marc Agnifilo accused prosecutors during an emergency hearing in New York on Tuesday of a “complete institutional failure” that they said could have jeopardized the case.
The defense team alleged that the rapper’s constitutional rights were violated last month when federal investigators seized 19 pages of his notes during a search of his cell and shared them with prosecutors.
Agnifilo claimed the material contained Diddy’s handwritten privileged notes to his legal team on defense strategies for his upcoming trial.
The court heard the FBI also seized Diddy’s ‘What to do’ list, which required a family member to ‘find dirt’ on two alleged victims, as well as pages where he wrote ‘inspirational’ quotes to himself.
Agnifilo called the pre-planned cleanup a “pretext” for a prison investigator to attack Diddy – real name Sean Combs.
The possible remedy could include the “dismissal of the charges,” he said, or the prosecution team’s refusal.
“We don’t know enough to say what the reasonable solution is,” he told the court.
Sean “Diddy” Combs, pictured in a September court sketch, attended an emergency hearing Tuesday in his sex trafficking case
Lawyers for the music mogul claim prosecutors may have jeopardized the case after seizing privileged material from his jail cell last month
Judge Arun Subramanian ordered that the prosecution remove all copies of the papers for the time being.
The emergency hearing took place after the defense filed new court documents showing they had only learned that prosecutors were in possession of the privileged material from the Oct. 28 raid on Friday.
Diddy is languishing in jail as he awaits trial on racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation charges for prostitution.
He was arrested on September 17 and is expected to appear in court in May. He has denied all allegations.
Agnifilo told the court that defense lawyers are now investigating the incident to determine how serious the matter is.
He also said the court should review surveillance footage from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Diddy is being held, to find out what happened during the search.
Judge Subramanian ordered the Bureau of Prisons to preserve the footage.
Diddy, 55, was not shackled during his court appearance Tuesday, the first time he has been given such freedoms, after a judge approved a request from his lawyers to remove them.
The disgraced rap mogul remains in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being repeatedly denied bail
He appeared relaxed and smiling as he walked in through a side door, joked with his lawyers and hugged them.
Diddy seemed to enjoy working the room, craning his neck back to see who was in the public gallery and pointing to a court draftsman.
In a dramatic moment, Agnifilo held up the relevant files and handed one to the judge for review.
Among the materials prosecutors had access to were notes Diddy took after one of his attorneys introduced a potential expert witness, a retired doctor.
Agnifilo said: ‘I can’t think of anything more at the heart of lawyers’ client rights.’
Prosecutor Mary Slavik told the court they had acted “entirely appropriately” in relation to the documents.
She said the documents were given to a “Filter Team” – a separate group of prosecutors – who reviewed them to see if they were privileged.
Slavik said the notes in question included Diddy’s “Things to Do” list, entries about family members and financial matters and “inspirational quotes.”
The rapper is accused of arranging “Freak Offs,” described as “elaborate and produced sex performances” arranged and directed by Combs.
Prosecutors allege he tried to influence potential jurors in his trial by having his seven children post a video to mark his birthday on November 4.
One note said he wanted to find ‘dirt’ on two different victims and Diddy wrote to a relative about ‘finding anything’ about one specific victim, the court was told.
Judge Subramanian said the problem with the notes was not the labelling, but the “context in which they were taken”.
He said the court would resolve the legal privilege issue at a later date and that the next court appearance, Diddy’s bail hearing, would take place Friday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Diddy’s lawyers requested that he be allowed to appear unimpeded for all future court hearings.
The request was submitted by Agnifilo before the hearing.
It comes after court documents filed Friday revealed Diddy is accused of obstructing the accuser’s case from behind bars by paying off witnesses and involving his own children in a “public relations campaign.”
Prosecutors say the disgraced hip-hop mogul has shown “an uncanny ability to influence others to do his bidding” even while he remains locked up.
They allege he tried to influence potential jurors in his trial by having his seven children post a video to mark his birthday on November 4.
Diddy is said to have paid off one witness after calling and texting her no fewer than 128 times in four days from his prison cell to convince her to support him.
Prosecutors also alleged that he used other inmates’ phone accounts to call people he was not allowed to speak to and to “avoid law enforcement surveillance.”
Dozens of people, some of whom were minors at the time, have sued Diddy in civil court for a series of offences, which he also denies.