NEW YORK– Federal prosecutors recommend lawyers Sean “Diddy” Combs are trying to “hijack” the music mogul’s criminal case from them by asking a judge to force early disclosure of evidence, including the identities of his accusers.
Prosecutors urged a judge to deny the requests in documents filed late Wednesday. They said the attempt to reveal the identities of potential witnesses in particular was “blatantly inappropriate.”
They said it was inappropriate for lawyers to seek disclosure of victims’ identities and details of other evidence that would prefigure the government’s case.
Defense attorneys have also asked for a gag order to prevent plaintiffs’ attorneys from commenting publicly, claiming that government leaks to the media have jeopardized the rapper’s chances for a fair trial.
Prosecutors said the requests were “a thinly veiled attempt to limit the government’s evidence at this early stage of the case and hijack the criminal proceedings so that the suspect can respond to civil lawsuits.” This demand should be rejected outright, especially in light of the risk it poses to witnessing safety.”
Prosecutors added: “As the defendant well knows, there is no legal authority for his attempt to co-opt this criminal proceeding to defend against civil lawsuits.”
Combs, 54, has since been held in a federal prison in Brooklyn his arrest on September 16pending a trial set to start on May 5.
Part of the grounds on which a judge rejected a bail package proposed by his lawyers was that he posed a danger of obstructing justice and engaging in witness tampering.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges that he forced and abused women been helped by employees and collaborators for years.
Prosecutors said Combs engaged in a racketeering conspiracy since at least 2008, using his power and prestige in the entertainment industry to coerce women into engaging in elaborate sex acts with male commercial sex workers in what were known as “Freak Offs.”
They said he used videos of the attacks as collateral to threaten victims, and they said he also physically assaulted women and others by hitting, punching, dragging and kicking them.
Prosecutors said the defense claims the government leaked a video of Combs assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway on March 5, 2016, according to CNN were untrue.
They said defense attorneys engaged in a “bald attempt to suppress a damning piece of evidence against him — a video of him violently beating a victim.”
In May, Combs posted a video statement saying he took “full responsibility” for his actions in the video against Cassie, an R.&B-singer whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. She sued him last November for years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. The lawsuit was settled the next day.
“I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted by it now,” Combs said in the video.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura has done.
Combs is also facing civil lawsuits from multiple men and women who claim they were sexually abused by Combs after being drugged over the past quarter century.
Attorneys for Combs have asked that the plaintiffs and their attorneys be ordered not to make public statements, saying they have already made “numerous inflammatory extrajudicial statements aimed at assassinating Mr. Combs’ character in the press. ”
More than a dozen lawsuits filed in Manhattan federal court have been assigned to different judges, leading to varying early rulings on whether the allegations were sufficiently made.
In one case, a judge ruled Wednesday that a Tennessee woman who claims Combs raped her in 2004 when she was 19 must proceed without anonymity or not at all. The judge wrote that defendants have the right to investigate those who accuse them and that the public has the right to know who is using the courts.
An attorney for Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.