CNN
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Sean “Diddy” Combs needs to testify at his legal trial for expenses of intercourse trafficking and racketeering, based on his legal professional.
“I don’t know that I can preserve him off the stand. He’s very keen to inform his story,” the embattled rap mogul’s legal professional Marc Agnifilo stated in an interview for a brand new TMZ documentary.
When contacted by CNN, a consultant for Combs declined to elaborate on Agnifilo’s feedback or say whether or not Combs will, the truth is, take the stand.
A supply with information of the present case tells CNN that the invention part has not begun, so it’s too early to verify any witnesses or people who could possibly be referred to as to the stand throughout the upcoming trial.
Prosecutors unsealed the three-count indictment towards Combs on September 17, accusing the artist of orchestrating “a legal enterprise” via his enterprise empire that engaged in intercourse trafficking, pressured labor, kidnapping and many years of bodily abuse towards ladies, amongst different allegations.
A resort surveillance video first revealed by CNN in Could that confirmed Combs assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles resort in 2016 was cited in the indictment against him. Prosecutors allege that the footage showcases Combs’ decades-long sample of bodily abuse.
Requested by TMZ about video of Combs, Agnifilo stated that if Combs testifies, he would clarify his actions within the video.
“I feel he’ll inform each a part of his story, together with what you see on the video, so I besides it’s going to be defined by the each of us,” Agnifilo stated within the interview. “He has his story, and he has a narrative that I feel solely he can inform in the way in which he can inform it in actual time.”
Prosecutors allege Combs “bribed” a resort workers member “to make sure silence” in 2016. (Ventura’s now-settled November 2023 lawsuit claimed he paid the resort $50,000 to acquire the hallway safety footage of the assault.) Allegations of bribery, making funds to cowl up alleged misdeeds and filming alleged sexual assaults have been made by the federal government and several other accusers in 11 civil suits, which Combs has denied.
In charging Combs, the US Legal professional for the Southern District of New York alleged that Combs held what he referred to as “Freak Offs,” or elaborate intercourse performances during which he drugged and coerced victims into prolonged intercourse acts with male intercourse staff. About one thousand bottles of child oil and private lubricant have been seized as a part of a search within the investigation.
“I can’t think about it’s 1000’s. And I’m probably not certain what the infant oil has to do with something,” Agnifilo stated in his interview with TMZ. “One bottle of child oil goes a good distance. I don’t know what you want a thousand for. I imply, he has a giant home. He buys in bulk. I feel they’ve Costcos in each place the place he has a house. Have you ever sat within the parking zone of a Costco and see what individuals stroll out of there with?”
In an interview with CNN after Combs was indicted final week, Agnifilio downplayed the variety of victims he believes are concerned within the legal expenses, after prosecutors stated that greater than 50 witnesses or victims have spoken with federal investigators.
“It’s one sufferer,” he advised anchor Kaitlan Collins. “That’s all that’s within the indictment.”
Combs is at the moment awaiting trial at New York Metropolis’s infamous Metropolitan Detention Heart, a facility that has been dwelling to singer R. Kelly, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Combs is being held in the identical housing unit on the MDC as one-time cryptocurrency whiz child Sam Bankman-Fried and former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a source told CNN, explaining that their shared facility is reserved for high-profile inmates and remoted from most of the people.