NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors say lawyers for 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 his accusers’ identities.
The prosecutors urged a judge in papers filed late Wednesday to reject the requests, saying the effort to reveal the identities of prospective witnesses, in particular, was “blatantly improper.”
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They said it was inappropriate for defense lawyers to seek the disclosure of victim identities and details about other evidence that would preview the government's case.
Defense lawyers also have asked for a gag order to stop accusers' lawyers from commenting publicly and have claimed government leaks to the media have threatened the rapper's chance at a fair trial.
Prosecutors said the requests were “a thinly veiled attempt to restrict the Government’s proof at this early stage of the case and to hijack the criminal proceeding so the defendant can respond to civil lawsuits. This demand should be squarely rejected, especially in light of the risk it poses to witness safety.”
Prosecutors added: “As the defendant well knows, there is zero legal authority for his attempt to co-opt this criminal proceeding to defend against civil litigation.”
Combs, 54, has remained in a federal jail in Brooklyn since his Sept. 16 arrest, awaiting a trial scheduled to start on May 5.
Part of the grounds on which a judge rejected a bail package suggested by his lawyers was that he was a danger to obstruct justice and engage in witness tampering.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years, aided by associates and employees.
Prosecutors said that since at least 2008, Combs engaged in a racketeering conspiracy, using his power and prestige in the entertainment industry to force women to engage in extended 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 striking, punching, dragging and kicking them.
Prosecutors said defense claims that the government leaked a video of Combs assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel hallway on March 5, 2016, to CNN were not true.
They said defense lawyers were 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 in which he said 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, alleging 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 now,” Combs said in the video.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura has done.
Combs also faces civil lawsuits by multiple men and women alleging they were sexually assaulted by Combs during the last quarter century after being drugged.
Lawyers for Combs have asked that the accusers and their lawyers be ordered not to make public statements, saying they have already made "numerous inflammatory extrajudicial statements aimed at assassinating Mr. Combs’s 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 allegations were sufficiently made.
In one instance, a judge on Wednesday ruled that a Tennessee woman who alleges Combs raped her in 2004 when she was 19 must proceed without anonymity or not at all. The judge wrote that defendants have a right to investigate those who sue them and the public has a right to know who uses the courts.
A lawyer for Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.