Facing a trial later this year for sex trafficking and other damning charges, the much-accused Sean “Diddy” Combs today took a big swing at prosecutors’ insistence that his so-called freak-offs were deprived and nonconsensual debaucheries.
According to Combs’ ambitious lawyers in the latest variation on their attack the accuser tactics, their client committed no crimes in his long term relationship with “Victim-1,” and the feds are prudes who want to control what goes on in people’s bedrooms
“Far from the government’s lurid descriptions, the videos show adults having consensual sex, plain and simple,” exclaims a letter from the incarcerated Bad Boy Records founder’s defense team sent Tuesday morning to Judge Arun Subramanian. “At bottom, this case is about whether Victim-I was or was not a willing participant in her private sex life with Mr. Combs. The videos confirm that she plainly was.”
“There is no evidence of any violence, coercion, threats, or manipulation whatsoever,” the somewhat redacted correspondence adds of the self-described “quite dark and grainy” sex tapes, as it seeks to have a protective order modified in regards to the videos. “There is no evidence that anyone is incapacitated or under the influence of drugs or excessive alcohol consumption. There is certainly no evidence of sex trafficking.”
One of the primary witness and sources for the U.S. Attorney’s office, “Victim-1” has long been identified as Combs’ former girlfriend Cassie Ventura. Despise a big bucks payoff to legal action of Ventura’s own in November last year over the 2007 – 2018 relationship the duo had, the defense has tried repeatedly to characterize her as an active and willing participant in Combs escapades.
Arrested by the NYPD on September 16 in a Manhattan hotel lobby, Combs is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Already behind bars at Brooklyn’s harsh Metropolitan Detention Center, where suspected United Healthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione is too, Combs has repeatedly been denied moves to be granted a $50 million bail. Having taken dozens of whacks at the U.S. Attorney’s case so far, Combs is represented by a pricey legal team led by Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos.
Fighting dozens of other sexual assault cases in federal and state court including one with Jay-Z as a co-defendant, Combs’ criminal trial is set to start May 5 next year. If found guilty, the 55-year-old Grammy winner is looking at life in prison.
In many ways where Combs finds himself today was kicked off when chart-topping singer Ventura sued Combs in a civil case in late 2023 for sexual assault and abuse.
At the time, Combs vehemently denied all of Ventura’s claims, including those of drugging her and forcing her to engage in what later became termed the freak-offs. However, to that, the rapper also settled with Ventura within a day for an estimated $30 million.
Months later, a 2016 security video went public of a half-naked Combs violently beating an escaping Ventura in the corridor of an upscale LA hotel. Already fighting off a series of other lawsuits, Combs quickly took to social media to apologize for the attack. Lawyers in this criminal case have subsequently tried to reframe the video, which Combs paid handsomely for at the time, as a targeted leak and smear by the feds and not actually an attack on Ventura.
Today’s letter is another attempt by the media savvy defense to once again try to flip the script on the case, both in the court and the court of public opinion. In no small part, this latest move essentially asserts that Combs did not force “Victim-1” to have kinky sex with him and others against her will, but that the prudish government wants to “police non-conforming sexual activity” – and the nine videos at issues here prove it.
“Any fair-minded viewer of the videos will quickly conclude that the prosecution of Mr. Combs is both sexist and puritanical,” Agnifilo and Geragos bluntly claim in the seven-page letter.
“It is sexist because the government’s theo1y perpetuates stereotypes of female victimhood and lack of agency,” they say. “The prosecution reflects a paternalistic view that the government is here to protect women, who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about sex, and ai e not capable of consenting to sex that the prosecutors view as outside the ‘norm’”
“These videos depict clearly consensual sex among willing adults in a decades-long relationship and fundamentally undermine the government’s case and Victim-1 ‘s claims.”
Contacted by Deadline, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on the letter from Combs and his defense to Judge Subramanian. Ventura’s lawyer Douglas Wigdor did not respond to request for comment on the correspondence. If Wigdor or his office do respond this post will be updated.
Today’s letter comes as Combs was sued earlier this week by a Jane Doe who claims the one-time music mogul drugged and raped her after a NYC baby-sitting job in 2000 after offering her a ride home. Alleging two male employees of Combs sat by as the assault occurred at a separate location she was driven to, the plaintiff says she was 16 at the time. After being “raped by Combs,” the filing says the plaintiff “was eventually taken home and left in the lobby of her building by the same driver.”
Among the 40 or so individuals, female and male, that say Combs rape, abused and assaulted them, there are several minors – including a
Late January 13, Combs’ team responded to the latest filing of this now middle-aged Jane Doe.
“No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor,” said a spokesperson for the performer. “We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth, and Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court.”
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