Diddy Accusers Deny Leaking Cassie Attack Video

Prosecutors are cracking down Sean Kammen‘ claims they leaked the bomb video showing his brutal assault of his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in a hotel hallway in March 2016. In a lengthy reprimand filed late Wednesday night, prosecutors said their copy of the surveillance video is still the one they downloaded from CNN broadcast the news from last May. In more than 39 pages of arguments, they said Combs’ recent three requests to have the video excluded from his upcoming trial, get early access to the accuser’s list of victim names and obtain a gag order on witnesses and their attorneys, all must be rejected. .

Combs, 54, was arrested on his federal charges on September 16 is in a federal prison in Brooklyn awaiting trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. The founder of former billionaire Bad Boy Entertainment has pleaded not guilty. His trial in downtown Manhattan is scheduled for May 5, 2025.

“All three of defendant’s claims must be dismissed in their entirety,” prosecutors wrote, saying Combs’ request for an evidentiary hearing and “suppression” of the Ventura video at trial “must be denied .” They said the video was not protected material when CNN obtained it, and they readily admitted that their own efforts to obtain the video had failed. They said that as of Wednesday, they still “had not obtained CNN’s intercontinental video broadcast from any source other than the public broadcaster.”

“As defendant is fully aware, the video was not in the government’s possession at the time of CNN’s publication, and the government never, at any time, obtained the video through a grand jury process,” say prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. York wrote.

‘The defendant refuses to acknowledge that several persons, other than government agents –
including some (Combs) own employees – may have had access to the Intercontinental video,” they continued. “Indeed, the government continues to investigate who accessed and may have obtained the video, including, for example, hotel employees, the hotel’s hired security team, and members of Defendant’s staff, who, as discussed on the record, attempted to video surveillance after the incident in March 2016.”

As for Combs’ demand for victims’ names through something called a “bill of details,” which means a written specification of claims in a lawsuit, prosecutors said it’s too early. “Here, all discovery will be made by December 31, 2024, more than four months before trial, and the government’s rolling productions have deliberately prioritized things like search warrant affidavits – which contextualize the allegations in the indictment – ​​as well as other material why was asked by the police. the defendant.” They said that if Combs later claims he does not have enough time to prepare for trial, “the appropriate remedy” is to request a postponement of the May trial date he specifically requested. “Because of the defendant’s history, the government has serious concerns about the safety of the victims and the potential for witness tampering if a list of victims’ names is provided to the defendant,” they said.

They said Combs’ third motion, seeking a witness gag order, should also be dismissed as “extremely excessive relief.” They described it as “nothing more than yet another attempt to force the government to prematurely release its witness list.”

Combs’ camp did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the government’s filing. Then his lawyers have filed a motion demanding the names of victims Earlier this month, they said prosecutors “wrongfully” forced Combs to “play a guessing game” as he prepared his defense. They said Combs’ 14-page indictment was so “particular” that they could not determine who the other unidentified alleged victims were — at least beyond the main victim. It is widely believed to be Ventura.

“The government is unfairly forcing (Combs) to play a gambling game,” attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos wrote. “Without clarity from the government, Mr. Combs cannot know what allegations the government is relying on in pursuing the indictment.” The lawyers said Combs’ position was “made all the more challenging by the barrage of baseless allegations that desperate plaintiffs are filing with him — most of it anonymously — a civil lawsuit intended to seek a payout from Mr. Combs and others to demand.”

A hearing in the criminal case is scheduled for December 18. In his indictmentCombs is accused of “abusing, threatening and coercing” multiple unidentified victims to fulfill his sexual desires. Prosecutors alleged that Combs engaged in a “sustained and widespread pattern of abuse,” but they were noticeably vague about the dates and details about individuals other than Ventura, who was not specifically named.

Speak with Rolling stone Last month, Elizabeth Geddes, a former federal prosecutor who delivered closing arguments in the Brooklyn government’s successful prosecution of R. Kelly, described Combs’ racketeering indictment as following a “Glecier format,” that is, a bare-bones style named after a famous case. , United States v. Glecier. She said such a format has the advantage of offering more protection to witnesses. “By proceeding this way, they don’t have to list every single act of extortion they want to prove at trial. They can just list broad categories of crimes (without) mentioning the specific cases or the specific victims,” Geddes said.

Outside of the criminal case, Combs also faces more than two dozen lawsuits filed by plaintiffs making claims ranging from sexual harassment to rape. The flood of civil claims began when Ventura filed her explicit complaint of sex trafficking last November. Combs settled with Ventura within 24 hours for an undisclosed amount, but her 35-page complaint, now the heart of the music mogul’s criminal prosecution, opened the floodgates. Combs’ homes were raided in March, and again in May CNN obtained and released the harrowing hotel surveillance video of Combs throwing, kicking, stomping and dragging Ventura in the hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles. After first dismissing Ventura’s claims against him, Combs issued a video apology related to the incident, admitting that his “conduct on that video is inexcusable.”