Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal team accused the U.S. government of leaking information, including a 2016 video of him physically assaulting Cassie Ventura, which they say biased the public against the music mogul.
In a letter supporting their motion for an evidentiary hearing filed in U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York and reviewed by USA TODAY Wednesday, Combs’ lawyers asked the judge “for four forms of relief related to what the defense believes was a series of unlawful government leaks, which have led to damaging, highly prejudicial pre-trial publicity that can only taint the jury pool and deprive Mr. Combs of his right to a fair trial.”
His lawyers, Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos, say there should be a hearing to investigate alleged government misconduct and for government agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations, which led the raids on Combs’ homes in March, that are involved in the case to reveal communications and records related to alleged “leaks” to media outlets.
Further, they ask the judge to issue an order prohibiting federal employees from disclosing evidence to the news media as well as the “suppression of any evidence leaked by government employees.”
Combs’ team believes that since March the government has been “strategically leaking confidential grand jury material and information, including the 2016 Intercontinental videotape, in order to prejudice the public and potential jurors against Mr. Combs.”
This has raised “public hostility against Mr. Combs in advance of trial,” they wrote. In May, CNN released 2016 hotel surveillance footage showing Combs kicking, hitting and dragging ex-girlfriend Cassie near the elevators of a hotel. Combs, in a video, apologized for his “inexcusable” behavior; his lawyers have painted the abuse as the result of a toxic relationship rather than evidence of sex trafficking.
Prosecutors have claimed that in the video Cassie was fleeing one of Combs’ so-called “freak offs,” which they described in a September letter to the district court judge as “elaborate sex performances” that were often recorded and “sometimes lasted multiple days, and frequently involved multiple sex workers.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment. USA TODAY has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security.
