\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \tSean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs will stay in prison as he awaits trial, with a federal judge denying his bid for a $50 million bail package. <\/p>\n
\tU.S District Judge Arun Subramanian on Wednesday found that no conditions of release can assure the safety of the community. He pointed to Combs\u2019 alleged history of violence, which includes the use of firearms, kidnapping and arson, to intimidate victims and witnesses with the help of his vast business empire, as well as evidence indicating that he\u2019s tried to obscure communications with people he\u2019s been barred from contacting. \t<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere is evidence supporting a serious risk of witness tampering,\u201d the ruling stated.<\/p>\n
\tThe court handed down the decision after a bail hearing last week. Its decision was delayed as it awaited more information on Combs\u2019 communications with others while he has been in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tWednesday\u2019s order stressed that the government has presented direct evidence of Combs\u2019 violence. This includes a 2016 video of Combs assaulting his then-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, at a Los Angeles hotel and text messages between the two indicating that she was severely injured. \u201cI have a black eye and a fat lip,\u201d she wrote in a text following the incident. \u201cI still have crazy bruising.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn support of bail, Combs maintained that the evidence doesn\u2019t support a charge of sex trafficking. In his view, he said it constituted a toxic, sometimes violent, relationship.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cBut regardless of whether that\u2019s true, there is compelling evidence of Combs\u2019 propensity for violence,\u201d Subramanian wrote. <\/p>\n
\tThe court also said that Combs may engage in witness tampering. It cited his communications with Ventura, who was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, and the rap mogul deleting messages with her in an effort to conceal the alleged tampering.<\/p>\n
\tPhone records confirmed that Combs and Ventura exchanged multiple messages from June to August, but they were unable to be recovered from his phone. Additionally, Combs\u2019 interactions with the witness were found to be \u201cdirectly in conflict\u201d with his lawyer\u2019s representations to the court at a September hearing that his client \u201cdid not reach out to grand jury witnesses,\u201d the ruling said.<\/p>\n
\tEvidence has emerged that Combs violated prison regulations during his stay in prison to obscure his communications with third parties. One example: he paid other inmates to use their phone access code numbers, used to make calls in prison, to contact people he was barred from talking to, according to the ruling. He also instructed family members and his lawyers to add others to three-way calls so that their communications were more difficult to trace. His \u201cwillingness to skirt\u201d rules in a \u201cway that that would make it more difficult for his communications to be monitored is strong evidence that the Court cannot be reasonable assured as to the sufficiency of any conditions of release,\u201d the order stated. \t<\/p>\n
\tCombs had previously been denied bail twice by two other judges after concerns that he may tamper with witnesses.<\/p>\n
\tProsecutors had alleged that, since being imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Combs had obtained other inmates\u2019 phone lines in attempts to evade scrutiny and contact witnesses. They also argued that he has used a non-authorized messaging app to communicate with third parties and has coerced his family to write public birthday messages to him, which were allegedly intended to sway potential jurors.<\/p>\n
\tIn turn, Combs\u2019 defense team, led by attorney Marc Agnifilo, claimed prosecutors had unjustly seized attorney-client privileged material from Combs\u2019 jail cell during a raid. Prior to the bail hearing, the court ruled that prosecutors must delete images of Combs\u2019 handwritten notes about legal strategies and potential witnesses.<\/p>\n
\tFederal prosecutors allege Combs has been at the helm of a vast criminal enterprise through which he assaulted and trafficked women with the help of his various businesses from at least 2008. The indictment specifically refers to a series of events called \u201cFreak Offs,\u201d in which commercial sex workers were allegedly brought in by Combs, who then \u201cused force, threats of force, and coercion to cause victims to engage in extended sex acts\u201d that were recorded and could last for days.<\/p>\n
\tCombs has pleaded not guilty to all charges. A trial date has been set for May 5, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs will stay in prison as he awaits trial, with a federal judge denying his bid for a $50 million bail package. U.S District Judge Arun Subramanian on Wednesday found that no conditions of release can assure the safety of the community. He pointed to Combs\u2019 alleged history of violence, which includes the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}