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NEW YORK — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs requested a judge Wednesday to let him await his intercourse trafficking trial at his luxurious house on an island close to Miami Beach, relatively than a grim federal jail in Brooklyn. Prosecutors argued towards the association, saying there was too nice a danger that the hip-hop mogul may threaten or hurt witnesses.
Combs’ attorneys supplied a $50 million bail package deal — utilizing his mansion as collateral — in trade for releasing him to house detention with GPS monitoring and strict limitations on who may go to him. The protection and prosecution have been wrangling over the request at a listening to Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, a U.S. Justice of the Peace judge in Manhattan ordered Combs held with out bail.
Combs, 54, pleaded not responsible Tuesday after an indictment accused him of utilizing his “energy and status” to induce feminine victims and male intercourse employees into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs” that Combs organized, participated in and sometimes recorded. The occasions would typically final days, the indictment mentioned.
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The indictment alleges he coerced and abused girls for years, with the assistance of a community of associates and staff, whereas utilizing blackmail and violent acts together with kidnapping, arson and bodily beatings to maintain victims from talking out.
Combs has been in federal custody since his arrest Monday evening at a Manhattan lodge.
Arguing to maintain him locked up, prosecutor Emily Johnson informed U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter that the once-celebrated rapper has an extended historical past of intimidating each accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse. She cited textual content messages from girls who mentioned Combs pressured them into “Freak Offs” after which threatened to leak movies of them partaking in intercourse acts.
Johnson mentioned Combs’ protection staff was “minimizing and horrifically understating” Combs’ propensity for violence, taking situation along with his lawyer’s portrayal of a 2016 assault at a Los Angeles lodge as a lovers’ quarrel. Security video of the occasion confirmed Combs hitting his then-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in a lodge hallway.
Johnson seized on a textual content message from a lady who mentioned Combs dragged her down a hallway by her hair. According to Johnson, the girl informed the rapper: “I’m not a rag doll, I’m somebody’s youngster.”
Combs is a “hazard to the neighborhood and poses a severe danger to the integrity” of his case, Johnson argued.
Federal Magistrate Robyn F. Tarnofsky initially dominated that Combs was too harmful to be freed. But Combs’ legal professional, Marc Agnifilo, submitted a letter to Carter on Wednesday asking once more for bail underneath situations that might permit him to go away the Metropolitan Detention Center, the lockup on the Brooklyn waterfront the place he was taken after his arraignment.
The jail, which has round 1,200 inmates, is the topic of frequent complaints from attorneys and a few judges that it’s overcrowded, violent and uncared for.
Combs’ Florida home is on Star Island, a man-made dollop of land in Biscayne Bay, reachable solely by a causeway or boat. It is among the many costliest locations to dwell within the United States. Combs’ request echoes that of an extended line of rich defendants who’ve supplied to pay multimillion-dollar bails in trade for house detention in luxurious environment.
If he have been to be granted bail, Combs must keep in that home whereas awaiting trial, his attorneys supplied. Visits can be restricted to household, property caretakers and pals who will not be thought of co-conspirators.
“I’m feeling assured. We’re going to go get Mr. Combs out of jail,” Agnifilo mentioned on his means into courtroom Wednesday. He mentioned Combs is “doing nice, he’s centered and he’s prepared for his listening to.”
Many of the accusations within the indictment parallel allegations contained in a November lawsuit filed by Cassie, whose authorized title is Casandra Ventura. The swimsuit was settled the next day, however its allegations have adopted Combs since.
The AP doesn’t usually title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused except they arrive ahead publicly, as Ventura did.
Without naming Ventura however clearly referring to her, Agnifilo argued at Tuesday’s arraignment that your entire prison case is an outgrowth of 1 long-term, troubled-but-consensual relationship that faltered amid infidelity. The “Freak Offs,” he contended, have been an enlargement of that relationship, and never coercive.
Prosecutors portrayed the scope as bigger. They mentioned that they had interviewed greater than 50 victims and witnesses.
Like many growing older hip-hop figures, Bad Boy Records founder Combs had established a gentler public picture. The father of seven youngsters was a revered worldwide businessman, whose annual “White Party” within the Hamptons was as soon as essential invitation for the jet-setting elite.
But prosecutors mentioned he used the identical corporations, individuals and strategies he used to construct his enterprise and cultural energy to facilitate his crimes. They mentioned they might show it with monetary and journey information, digital communications and movies of the “Freak Offs.”
In March, authorities raided Combs’ luxurious houses in Los Angeles and Miami, seizing narcotics, movies and greater than 1,000 bottles of child oil and lubricant, based on prosecutors. They mentioned brokers additionally seized firearms and ammunition, together with three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.
A conviction on each cost within the indictment would require a compulsory 15 years in jail with the potential of a life sentence.
Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
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