- Plaintiffs in 14 lawsuits name Sean Combs a rapist, together with eight who sued previously two weeks.
- Credible plaintiffs might help prosecutors win the Combs prison case, authorized specialists say.
- Combs’ facet is already portraying plaintiffs as monetary opportunists who’re to not be believed.
The sex-trafficking indictment towards Sean “Diddy” Combs mentions a single cooperating accuser, a former longtime girlfriend referred to solely as “Sufferer-1.”
Authorized specialists consider she will not be alone for for much longer.
Plaintiffs from Combs’ rising variety of sexual abuse lawsuits might quickly be a part of her, as “Sufferer-2,” “Sufferer-3,” and past, in an up to date indictment, veteran New York protection attorneys predict.
“You’ll be able to guess the US Legal professional’s Workplace is interviewing the attorneys, if not the shoppers themselves,” legal professional Michael Farkas, a former New York prosecutor.
Whereas robust civil accusers — these providing proof, corroboration, and plausible testimony — might help prosecutors win a prison trial, their monetary stake within the end result of the case makes them susceptible to cross-examination.
“If they’re credible, they may quantity to very highly effective proof towards Mr. Combs, both as further prices or as witnesses known as to the stand to point out a sample,” Farkas stated.
“However the US attorneys will use warning in all these plaintiff interviews, entertaining at the very least the chance that these are claims of alternative,” he stated.
Protection legal professionals have already signaled that this can be a line of assault towards “Sufferer-1.”
Whereas she shouldn’t be recognized by identify in court docket papers, her particulars within the indictment match these in a rapidly settled $30 million lawsuit introduced in November by Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, the rap mogul’s longtime girlfriend.
Ventura’s legal professional, Douglas Wigdor, declined to touch upon this story.
“There’s 30 million causes” to doubt her credibility, Combs legal professional Marc Agnifilo informed a choose throughout bail arguments final month. “One for every greenback that was being sued for.”
Any dent in a witness’s credibility can injury a case, stated Stacey Richman, a Bronx-based legal professional who has represented rappers together with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Ja Rule.
“In the event that they consider a witness has deliberately testified falsely as to any materials truth, the jurors might disregard the witness’s whole testimony,” stated Richman. “And if there may be sufficient momentum with a number of witnesses, it could destabilize the entire case.”
Farkas, Richman, and different prison protection legal professionals with federal expertise informed BI prosecutors can be particularly thinking about essentially the most critical of the 2 dozen civil claims introduced within the yr since Ventura’s lawsuit opened the Combs litigation floodgates.
To date, 11 girls and three males allege they had been raped by the music mogul after being overwhelmed or drugged at events he threw in Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas over the previous three a long time. Practically a dozen further plaintiffs allege sexual abuse with out utilizing the phrase rape.
In a lawsuit filed this week, a Jane Doe from Alabama stated she was 13 years outdated when Combs and an unnamed “Celeb A” raped her at an after-party for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.
The lawsuit was one in all 13 circumstances filed within the final two weeks by The Buzbee Regulation Agency in Houston. Founding legal professional Tony Buzbee says he’ll file 120 in complete.
“We anticipate to be submitting circumstances weekly naming Mr. Combs and others as defendants as we proceed to assemble proof and put together the filings,” he informed BI.
Combs stays in a federal jail in Brooklyn as he appeals his denial of bail and awaits trial. His indictment alleges he engaged in a decades-long sample of bodily and sexual violence, together with throughout elaborate dayslong intercourse performances known as “freak-offs.” He has pleaded not responsible, and his legal professionals have stated that the charged conduct was consensual.
In court docket papers regarding the prison case, protection attorneys have used the phrases “false” and “outright absurd” in referring to the lawsuits’ allegations. Members of the protection crew declined to remark for this story.
A spokesman for the US legal professional’s workplace additionally declined remark.
The vetting can be rigorous
The vetting of those potential plaintiffs-turned-federal-witnesses can be rigorous, stated Michael Bachner, a former New York prosecutor who was a part of Combs’ protection crew in 2001, throughout a Manhattan weapons and bribery trial that ended within the rap mogul’s acquittal.
“They will wish to know, is there corroboration or proof?” Bachner stated of federal prosecutors. “Many of those allegations are a long time outdated — are there hospital data? Is there a proof for a 13-year-old going to a VMA occasion? Why was she alone?”
This vetting is already effectively underway.
Federal prosecutors have been interviewing plaintiffs for months in a less-than-secretive course of, protection legal professionals complained not too long ago, in asking Combs’ Manhattan choose to gag potential witnesses and their attorneys.
Combs producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a $30 million lawsuit in February alleging sexual assault and harassment, allegations Combs has denied and is looking for to have dismissed.
Final week, Tyrone Blackburn, an legal professional for Jones, informed a federal choose in Manhattan that he and his consumer have met repeatedly with prosecutors, with Jones drawing a map of Combs’ house and sharing photographs, in response to Regulation 360.
Blackburn, who additionally represents Combs accuser Liza Gardner, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Blackburn dropped Jones’ claims towards UMG Recordings, Motown Data, and Common Music Group in Might after the music corporations’ attorneys complained of inconsistencies within the lawsuit.
One other of the Combs lawsuits, filed in July by grownup movie actress Adria English, equally hit authorized shoals this month when her attorneys efficiently requested to withdraw from the case, citing “irreconcilable variations” with English, in response to court docket filings. The attorneys didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Specialists stated Combs’ protection legal professionals will attempt to impugn the monetary motives of not solely any plaintiffs who take the stand in Might but additionally their legal professionals.
In a movement looking for a gag order final week, the protection accused plaintiff attorneys of utilizing “publicity stunt” techniques to drum up a “torrent of allegations.”
They singled out Buzbee for live-streaming a press convention final month the place anybody with claims was suggested to name a “1-800” quantity. The hotline obtained 12,000 calls in its first 24 hours, he informed the New York Put up.
“We are going to let the allegations within the filed complaints converse for themselves and can work to see that justice is finished,” Buzbee informed BI this week.
