Combs’ bail of $50M ‘insufficient’ for public safety
Judge confines rapper to federal jail in Brooklyn
NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs is staying locked up after a judge Wednesday rejected the hip-hop mogul’s proposal that he await his sex trafficking trial in the luxury of his Florida mansion instead of a grim Brooklyn federal jail.
U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter ruled that Combs’ plan — which included a $50 million bail offer, GPS monitoring and strict limitations on visitors — was “insufficient” to ensure the safety of the community and the integrity of his case.
Carter, agreeing with prosecutors who fought to keep Combs in jail, found that “no condition or set of conditions” governing his release could guard against the risk of him threatening or harming witnesses — a central charge in his case.
Combs’ lawyers were making their second attempt in as many days to spring him from the
Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held since pleading not guilty Tuesday to charges he physically and sexually abused women for years.
A federal magistrate on Tuesday rejected Combs’ initial request for bail. On Wednesday, he and his lawyers struck out with Carter, the judge who will preside over his trial. Defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo says he will next ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Carter’s ruling and release Combs.
“I’m not going to let him sit in that jail a day longer than he has to,” Agnifilo said.
Combs looked at family members and tapped his heart several times as Wednesday’s hearing began, then sat stoically as he listened to arguments. Afterward, as federal agents led him away, his relatives somberly embraced and exchanged hand slaps.
Combs, 54, is accused in an indictment of using his “power and prestige” to induce female victims and male sex workers
into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs” that Combs arranged, participated in and often recorded. The events would sometimes last days, the indictment said.
The indictment alleges he coerced and abused women for years, with the help of a network of associates and employees, while using blackmail and violent acts including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings to keep victims from speaking out.
Combs has been in federal custody since his arrest Monday night at a Manhattan hotel.
Arguing to keep him locked up, prosecutor Emily Johnson told Carter that the once-celebrated rapper has a long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse. She cited text messages from women who said Combs forced them into “Freak Offs” and then threatened to leak videos of them engaging in sex acts.
Johnson said Combs’ defense team was “minimizing and horrifically understating” Combs’ propensity for violence, taking issue with his lawyer’s portrayal of a 2016 assault at a Los Angeles hotel as a lovers’ quarrel.
Security video of the event showed Combs hitting his then-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in a hotel hallway. Johnson seized on a text message from a woman who said Combs dragged her down a hallway by her hair.
According to Johnson, the woman told the rapper: “I’m not a rag doll, I’m someone’s child.”
Combs is a “danger to the community and poses a serious risk to the integrity” of his case, Johnson argued.
Agnifilo also asked Carter to move Combs to a jail in New Jersey instead of the The Metropolitan Detention Center, which has about 1,200 inmates and has been described by some lawyers and judges as overcrowded, violent and neglected.