20/20 - Bad Rap: Who’s the Leak? 

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

This week in USA v Sean Combs: The judge is concerned that his court has a leak, there’s another issue with one of the jurors, and the jury saw videos of freak offs for the first time. Brian Buckmire also talks to prominent defense attorney Donna Rotunno, who represented Harvey Weinstein, about possible strategies for Sean Combs’ defense.  If you have a question about the case, leave a voicemail at 929-388-1249. To get access to all the trial updates in this case, follow "Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy" on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon Music⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and host of Bad Rap, the Case Against Diddy. You're about to hear our latest episode following everything going on in Sean Combs' trial from the prosecution and the defense. Remember, to hear all of our updates on this case, follow Bad Rap, the Case Against Diddy. We're dropping two new episodes every week, including one that's not available anywhere else. Now, here's our episode.

Hi, I'm Brad Milky. I'm the host of the Crime Scene Weekly, a new show from ABC Audio about the biggest headlines in true crime. This week, in the heart of Washington's wilderness, a tragedy has shattered a family. Three young sisters are dead and their father is on the run. I'll talk to ABC News correspondent Kana Whitworth to get the latest. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

During licensing, they called my cross examination vicious and I'm thinking vicious like I, I don't even raise my voice. Like, I am very calm. I'm very measured. I'm never yelling at witnesses. I'm not sarcastic. I really just ask the questions. Today on the show, we have a fascinating interview

with Donna Rotuno. Donna's a criminal defense attorney who's known for defending men accused of sex crimes, most notably Harvey Weinstein. I have a job to do. Like, what did you want me to do? Walk in there and say, okay, I have no questions. I mean, that's not how this works. We have a right to ask these questions. This is Bad Rap, the case against Diddy. I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and practicing attorney.

This episode, Who's the Leak? First, let's catch up on what happened in court this week. Court resumes on Friday after two days off. One for the planned Juneteenth holiday, one because a member of the jury wasn't feeling well. That's right, a sick juror can shut down court. But the real drama happened earlier in the week. The judge began Tuesday's court session with the most stern warning he's issued from the

bench since the start of the trial. Judge Subramanian said an article, he did not specify which one, included information about the case that hasn't been made public, a leak. He didn't share what information he was referring to, but it was related to a sealed conversation that happened Friday about an issue with a juror. We don't know what the issue is, but prosecutors have said it involves communications with his former colleague over his jury's service. The defense is calling for this unnamed juror to be removed.

The judge has not made a decision about that yet, but he seems quite upset about this potential leak. Going forward, he said he'll hold the lead attorneys from each side personally responsible for their teams. He said the buck stops with you. And any further violation of his gag order, he'll haul the attorneys into court, force them to testify, and conduct an examination of their electronic devices. The judge said, this is the only warning I will give. Only warning I will give. Also this week, the jury saw videos of freak-offs for the first time. They've seen still photos from these videos before, but this is the first time they saw

actual clips. The public and press were not allowed to see them. But we did hear about 30 seconds of sound from the video by accident. Some kind of technical glitch. The prosecution played small snippets of the video, but the defense played longer clips for the jury. Tenny Gargo said in her opening statement that the defense thinks they are powerful

evidence that the sex was consensual and not based on coercion. While the videos were played, Combs looked over at the jury multiple times. He seemed to bop his head to some music that could be heard through the headphones. On Friday, court will hear testimony from Brendan Paul, a former assistant who's expected to face questions about buying drugs for Combs. Like other former employees, he'll be testifying under immunity. A few weeks ago, we brought on a prominent sex crimes prosecutor to get her take on the Diddy case.

This week, we want to bring you a perspective of a defense attorney. My guest today is Donna Rotuno. As we mentioned, Donna helped defend Harvey Weinstein, though she no longer represents him and doesn't represent Combs either. It's also important to note that even though some of Combs' alleged crimes are sexual in nature, they're not the same as what Weinstein was charged with—rape, sexual abuse, and assault. Combs says all sexual encounters were consensual and he denies any wrongdoing. So let's get to our conversation. I started by asking Donna for her assessment

of how the government is doing so far. Are they making their case against Diddy? So I think that question calls for a semi long answer. So I'll give you what I think about it. First of all, I think any time the government brings racketeering charges, we have to look at the fact that there's multiple layers of things that they have to prove. And so there's part of me that I listened to the evidence some days and I think they're not close. And then there are other days that I think they're setting up the dominoes, right? Like one piece at a time through one witness. So, you know,

you hear from the security guard and you hear from Kid Cuddy and you hear from the woman who worked for him and you go through and little by little by little, you see what they're trying to do. But at the end of the day, I'm not so sure that the government is proving this racketeering charge. And I think jurors as a whole are very skeptical on racketeering. I think the second part of the issue is, racketeering was originally made part of the statutes

to go after and try to convict mobsters. And so it was an organizational group that took place in committing crimes and what they did in order to commit crimes and what they had to do with each other to make crimes successful. So given the fact that there's one defendant here, on that charge, I think as of now, I think they're going to have a hard time.

In terms of the other counts, I think when we're looking at trafficking and you're looking at prostitution, I think that those counts are fairly straightforward in the sense that they either meet the elements of the statute or they don't. And I think here they are proving those aspects because in that aspect, you don't necessarily have to prove this level of consent. I think sometimes these cases become

death by a thousand cuts, right? It's not one piece of evidence that is a slam dunk. It's not one set of circumstances that will present a conviction. I also think that given the fact that Cassie was eight and a half months pregnant and had to testify first, I think it changed maybe the way they would have presented the evidence. And maybe had she been able to testify a little bit later, the sequence of events may have made more sense in terms of the charges. I think it may have been a little difficult for them to have to start with her because it didn't put a lot of other things into context. Usually you don't start with one of your star witnesses. That's not usually the

way trials start. So I actually want to dig a little bit deeper just on that Rico, because on Tuesday, we heard a bunch of text messages and videos from who I would consider, and I think the government considers, alleged co-conspirators. So Christina Corum, D-Rock, people that we thought at the beginning of this trial would have gotten immunity and testified. Do you think the fact that they're absent so far,

but we're hearing them through their text messages helps or hurt in trying to prove this Rico case? I think the intention is that it's trying to help, but in the end, I'm sure that that's an argument that the defense is going to make saying, well, where are they? Why aren't they here? Now, of course, the government's response to that is going to be they're not here because they're afraid because this organization was so deep and was so threatening to them in so many ways. And that's why they're not appearing. Well, the defense, I think in a smart move, and I'm actually curious what you think as well,

has made consent a central part of this case. And so both of the government's alleged victims, Cassie Ventura and Jane say that Combs made them perform sex acts when they didn't want to. I think that's part of the sex trafficking of the force fraud and coercion. Cassie even accused Combs of rape. Prosecutors have argued that there was coercion in those relationships, while the defense insists that the encounters were actually consensual. So how are the attorneys in Sean Combs' case defending him against his allegations, and

in your opinion, is this working? I think it works to a degree, right? We have been conditioned as a society to change the way we view this word consent, right? And I think it probably happened in cases like Weinstein and, you know, most regular people think about consent as two people engaging in an activity that they agree to engage in. And I think the Cassie testimony is very interesting because, and Jane, because if you look at anybody that maintained a relationship with someone, I think the defense's position is that in and of itself is this implied consent that continues

throughout the course of this relationship. Now, can consent be withdrawn at any time? Yes. Can you decide you no longer want to partake in certain activities? Yes. And so I think that it's such a complex issue and it's not black and white for either side.

Because if you look at Cassie, Cassie's sending text messages, Cassie's saying, I can't wait for the next freak off. Cassie takes a stand and admits to this years long relationship that they had and then continues to stay with him after all the allegations of horrible beatings and horrible. Right. So at what point do you say, well, that woman has her own agency to make those decisions, right? And she had access to all these people in his life. So I think the defense is making an issue out of consent because that's what they have

to do. What else are they going to do? If you don't claim that all these things are consensual, then you're in a position where you're basically lying down and saying he is guilty as charged. And when you look at Jane, Jane testified that he's still paying her bills. Yeah.

So, you know, still, right? Still paying her rent, still paying. I- For her attorney. Correct, for her attorney. You know, she's admitting to the fact that she's with him up until the day he's arrested. So you've already known now about the raid at the house. You've known about all the allegations.

You've seen the Cassie video. You've learned of the Cassie lawsuit. So I mean, you are informed, right? You are making a decision based on information that you have and just think about what we knew as the public and what she must have known behind closed doors. So I think the defense has to go down that road because not only does it exist, but it's also relevant in terms of making a determination about what the state of mind of these witnesses was.

I'm curious as to what you think of some of this testimony as it applied to both Cassie and Jane. For Cassie, it was, we saw the text messages of her saying, I want to have these freak offs, planning some of them. Sean Cohn's even saying, we can just sleep in this day. We don't have to have a freak off. And she's saying, no, let's have the freak off. And then on the stand saying, well, I wasn't telling the truth. I really felt this way, but I was texting him another. And then with Jane, similarly texting him one thing, but she actually had notes in her

phone that she showed the jurors as well saying, well, this is how I was really feeling, but this is what I was telling Sean Combs. Alexandra Shapiro makes a very strong argument, I think in my mind saying it's within Sean Combs' mind, what he believes. And if he's being given this information, then how does he know this isn't consensual? Is that a legal argument that just lawyers are throwing out? Is that an actual argument? No, I think it's an actual argument. I think it's an act because again,

it has to be what he believed was happening at the time. And if you have no other information or knowledge other than people saying, I want to be involved in this. I can't wait till the next one. I'm excited. I want to be with you. There's no other way for him to know that. I always make an argument to the jury.

We never know what happens in those rooms, right? We're not there. We don't know. But we know all these things that surround it. And the only way you can make true determinations about whether you feel that someone acted voluntarily or not is by their actions surrounding it. And in this case, I think both parties can argue

that in different ways. Combs' lawyers can say, he had no knowledge of what they were saying or doing other than what he knew. Now the government can say, well, we now know all of these other things to be true because this is how they were feeling and this is what they were doing. And he should have known based on A, B and C, but it's going to be very interesting. And there's no way that he should be held accountable if he had no knowledge of

what they were feeling in those specific ways. So I think that it's a legal argument, but I also think it's a factual argument. I think you know this probably better than anyone, especially being a defense attorney for as long as you have been and being a former attorney for Harvey Weinstein. But these sex cases involve experts now

to explain concepts like love bombing and trauma bonding. And even in the first couple of weeks of the trial, the government put on a forensic psychologist to testify about that exactly, why people stay in relationships where they're being abused. And it seems to be a critical part of the testimony for the government in that explanation of why these two women, Cassie and Jane, still love Sean Combs. So what's your reaction to that element

of the government's argument? And maybe if I can slide in just a little as well, I'm pretty sure the defense is gonna have their own expert. So how do you think about this battle of experts and how this is gonna play out? The experts in these types of cases have become a much bigger deal than they used to be. And they make me crazy to be honest,

because I don't feel like it's really fair to put somebody up there to say, anything you do after a sexual assault is reasonable, right? Whether it's a forensic psychologist, whether it's a expert that deals with relationships, whether it's somebody that treated a victim or didn't, they get up and they say, if you buy plane tickets and you want to travel with the person who raped you the next day, that's totally normal. It doesn't mean you weren't raped. And if you go to a concert

the next day, that's totally normal. And if you don't go to the police, that's totally normal. Basically anything goes is really what they're saying. So to me, it's this overreaching umbrella to say, you can't hold actions after the fact against a quote unquote victim. And I just think that that's too over broad. It's too overreaching. I think it's absolutely prejudicial to a defendant. And what it is attempting to do, of of course is completely negate the argument that the defense makes and so I don't love them but yes they're used in in every case and I do think that when you have competing experts sometimes they cancel each other out but I also think sometimes jurors in these cases want to say, why would someone make this up?

Why would someone sit here and go through this, especially in a case that's as public as this one? Why would someone put themselves through this? I think those witnesses come in, in order to say they're not making it up because anything they say is reasonable. And so I just, I find that to be a very difficult road to climb. Yeah. The believability or credibility of an alleged victim seems like it will be really

important in this case. Do you find Cassie Ventura and Jane credible or believable? I do. I do think that they're credible. I think that they, you know, they admitted the relationship, they admitted the nature of the relationship. So I do, I find them both credible. And I would agree with you in sitting in the court and listening to them. I don't think there's many things that they said, especially Cassie, where I would say they're lying, but could they be credible and be victims of domestic violence and not victims of trafficking? Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is what I really thought after I listened to Cassie's testimony the first few days. That was exactly what my takeaway was.

Let's take a short break. When we come back, Donna tells us how the defense could try to counter the government's strongest pieces of evidence against Sean Combs, and what sort of jurors she thinks is most likely to side with Diddy. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Sitting down with Barbara Walters. I know you don't want to talk about guys and I won't push

it, but how are you going to find anybody? No one ever got out totally unscathed. You don't really act. You don't sing. You don't have any, forgive me, any talent. She was fearless. And sometimes she got under people's skin. My God! She asked the question nobody else had asked. She could talk to anyone about anything.

Right now, ladies and gentlemen, Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters. Tell me everything. Only on Hulu. Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom. You realize you're missing a part. It's OK, because you know whatever it is. It's on eBay.

They've got everything. Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes, whatever you need. And it's guaranteed to fit, which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at price is your love guaranteed to fit every time. eBay things people love. Oftentimes when it comes to, and I know this isn't a sexual assault case, but

there are allegations of it, which Combs adamantly denies. This is a RICO and sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution case. But oftentimes in their allegations of sexual assault, it's often he said, she said, right? But in Sean Combs' case, we have this massive piece of evidence, that being the video of the Intercontinental Hotel. And maybe to a lesser degree, but still, I think pretty big,

the alleged arson of Kid Cudi's car, the alleged bribery of Eddie the Angel, the hotel security guard. And I bring these up for a number of reasons. One, they're a concrete piece of evidence that we can see in many regards. And two, they're predicate acts to that Rico charge. So these, in my mind, present a real difficult challenge

for the defense. How do you think the defense has to overcome these challenges? And what are they going to have to prove in these last couple of weeks to try to turn the table on some of these charges and allegations? Of course they're going to have to deal with the security guard and the video, right? I have $100,000 take the money and just, you know, get rid of the video. Obviously that's a major issue, but what's the defense gonna say about that?

He's a high profile guy. He doesn't want it out there. We saw her get beaten, right? Okay, he's a domestic abuser. He's not charged specifically with that. It's beyond the statute of limitations and it's federal court. However, as you said, it is a predicate

to these RICO charges and to show this enterprise and to show the force and the threats and everything that went into that. But I think that's the only argument they have against that is, okay, yeah, we didn't say he's a great guy and he had a lot to lose. And that's why the payoff was there. Not because he was worried about the freak offs,

not because he was worried about the sex trafficking, but because he didn't want to be seen as this abuser to the public that adored him. So I think that's the response to that. In terms of the kid Cuddy circumstance, they're going to say nobody saw him do it, you know, threats are not right. But again, threats go to the racketeering. They don't have to prove that he actually set a match and lit the car on fire. They have to prove that it was part of this scheme and this design to force and coerce people to remain part of this operation. That one's tougher, but what they're going to say is that those are allegations. And even though the assistant said she went to the house with them, nobody actually saw

him set that car on fire. But then you had Cassie kind of back that up as well. So it'll be interesting to see how the jurors look at all this information. The other thing that came up, and then I think this is more common knowledge for you and I, and it's always a fascinating thing, think for non-attorneys but in a sexual assault sex-based case when you have a female alleged victim there is a clear understanding that women cross-examine women when a woman is accusing a man of sexual assault. In this case we have Anna Esteval who cross-examined Cassie

Ventura, Tenny Garagos who cross-examined Cassie Ventura, Teni Garagos, who cross-examined both women, including Jane in this case, rather than, for example, Mark Agnivelo or Brian Steele or Xavier Donaldson. Can you explain the strategy of that, of having a woman doing the cross-examination rather than a man in a case like this? Sure. I mean, as a woman who's cross-examined dozens upon dozens upon dozens of women

in sexual assault type cases, I think the theory is it really has a lot more to do on the effect of the listener than it actually does in terms of the witness and the lawyer independently. I think when the jury is watching, I think if there's any sympathy to be had when a man is cross-examining a woman or if the questioning gets difficult, right away it's almost like the man looks like he's bullying the woman and you get this feeling that there's this re victimization or you know, it's not a fair fight, but it is very true that it is the effect on the listener. So I think that that has more to do with it obviously than anybody's

skill, right? We all know that any good lawyer can get up and ask the questions that need to get asked in any type of a case, but for some reason, in cases that involve more sensitive information, cases that involve more embarrassing circumstances, it seems to be that women can ask the tougher questions of women witnesses and not have such a visceral reaction from the listener. So I think that's really more of what it has to do with than skill of any kind. I agree. It's not about the skill, but if it ever happens to me, I'm definitely calling you Donna to do the cross. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. During Weinstein, they called my cross-examination vicious. And I'm thinking,

vicious? Like, I don't even raise my voice.. Like I am very calm, I'm very measured. I'm never yelling at witnesses. I'm not sarcastic. I really just ask the question, but that is the way the world views these cases. And the minute we believe that a group or class of people should be automatically considered victims, right? Or this notion, believe all women.

It creates this sort of bubble around them that God forbid you pierce. It's like, wait, no, I have a job to do. Like I remember saying to the press, what did you want me to do? Walk in there and say, okay, I have no questions. I mean, that's not how this works, right? We have a right to ask these questions.

And so I find it interesting, actually. It's fascinating. And it's only this area of, nobody ever asks me that question in any other type of case I try. I wanna shift just a little away from gender. And I wanna see what you think about this because oftentimes when a juror is selected,

we talk about the makeup of the jury and how that could impact the case. I think oftentimes we may talk about gender, how many men or women, for example, in this case, eight men, four women. Oftentimes we talk about race, but I want to throw this to you. I think in a case like this, I think age is probably the most important. When you're talking about consent, just a reminder listeners, I think even with the new juror replacing the old one, we still have half the jurors over the age of 51.

And I think at least five of the jurors are 67 to 74. And if you're talking about consent, and I say this just for like my own personal experience, I'm in my mid, oh my God, I'm in my mid to late thirties. Yeah, I am just realizing that now. But I'm going to mid, oh my God, I'm in my mid to late thirties. Yeah, I am. Just realizing that now. But- I'm gonna be 50 next month, so. I would have put you at the same age as me. I would-

Oh, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna need your skincare program later, please. Thank you, you got it, no problem. But when I talk to my father, who's in his mid-sixties, or my mother about consent, or my siblings who are in their twenties, we all have very different ideas of consent. And so I'm curious what you think the demographics of age,

in this case, may have an effect on this trial as we talk about consent. It's a great question, and it's one of the things I deal with immediately when I look at jurors. I don't want any jurors under 45 years old in these types of cases, if I can avoid it. I think you're 100% correct that age plays a much bigger factor here.

I also think that when you're looking at women, older women jurors with sons are great jurors to have because they think, oh my gosh, my son could be implicated in something like this, right? So to me, age and moms with sons are the best jurors to have. I think in this case, it will play more in Sean Combs' favor to have an older jury,

because I don't think they buy these concepts that people continue to come back for more. I think that they look at it and they think, well, if that were me, that's not how I would have handled it. And so I had a similar jury with nine women and they were all older and they found my client not guilty in 61 minutes. It was like, they just didn't believe the story that she was trying to tell.

And I do think that women sometimes can be much more judgmental of women because they put themselves in their shoes. So you think you don't want women jurors? I think you do. I think today you have a lot of men who maybe can put themselves in somebody's shoes and think, oh, maybe I acted inappropriately once. And then they want someone else to be convicted for it. And that's so sure race plays as much of a role in this case as it does in some, but you know, we'll see. It'll be interesting to see. I'm not going to miss this opportunity because I've got you here.

And because we've got recent news about your former client, Harvey Weinstein, even though I know we're here to talk about Diddy, I know you don't represent him anymore. His New York trial, he had a bit of a mixed bag in terms of a verdict. He was found guilty of one count, not guilty of the other, and the jury was hung on the third count or there was a mistrial. And so this was sort of a win for Weinstein, though a little bit messy.

And the reason why I bring this up is because in Sean Combs, it might not be a clear verdict one way or another. It might be a little messy in terms of a mixed verdict. And it also might be a little bit messy in terms of if he's convicted, there might be an appeal. What do you think? Well, first of all, the Harvey Weinstein trial was messy in terms of jury deliberations were messy.

I think that that can happen here. I think that anytime again, back to Rico, Rico is confusing for jurors, it's confusing for regular people. Rico's a confusing situation. And so I'm not so sure that you're gonna see a verdict here that's all or nothing. I think this could be a verdict where you have some counts that are not guilty, some that are guilty.

I do not believe that he will be found not guilty on all counts, but I also don't believe he will be found guilty on all counts. So we'll see. I think sometimes, and that's our fear as defense attorneys, right? Like you can do such a great job

and you can win on the more serious counts, but what did it really do for your client, especially when jurors like the feeling that they did a little bit for everybody., especially when jurors like the feeling that they did a little bit for everybody. We'll find some guilty here and some not guilty here. That's one of the major risks we have. The more accounts there are, the less likely for somebody to completely walk out. Sgt. Chris Jones Yeah, jurors thinking that a compromise

is a compromise for both sides, not realizing that depending on the charges, not quite the compromise they believe it to be. Donna Coutts Exactly correct. And I will go to my grave saying that if jurors knew penalties, you would have less guilty verdicts. Sean Combs Well, Donna, I want to thank you very much for joining us today. It has been a pleasure. I have watched you practice from afar and it's great to hear you break down this trial, Sean Combs. So kind of you to have me. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Bad Rap, the case against Diddy is a production of ABC Audio. I'm Brian Buckmeyer. If you're looking for even more coverage of the Diddy trial, you can check out our daily show, Burden of Proof, The Case Against Diddy. The show streams weekdays at 530 p.m. Eastern on ABC News Live. You can also find it on Disney+, Hulu, or on most of your favorite streaming apps. The podcast production team includes Vika Aronson, Audrey Mostek, Amira Williams, Tracy Samuelson and Sasha Aslanian. Special thanks to Stephanie Morris, Caitlin Morris, Liz Alessi, Kety Dendas and the team

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