Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 5 Reasons P. Diddy Bail Could Be Denied — Again

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Sean “Diddy” Combs is making a third request to be released on bail as he awaits trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. But federal prosecutors are fighting Combs’ bid for bail saying he’s been breaking jail rules and breaking the law by trying to have others contact witnesses in the case from his cell. Law&Crime’s Angenette Levy goes over the claims and how it could lead to more charges in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Justin Paperny https://x.com/WCAJustinPCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Sean Diddy Combs might be in more hot water after prosecutors say he's been breaking the rules and the law behind bars. So how's he able to do it? A man who's done some time is here to explain. Welcome to Crime Fix.

I'm Anjanette Levy. Sean Diddy Combs has been behind bars for about two months now, and he doesn't like it. Not one bit. Who would? Combs made a third pitch to get out of jail on bond, calling the government's case against him thin. But federal prosecutors are now firing back, saying their case is strong and things are getting kind of ugly if they hadn't already. More on that in a minute. Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. He's accused of using his businesses as a front to commit crimes. Combs has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers say any sex he had with his ex, Cassie Ventura,

whose victim won in the indictment, and male sex workers, was consensual and not coerced. Combs' lawyers have even accused Cassie of trying to get rich off of writing a book about her relationship with Sean Combs, and they've said that chilling video of Cassie being beaten in a hotel hallway in 2016 by Combs wasn't part of a freak-off, as the government claims. The defense wrote, it confirms the defense's initial description of the events depicted in the March 2016 video recording. The video is not evidence of a coerced freak-off, but rather a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship between Mr. Combs and victim one. But the

government is firing back at Combs' claims that the relationship between Combs and Cassie Ventura was just loving and at times toxic. Prosecutors write in presenting recently produced text messages, the defendant cherry picks to paint a misleading picture, ignoring numerous other messages in the record between the defendant and victim one, documenting the defendant's physical abuse of victim one and his threats to expose recordings of freak-offs in the text messages cassie describes having bruises a fat lip and cuts and combs threats to leak videos of these freak-offs combs has agreed to post a 50 million dollar bond hire a private security firm to monitor him 24 7 and he's agreed to other conditions

if the judge allows him to be released. Federal prosecutors say none of that is good enough because they believe Combs is dangerous and that he's been obstructing justice before and after his arrest. Prosecutors write, his motion ignores the significant evidence presented by the government at the prior hearings showing that the defendant is a violent serial abuser who uses his vast wealth and position in the entertainment industry to conceal his illegal conduct and prevent victims of and witnesses to his abuse from coming forward. Federal prosecutors have said the grand jury investigation into Combs is ongoing and part of the reason agents arrested him when they did?

They said he was obstructing justice and tampering with witnesses and that that's continued while he's been behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Prosecutors say Combs spoke to his former Diddy Dirty Money bandmate Kalina Harper in September after another member of the band, Don Richard, sued Combs. Harper posted a statement on Instagram in September supportive of Combs, but prosecutors say they have reason to believe that Combs paid Harper off based off of the notes that they found in his cell during a sweep of the MDC. In a letter sent to Judge Submaranian in response to Combs' lawyers claiming prosecutors were reviewing communications between

Combs and his lawyers. The defendant has engaged in unauthorized communications practices, including three-way calling on the monitored phone line, use of other inmates' phone access code numbers to make phone calls, those are PAC numbers, on the monitored phone line, and use of a third party text messaging provider through the BOP's monitored email system. Each of these methods of communications is prohibited by BOP. Furthermore, as set out in the government's November 15, 2024 brief, the defendant used these unauthorized methods of communications to continue to engage in obstruction, including by instructing third parties to reach out to witnesses and attempting to influence the jury pool in this criminal case.

I cover some really awful cases for you here on Crime Fix each day, and they show you just how scary the world can be. And one of the scariest things that can happen is if you ever get hurt. And if you are hurt in an accident, your case could be worth millions. You should know that. That's where Morgan & Morgan comes in. The firm has more than a thousand lawyers who will fight for you and they have the track record to prove they can get you what you deserve. In the past few months, Morgan & Morgan has had some big verdicts, $12 million in Florida, $26 million in Philly, and $6.8 million in New York. All of those were much higher than the highest insurance company offer. Seeing if you have a case can be done in eight clicks or less million in Philly and 6.8 million in New York. All of those were much higher than the highest

insurance company offer. Seeing if you have a case can be done in eight clicks or less on your phone and you only pay Morgan & Morgan if you win. There are no upfront fees. So if you're ever hurt, you can easily start a claim at ForThePeople.com slash CrimeFix. Federal prosecutors say Combs was using the phone accounts of at least eight other inmates, and he was able to do this because he had people pay those inmates through prison apps and their commissary accounts. Federal Prosecutor Sy Combs is also using three-way calling to manipulate the system and has family members patch in other people, including members of the Rico enterprise he's accused of operating. The government also says Sean Combs is running a PR campaign using his children from the MDC.

Happy birthday to Daddy. Sean Combs' kids recorded that video on his 55th birthday and posted it to his Diddy Instagram account with commentary from Combs' kids recorded that video on his 55th birthday and posted it to his Diddy Instagram account with commentary from Combs. Yeah. Great to see y'all. And I just want to say I'm proud of y'all. I'm proud of y'all, especially the girls.

I mean, all of y'all. But just for being strong. Thank y'all for being strong. And thank y'all for being by my side and supporting me. I love y'all. I got the best family in the world. My birthday. I'm happy.

Thanks to y'all giving me this call. Thank you very much. I love y'all. Love you. Can't wait to see you in a couple of days. Now, federal prosecutors say this was all orchestrated by Combs and that he was actually monitoring the social media analytics on the posts and discussed with his family how to make this have the desired effect on the jury pool. What's up, y'all? It's King Combs. And right now I'm taking over my pop's Instagram. Combs' son King even started posting old videos on his Instagram account. King said he wanted to spread good energy and take everyone down memory lane to show people the good things that his dad had done. I want to bring in Justin Paperny. He is a prison consultant. Justin,

your thoughts on Sean Combs, allegedly, and I'll say allegedly because this is what the government is saying in their response. He's breaking the rules and breaking the law, they say. They say he is obstructing justice all over the place in the MDC. And it almost sounds like they're just letting him do it because it's helping their case as they present this evidence or plan to present it to the grand jury. Well, let me start by apologizing to your millions and millions of followers, because in a prior video, I said, I think he can get it together in prison. I think there's a chance for him to understand that he's making decisions that could send him to life in federal

prison. Except my apology, I was wrong. He makes decisions that only exacerbate his struggles. He blames, he excuses, and he fails to understand that the prosecutors don't view him as a mogul or father or husband, but as someone who creates victims. So rather than use his time in prison to try to demonstrate that he's different than the government thinks and really make himself a candidate for a bond or bail hearing. Instead, he continues to double down on jury tampering,

potentially continuing to blame and excuse, saying things over the phone that he should not say. And it's just a continuation of really terrible, awful conduct. And either the lawyers cannot get through to him or they continue to enable this conduct. Either way, he's continuing to make terrible decisions. Sean Combs, according to the government, is doing a number of things that are huge no-nos. He's using other inmates' phone accounts and PIN numbers, PAC numbers, whatever you're going to call them. He's paying them so he can do this. The government's fully aware that they know this game. You know, this is what goes on in prisons.

How is this allowed or how does this continue when you're in a prison? I mean, are these things that are pretty commonplace and the prisons just know this stuff goes on? Or does it really only go on when you're talking about people accused of really, really bad, heinous crimes? I mean, it could be like drug crimes. It could be things like this, sex trafficking. It could be murder, things of that nature. I guess it could be any number of crimes, but this seems very clear from what the government is claiming, that he's taking great steps and he's going to great lengths to circumvent the system and to manipulate it, to reach out to people and to have family members reach out to people. And he's trying to hide it by using other people's accounts? From a minimum security camp where I serve time all the way to

a detention center and every prison in between, there are people who are going to engage in this prison hustle. iPhones, drugs, violating these rules. And it's easier to cross the line or give into temptation or justify why he's doing it. Because if anything, he thinks he's the victim here. He thinks he's been wrong. He thinks he should be free. He doesn't think he did anything wrong at all. So for that reason, he may be telling himself, the government's out to get me. I've got to take matters into my own hands. And in any prison, there's going to be prison hustlers who earn their living, who make money by selling iPhones or drugs, giving access to things that someone otherwise would not be able to get. Then you convince yourself they're not going to find out. And of course, they know everything. Prisons care

about security of the institution. That means it is like 24-hour security. We've had issues with these prisons in New York. So you could expect a celebrity like Holmes is going to have more scrutiny, if anything, like all eyes are on him. So what they'll do at times is they'll let him begin. They'll let him engage. So if it's on an illegal phone, they're not going to catch him like day one. They may let him use it and they're going to listen. They're going to get information that they could use against him. And the longer he goes without getting caught, it could like embolden him like, well, this

is working. I'm getting my message out there, maybe to the children to post things on social media that can influence the jury. Boom, they get that. And of course, they argue these points. So he thinks he's making decisions as a victim. He has to do these things. But of course, the government views it differently. And all he's doing is continuing to prove, at least according to the government's perspective, that this is a bad dude who should not be released to the community, whether he offers us $50 million, $500 million, or $5 billion. He ain't getting out. Yeah, I don't think the judge, I don't think there's any way they're giving him bail,

especially because they're saying that with sex trafficking, detention is presumed. That is what the government says. So I don't think he's going to get out, especially when we're talking about, you know, allegations of violence, witness tampering. The Fed said this is why they scooped him up when they did because not because the investigation was over, but because he was tampering with witnesses. I want to talk now about something you just brought up and I had brought it up earlier in the show, the fact that they say he's running a PR campaign from the MDC, the video, the jail video, the birthday video with the kids and the singing of happy birthday. And he's monitoring the analytics on his Instagram to see if it's having the desired effect. He's checking on his phone, I guess, or I don't know how he's doing it unless his son's doing it for him. I can't imagine he's allowed to access his Instagram account from the MDC, but he's trying to run PR from the MDC. And he had his son also post a bunch of videos on his Instagram. I think it backfired spectacularly. And I even remember

saying to people here at work, like he's like doing he's trying to do PR on his Instagram. So tell me about how the court, the judge would probably view that because they've said they need to limit what they're saying in public in order to, you know, not taint the jury pool. But the government claims he's trying to taint the jury pool in his favor. So if you're a defendant, all you have to do is do the exact opposite of everything that Diddy does in prison. The judge expects him to behave a certain way. He does the exact opposite. I think it's tragic. His lawyers try to bill him or bill him to try to get these bail hearings. It's like someone who smokes 10 packs of cigarettes a day wondering, why am I unhealthy? He makes every decision in the world that gets him further away from what he wants,

which is freedom. Or at least if convicted, he can convey to the judge, this is why I'm a candidate for leniency. This is what I've done while I'm in prison to make amends. Instead, the prison says, we have a lockdown 23 hours a day. It's still not even enough. So of course they know if he's trying to influence people in the community through his family. He may have Instagram through an illegal iPhone and the government is watching every single thing that he does, which is why if convicted, something that could have been 20 years, not saying it's a long time, they're going to look at this post-defense conduct. In other words, everything that he's done since he's gotten into trouble. Some people get into trouble, they say, that's enough. I'm done. I've made matters. This is bad. I want to stop the bleeding.

Some like Combs, Elizabeth Holmes, Sonny Balwani, and others, they double down. They continue the charade and something that could have been 20 years can turn out to be 15 years, 50 years. And like so many people in prison, he'll look back with regret, probably blame the lawyers, the enablers, everybody but himself. And until he says I'm responsible for my plight in life, expect him to continue to make bad choices. I want to talk about Kalina Harper. She is a former Diddy Dirty Money band member. And the government is claiming that he paid her to basically write a statement, a favorable statement supporting him and to post it on Instagram in September before his arrest. And this came after another one of their bandmates, Don Richard, sued Sean Combs. They said they found evidence in his cell suggesting that he paid her off. She was also a grand jury witness.

And they said that he was having a lot of communication with her, despite the fact that he knew she was a grand jury witness. It seems to me, you know, the prior judge, one of the prior judges who ruled on the bail issue, was really concerned about that. And so I don't think he's going to get bail again because of this. I'll tell you what it seems to me. It seems to me that he is proving to the government that he is exactly what they say he is. A criminal who is incapable of making good decisions, who when faced with struggle or setback doesn't try to make amends or at least do nothing that doesn't make matters worse, he doubles and triples down. Every single day, these prosecutors probably sit in their office while having a cup of coffee thinking that he's proving the case for

us. We're so thankful for his conduct. We're so grateful that he is putting us in a position to make this the slam dunk case of the century. It's tragic. It's awful. I feel for his family. More importantly, I feel for his victims because the more he continues to make these bad choices, the longer he'll serve in prison and the more pain and shame he's going to cause for those that love him. If there's anyone this year that needed to reach out to our team at White Collar Advice for appropriate guidance, it probably it probably would have been him. The question is, would he even have taken the advice? Probably not. They make him sound he's accused of racketeering. I mean, they make him sound like a mob boss sitting in jail, calling people, trying to get other people to curry favor, you know, curry favor with other witnesses. He's pulling a bunch of strings, allegedly. I'm saying allegedly

because he hasn't been charged with this stuff, but it sounds like the feds are going to present this to the grand jury and obstruction charges are likely coming against him, possibly with other charges. One thing I want to touch on with you, Justin, is the fact that the MDC, there was a big sweep at the MDC. The MDC is, you know, a hot mess. You know, it's got a lot of issues and it always has, but they did this big sweep and they went into his cell as they did everybody else's and they took notes. Sean Combs' lawyers are saying, we have evidence that they, you know,

they provided us with photos. They took some of his notes that are privileged. It has our names in there. It discusses trial strategy. The government's saying we had a taint team look at this stuff. We didn't take anything that was, you know, that were his legal notes. His attorneys disagree. What do you make of this? Do you, obviously they're trying to say he should get out of jail because of stuff like this. But what do you make of this whole argument that they're going through his stuff and looking at his privileged communications?

When he's creating infractions in prison, whether it's iPhones or engaging in this prison hustle, and they care about security, they are required to sweep the cell and look at absolutely everything. And in so doing, they may come across some information that could be privileged. So as a result of Combs apparently or allegedly acting poorly, the lawyers then say, wait a second, you found some information you should have. That is a result of him acting improperly. They are doing what they are required to do. I'm hard on the BOP. I'm hard on MDC. There needs to be more transparency. They need to show the results of their investigation. Many agencies are involved in this investigation. They need to be prudently transparent and share the information. But his lawyers need to understand this is happening, these sweeps, because of their client's conduct.

And they should also say to him, things aren't going to improve and get better until you fully begin to understand the government's version of events, how they perceive you. And perhaps on the inside, you could begin to create a message that gets you closer to what you want, which is a shorter sentence. So I'm not a lawyer, but if I were, I'd say you are never getting bail. And two, I'd begin to make decisions that ensure you get out of here in 20 years instead of 50. The lawyers will say, whatever you do, it's fine. We're still going to get paid. Justin, why aren't they taking away his phone privileges and just saying, nope, you're not, you're not doing this. All this stuff that we've let you do, you're not doing it. Is it because the prosecutors are kind of like,

well, we've given him like, you know, all this rope and he's hanging himself. Why isn't the MDC just curtailing this? Because they could. They could. To the extent they can let him have some connection to his family knowing the fault calls are recorded, they will, right? Then they don't want to deal with the scrutiny and then the lawyers are going to step in and say, look at what happens. He doesn't have access to phone or any privileges

that most other prisoners have. He is truly the victim. They are out to get him. They are singling him out. So, it could further the narrative for the defense. And in so doing, the government probably says, let him have an hour a week or an hour a day. He is on his own destruction path that's going to lead to an immediate and most likely conviction that's going to lead him to federal prison for a very long time. It's one thing I will say, there are rappers over the years that talk about violence and drugs and money in their albums, but they're actually law-abiding citizens. They just sing it. They don't actually do it.

He appears to actually have said things in music and then continues to do those things in his real life. There's a disconnect there that he fails to get, and it's part of the reason the government is taking him to trial. Well, we will see how it pans out. He has pleaded not guilty. So the government still has to prove its case. Justin Paperny, thank you so much. Good to see you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.