Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - P. Diddy: Feds Working with Sex Assault Accusers?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 faced a flurry of civil lawsuits alleging sex trafficking, violence, drugging and much more by his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, other women and then a former record producer. Then came the March 25th raid on his homes in California and Florida by the Department of Homeland Security. So are the people filing these lawsuits coordinating with and working with the feds? I think it's extremely, exceedingly possible that there is coordination between the Southern District of New York prosecutors and the civil litigant.

Starting point is 00:00:47 And I know it could be a coincidence, but I believe the coincidence don't happen by mistake. Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Sean Combs is under criminal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for sex trafficking and other crimes. It's important to note Combs has not been charged with any crimes and he has denied that he's broken any laws. I want to be really clear about that. But his world has been turned upside down. It all started last November when Cassie Ventura filed her lawsuit against Sean Combs with claims that shocked the public. Among them, Ventura claimed that Combs raped her, hunched and beat her,

Starting point is 00:01:25 forced her to engage in sex with male sex workers, and even blew up a car belonging to a man that he found out was interested in her romantically. Combs settled the suit the next day after denying the allegations and wished Cassie and her family love. Combs' attorney, Ben Brafman, said in a statement, just so we're clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing. Clearly a reference to the Me Too movement. Now, after Combs settled Cassie's lawsuit, that really seemed to open the floodgates and other women came forward. One filing a lawsuit a couple of weeks later, claiming that Combs sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. Combs came out swinging, saying individuals are looking for a quick payday

Starting point is 00:02:10 and enough is enough. He tweeted, for the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Let me be absolutely clear. I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family, and for the truth. Then in late February, record producer Rodney Little Rod Jones filed an explosive lawsuit claiming Combs sexually assaulted him and was running a sex trafficking organization. Others in Combs' inner circle were named in the suit as well, including his chief of staff, Christina Corum, and actor Cuba Gooding Jr. The suit alleged that Combs was a drug addict and that Corum had

Starting point is 00:02:50 staff carrying around fanny packs full of drugs to keep Combs high. The suits all came in the months before Homeland Security agents raided Combs' homes. So what came first, the criminal investigation or the civil lawsuits? Here's what former Homeland Security trainer Sonny Slaughter thinks. So I believe that his name has come up in other investigations similarly situated and that they were just waiting. They are looking. These investigations take a very long time, particularly when the federal government is doing it.

Starting point is 00:03:23 It was the Department of Homeland Security, but the unique unit of the Homeland Security Investigations. They specialize in these types of crimes, human trafficking, sex trafficking, labor trafficking cases. These are not quick cases and they are very quiet cases, particularly when they're going to investigate something multi-jurisdictional. So what I believe has been going on is they have been taking the threads of other information that they've been hearing and they didn't need Cassie's civil complaint to effectuate a criminal investigation. Start one, there was already a criminal investigation on. What they needed was her to be a cooperating witness based on the information that they could glean from that is accurate, not speculation. So Sonny Slaughter thinks the feds were looking into

Starting point is 00:04:34 Sean Combs for a long, long time, possibly even years. The raids on Combs' properties happened on March 25th, the same day Little Rod filed a second amended complaint at Incuba Gooding Jr. as a defendant, claiming Gooding groped him on Combs' yacht. Former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi believes it wasn't an accident that Little Rod filed that amended complaint on the same day that the feds raided Combs' properties. What that tells me, Anjanette, is there may be a little coordination between the federal prosecutors and the plaintiff, Mr. Rodney Jones, Little Rock. Yeah, I've been wondering about that myself since we've kind of heard that possibly this investigation, at least the federal investigation, may have been underway before these civil suits started

Starting point is 00:05:24 being filed last fall. What are your thoughts on that, Gene? Okay, I can give you my experience. I investigated a very crooked pain doctor. He issued prescriptions as high as, I'm not making this up, 1,200 oxy pills per day. I was investigating this doctor in Northern Virginia, and a private litigant read about it in the paper and heard about it on the news because it was high profile. They filed a lawsuit based on some of the information that I was gathering. And there was some exchange of witnesses and information that is not improper. Prosecutors can work with private litigants. If there's a common person or defendant, there's nothing wrong with that. You just can't share

Starting point is 00:06:14 secret grand jury information with the private lawyer and the litigant. So you think it's possible? I think it's extremely, exceedingly possible that there is coordination between the Southern District of New York prosecutors and the civil litigant. And I know it could be a coincidence, but I believe the coincidence don't happen by mistake, that they filed their amended complaint on March 25th, the same day as the executing of the search warrant, that's too much of a coincidence for me. So half the Fed shared information with the lawyers in these civil lawsuits and vice versa. It's really unclear. You heard Gene Rossi say it wouldn't be wrong to do so. I contacted the media office for the Southern District of New York,

Starting point is 00:07:04 and the representative there told me that the office would not comment on the case, and that's standard procedure. I didn't expect them to say anything, but hey, I had to try. But the big question, one that still lingers, is how closely could federal agents or prosecutors be working with the accusers in the civil suits? Here's former federal prosecutor Tim Jansen. There usually aren't coincidences in these type of cases. As a lawyer, if I'm the petitioner and I see they're raiding a house, now I feel like I can put everything on the table. Now the things I didn't think anybody would believe, now I'm going to put them out there because hopefully the feds are going to help them prove these allegations. I don't know what he added in

Starting point is 00:07:46 the amended complaint, but it's clear the timing is certainly something to look at. If you're a federal prosecutor looking into this, I mean, is it possible, you know, you're talking to a civil attorney representing a witness and they say, well, we're thinking of filing a civil suit. And do you say to them, well, we can't really talk to you about that. You do whatever you want to do. Or do you kind of nudge them and say, you know, maybe that's not such a bad idea because then you want to see the reaction of the person you're investigating. That's a great question. Normally, we would tell them our criminal investigation has nothing to do with your civil. We're not

Starting point is 00:08:24 going to allow you to use the Department of Justice to further your civil case. But if you have information that you can use in our own investigation, we'll have to judge whether or not we have enough to go forward. You just don't file charges to file them. You file them if you believe in them, and you believe you have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. That should be the mantra for federal prosecutors. That's the mantra that I had, but I've seen prosecutors over the years that that's not always the case. Now, back to Cassie Ventura. You have to imagine that federal prosecutors or Homeland Security agents took notice of her civil suit, or maybe they even knew about her filing it ahead of time.

Starting point is 00:09:15 There's been a lot of smoke surrounding Sean Combs for years, dating back to 1999 in the shooting at the nightclub in Manhattan, a crime for which Combs was tried and acquitted at trial. Following the raid on Combs' properties, Cassie's lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, released a statement saying, quote, we will always support law enforcement when it seeks to prosecute those that have violated the law. That seems like a clear statement of support for the raid. Civil lawsuits and criminal proceedings are, of course, two very different things, but sometimes the witnesses can cross over if the cases are related. So what does Gene Rossi see happening as far as the case involving Combs goes? I predict it will probably

Starting point is 00:09:59 take about four to six months for the agents to analyze the results of the search warrants in LA and in Florida of Mr. Combs' homes. They'll go through data, documents, and all that. It'll probably take four to six months. I predict that there will be a federal indictment, if I had to bet money, by the Southern District of New York in probably September or October of this year. And I would be shocked if it doesn't include Mr. Combs and Ms. Corum and others on this list. Again, Sean Combs has denied through attorneys that he broke any laws. So we will continue to follow this case for you. 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

Starting point is 00:10:50 here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - P. Diddy: Feds Working with Sex Assault Accusers?

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - P. Diddy: Feds Working with Sex Assault Accusers?

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