Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - P. Diddy Grand Jury Issues New Subpoena in Trafficking Investigation

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A federal grand jury issues a subpoena in the Sean Diddy Combs grand jury investigation according to a new report. What does it mean for the federal investigation into the rap mogul? Welcome to Crime Fix, I'm Anjanette Levy. For months, there's been a lot of smoke, but maybe not as much fire when it comes to talk

Starting point is 00:00:29 about Sean Combs, the feds, a grand jury, sex trafficking, and possible federal charges. Grand juries, of course, are secret and their work just isn't supposed to be out in the public, but often there are leaks and that's happened at times in this case. I'll get to the latest leak, this one involving a hotel in Miami and one of Combs' exes in just a bit. The Department of Homeland Security raided Combs' homes in California and Florida back in March. That, of course, made international news. Before that, women and even one man filed a flurry of civil lawsuits against Combs, claiming Combs trafficked them, and those lawsuits have continued even after the raid. The first of those lawsuits came from Cassie Ventura nearly a year ago. She dated Combs forced Ventura to engage in sex acts with other people for Combs' own gratification and that he also physically assaulted her for years. But Combs settled that suit the next day.

Starting point is 00:01:34 That's practically unheard of. Now, while he may have settled the claims for an undisclosed amount of money the next day, he denied, Combs did, that he had ever harmed Cassie. But then in May of this year, CNN published a terrifying and horrific video of Combs chasing Ventura down a hotel hallway wearing only a towel. He could be seen throwing Ventura to the ground and kicking her, and he could no longer deny that he had abused her. It's so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life. Sometimes you got to do that. I was f***ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses. My behavior on that video is inexcusable. Combs later wiped his Instagram clean, including that apology video,

Starting point is 00:02:26 and he started posting again just recently. Last week, Combs filed a motion to dismiss another lawsuit filed by record producer Rodney Little Rod Jones. He claimed that Combs drugged and sexually assaulted him and forced him to hire sex workers and to participate in sex acts with those sex workers. Combs denies those allegations. His lawyer wrote, Mr. Jones's lawsuit is pure fiction, a shameless attempt to create media hype and extract a quick settlement. There was no RICO conspiracy and Mr. Jones was not threatened, groomed, assaulted or trafficked. We look forward to proving in a court of law that all of Mr. Jones's claims are made up and must be dismissed. Now, the suit filed by Little Rod is

Starting point is 00:03:12 just one of nearly a dozen filed against Combs. Adult film actress Adria English filed a suit in July on the same day that NBC News reported the grand jury was meeting to discuss evidence against Combs. I spoke with English's lawyer, Ariel Mitchell-Kidd. So in the lawsuit, we pretty much spell out the details of the sex trafficking my client faced at the hands of Mr. Combs at his white parties. So she was essentially sought after due to her relationship with her boyfriend who was interviewing, or I should say auditioning with Mr. Combs for his Sean John campaign. That's essentially how things came about. And initially she was just approached to be a go-go dancer. It was all very above board initially. And then eventually with more time, it turned into being sex traffic.

Starting point is 00:04:03 She was sex trafficked in New York, in the Hamptons, and then in Miami. And these were all during Mr. Combs' white parties that he was throwing. So we essentially outlined the details of that sex trafficking in her lawsuit. And the reason she came forward now, as you know, a lot of people used to be terrified of Mr. Combs. He's blackballed several people, including my client and her then boyfriend, Mr. Gallo from the industry. So as we all know, they are straight with numbers. So once Ms. Ventura came forward, my client had been looking for an attorney for some time prior to finding me to also file a lawsuit because she had been a victim as well. Now TMZ is reporting that the grand jury has subpoenaed a hotel in

Starting point is 00:04:53 Miami for records dating back to January 1st of 2008 and that one of Combs' exes, Daphne Joy, is also named in those documents. TMZ reports the subpoena was asking for check-in and check-out dates, room numbers, guest preferences and requests, billing information, email addresses, phone numbers, and forms of payment. So basically, everything you could think of that a hotel might have on file, the grand jury wants to see. Little Rod had also named Daphne Joy as someone Combs had paid to perform sex work in his lawsuit. Daphne Joy vehemently denied that allegation in an Instagram post, which has since been deleted. I reached out to Combs Global about this report, about the hotel in Miami and the subpoena. So far, I haven't heard back. I want to take just

Starting point is 00:05:43 a moment to tell you about a great lip plumper and sponsor of Crime Fix. It's called City Lips. This is not a painful lip plumper that stings and burns. City Lips will give you fuller, healthier, younger looking lips. It uses clinically tested ingredients and soothing moisturizers. Just swipe it on clean bare lips and after a few minutes, you will experience the full plumping effects of CityLips. To try CityLips, click the link in the description, scan the QR code on your screen, or go to citybeauty.com slash lccrimefix. Use the code LAW15 for 15% off of your order. Bradford Cohen is a former federal prosecutor, so he knows the drill, and he's also represented a lot of high profile people. So Bradford, we have this news coming out about this subpoena to a Miami hotel

Starting point is 00:06:31 involving Sean Combs and Daphne Joy. So why is Daphne Joy being brought into this? We know she dated him at one point in time. So my suspicion is, is that she probably is making some kind of allegations and or they're having her appear before the grand jury or she already appeared before the grand jury and they're now subpoenaing records to back up whatever she said before the grand jury. So there's a kind of a couple of different ways to go about it. Sometimes prosecutors will take a testimony from a witness and that testimony would then be corroborated later on from another witness with paperwork or with receipts, or they interview that individual. She says, or he says,

Starting point is 00:07:12 Hey, I was here on this date. This is what I did on this date. Then they subpoena that information. So when they put that individual in front of the grand jury, they then have the receipts to back up what that person is saying. So they could say, hey, we had dinner at this restaurant on this date. And then the prosecutor would say, OK, is this what you had to eat and show the receipt? Yes. Is that the receipt? Yes. Is that why you remember it? Yes. So those type of things are usually why they subpoena that information. That's interesting you bring that up, because Daphne Joy had put out something on Instagram a while back denying things that Little Rod said in his lawsuit that she claiming that she was being paid by Sean Combs to do sex work. And then all

Starting point is 00:07:57 of a sudden that Instagram post disappears. So it kind of makes sense, possibly, if she was brought in front of the grand jury, that she might delete that from her Instagram post or her Instagram page. Do you think that's part of the reason why she deleted that? And I guess 50 Cent, who is the father of her child, was kind of giving her some grief, saying things about her being a sex worker and things of that nature. We don't know if that's actually true, but it would make sense that she would delete that after denying it if she were brought in front of the grand jury. So even though that's a simple thing, there's a lot to unpack there. So number one,

Starting point is 00:08:37 someone makes a statement that says, hey, that never happened, obviously defense attorneys jump on that right away. So that statement is forever out there in cyber world. And the defense attorney will have that in case there is a trial, in case there is some sort of motion that's going to be had. So that's the first part of that. The second part of that is, yes, if she was called in front of the grand jury and she gave testimony that's different than what she was posting, I would imagine she'd take those posts down because it would be kind of idiotic to keep that post up after she already testified in front of a grand jury. Number two is it could be that she was then subpoenaed after she made that statement and just a subpoena alone was enough to scare her to take that down. Or number three, and this could be likely as well, she had a conversation with the prosecutor who's in charge of the case. And that prosecutor, after speaking with her, said, hey, listen, you probably want to

Starting point is 00:09:36 take down anything that you have up that contradicts what you just told me, because that doesn't make any sense. So it could be a couple different reasons why she took it or it could just be 50 Cent said, hey, you know, get that down. There's a bunch of different reasons. More likely than not, it has something to do with the case and the grand jury. Well, there's no love lost, we know, between 50 Cent and Sean Combs. I, you know, I feel like we've been talking about this about is he going to be indicted for months? Because we have. His house was raided. His homes, I should say, were raided back in March. So this has been going on forever and ever and ever that we've been discussing this.

Starting point is 00:10:17 So, you know, I know you were saying you thought it might happen in the summer, possibly. And now maybe in September, we are in September now, in the summer, possibly, and now maybe in September. We are in September now, in the very beginning of September. So obviously, the grand jury is meeting. I mean, his own counsel has acknowledged that. So when are we going to possibly see some movement? We know these things can be painstaking and take a long time, especially if they are building a rather large case. Yeah. So when I first heard about it, when I first heard about the raids, when I first heard about

Starting point is 00:10:52 kind of what was going on, my feeling was this should be about three to four months of a grand jury meeting, and then they'll probably come up with an indictment. What I think has happened since is that investigation has unfolded to the point where I think they're going to include a lot of alleged criminal conduct that's not just having to do with the allegations of sex trafficking and things of that nature. And that is what makes it more difficult and more evidence and more things that they have to get in order to get those indictments. So now that I'm looking at it, I don't think six to eight months is obnoxious in terms of a grand jury meeting if you're covering a period of anywhere from 10 to 13 years, which I

Starting point is 00:11:38 think that's what the indictment is going to cover. I think they're going to allege an ongoing, you know, I don't know if they're going to do a RICO, but I think it's going to look very similar to a RICO where they're going to allege ongoing criminal conduct that includes, you know, behavior that he's been accused of before in terms of there were shootings and a car got bombed and all these other things that were allegations against him. I think they are now going to include all of that. And I think that it's going to be a very large indictment. I think you're looking at a 50 to 60 page indictment at a bare minimum. And I think you're looking at multiple counts over a long period of time.

Starting point is 00:12:18 Or you're looking at four or five counts, but they're going to include stuff over a long period of time. And I think that's what's taking the grand jury so long. I don't see him just walking away from this grand jury with no charges whatsoever. And we spoke a little bit off camera is because my belief is when the government puts in the kind of time they're putting in, I don't believe that they ever let someone just walk away from that indictment. I've just never seen that happen before. If you have a grand jury meeting for four or five, six months, and the type of information that they're gathering, I don't see him walking away from this with no charges.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Well, we know it's been at least possibly since July. That's when the first confirmation of it came out. So possibly before that June, the beginning of July is when we got confirmation sort of about it. So it's been a long process and it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. Sean Combs is a lawyer, basically that his lawyers have said he's never trafficked anyone. So we'll see what happens. Bradford, thank you so much. Thank you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Annette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - P. Diddy Grand Jury Issues New Subpoena in Trafficking Investigation

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - P. Diddy Grand Jury Issues New Subpoena in Trafficking Investigation

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