Law&Crime Sidebar - 7 Shocking Ways P. Diddy's Trafficking Indictment Echoes R. Kelly's Sex Crimes

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

The criminal indictments of Sean "Diddy" Combs and fellow hip-hop artist R. Kelly share similar language, evidence, and charges. As Combs learns he'll have to stay locked up until trial, one of the prosecutors who convicted R. Kelly, Nadia Shihata, joins Law&Crime's Jesse Weber.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/sidebar to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY 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/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee 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 Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. After the indictment of Sean Diddy Combs, people have been comparing the prosecutions of Combs and R. Kelly, both famous figures in the music industry who have been charged with federal sex trafficking and racketeering crimes. And after the conviction of Kelly and the new indictment of Combs, we are going to break down the similarities. what we can expect with former R. Kelly prosecutor, Nadia Shihata. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Well, since the federal indictment of rapper and producer Sean Diddy Combs on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution out in New York, there have obviously been comparisons made to. R. Kelly, right? After all, the disgraced R&B artist was convicted of his own federal sex crimes charges out in New York, too. He was sentenced the 30 years in prison, although that was in the Eastern District of New York. This is Combs' cases in the Southern District of New York. But the question is, what are the comparisons between the two cases? Is this the same

kind of prosecution? Is it different? Can we expect the same? And for that, I want to bring in on somebody who we have been wanting to have on for the whole week, but she's so busy, but I'm so happy to have her on. Nadia Shihata, who was one of the federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York that prosecuted R. Kelly, helped put him away. Nadia, thank you so much for coming here on Sidebar. I've really been looking forward to this. Thank you for having me. You know what I'm going to ask you. First, you're just reaction to reading the indictment. And I also don't know if you had an opportunity to read the additional information that was put forward by prosecutors in their letters to the judges that for regarding

bail they provided a little bit more detail so what was your reaction to this information well i think this is what i had been expecting um since we learned publicly that they were that the southern district was conducting this investigation once the searches happened um and i think you know as i said to you before these types of cases take time to build um particularly when you're pursuing racketeering and sex trafficking charges. And, you know, this is as expected. I think it sounds like they've spoken to a number of victims and witnesses corroborated their accounts by looking through electronic evidence and communications.

And once they were finally ready to proceed in court, obviously we all heard about the arrest. Talk to me first about, before we get into the comparisons between R. Kelly's case and Combs' case, Were these the charges that you expected, or did you expect different charges? Did you expect additional charges? These are the charges I expected. I expected a racketeering charge. They've charged it as racketeering conspiracy here and sex trafficking, given the allegations about commercial sex acts with prostitutes being flown in.

I think these are the types of charges I would have expected in a case like this. Okay, so let's get into it. Because the first thing that I noticed between Sean Combs' indictment And R. Kelly's indictment was the Southern District charged him, as you said, with racketeering conspiracy. You charged him with racketeering. Why the difference? What's the difference in prosecutions there? You know, we could have charged it as racketeering conspiracy in the R. Kelly case as well. It's a, what we decided was we wanted to list out the specific predicate acts, which is something you don't have to do when you're charging it as racketeering conspiracy. It does give kind of notice to the defense of exactly what conduct is at issue.

And so for strategic reasons, often you charge it that way in order to have jury instructions that are more clear to the jury and to avoid having to respond to a motion for a bill of particulars down the line. By the way, as we're sorting through these legal filings surrounding Sean Combs and these really disgusting details, can I just take a quick second to talk about something positive, something that I think you're actually going to really love? Here's a question for you. Would you want cashback when you buy gas and groceries? Because if you do, that's where our amazing partner and sponsor of Sidebar comes in.

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So to find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download Upside or scan the QR code on screen, and use our promo code sidebar, and you'll get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. So to work through that in just a little bit, are you saying it is easier to secure a cash? conviction for a racketeering conspiracy charge versus a straight up racketeering charge? No, I think they're both, they're both difficult charges to secure convictions for. The evidence supporting, whether it's a conspiracy or a substantive RICO charge, is essentially the same, but it's just, it's just really kind of a preference of the prosecutors about how they want to pursue it.

Because racketeering, right, we're talking about a criminal enterprise. We're talking about these underlying crimes, and with conspiracy, you have to say there was an agreement to break the law. There were overt acts that were taken in furtherance of that. And there's common themes, right? You need a criminal organization. You need a common purpose. I'm all acting together. I am getting kind of mixed analysis on this, and I figured who better to talk about this than you.

But for all the underlying crimes, so whether it was R. Kelly, where there were underlying crimes, where there were underlying crimes, of sexual exploitation of a child or forced labor. Or here, you're seeing in the Combs indictment, they have arson, they have kidnapping, they have, again, forced labor. Does a jury, does the prosecution have to prove those underlying crimes? Even though he's not specifically charged with that, does he have to, do they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a kidnapping occurred, an arson occurred, excuse me, forced labor occurred? Did you have to prove that sexual exploitation of a child occurred? What's the,

what do you have to prove in terms of racketeering? So in order to be successful on their charge, they don't have to necessarily prove every single one of those types of crimes. My, I would imagine that they intend and want to present evidence of each of those types of crimes to the jury, so they will in fact present evidence to support those. crimes, but essentially you need for racketeering conspiracy, you need to prove at least two such kind of predicate crimes and an agreement or an agreement that members of the conspiracy would agree that at least two such crimes would be committed. And is that beyond a reasonable doubt the highest standard or is it something lower

preponderance of the evidence, which is a lower standard? No, it would still be, you'd still have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. given that it's a criminal case. But for example, in the R. Kelly case where we did it as substantive RICO, we listed, I can't remember how many, but multiple predicate acts, we needed to prove two of them beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction. Obviously, we intended and tried to prove all of them beyond a reasonable doubt, but the key is two for racketeering.

And I'm sorry, just for our viewers who might be lost in the weeds a little bit, If you can, what exactly is the difference in terms of what you have to prove for racketeering and what you have to prove for conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy? So if I'm, you give two different, if there's two different jury instructions, right? You're saying two different kinds of cases here. Very simply, what is the difference between what you're telling the jury to find in your case versus Combs case when it comes to racketeering? So for substantive racketeering, you have to prove the predicate acts, at least two of the

predicate acts were committed. For racketeering conspiracy, it's an agreement that two of two such acts will occur. But I anticipate that the Southern District prosecutors will do much more than just proven agreement. They will, they will present evidence that these acts in fact occurred. By the way, because I think this is going to be common for both cases, you have to establish, as I mentioned, there's a criminal organization, the method, the means, that that there was a common purpose of this criminal organization. Talk to us about how you proved it in your case and what you anticipate prosecutors will do in Combs' case.

Yeah, so we were very focused in the R. Kelly trial in presenting to the jury the existence of an enterprise, this network of individuals, the entourage surrounding R. Kelly that helped him commit the types of crimes that we charged in that case. And so I imagine that a lot of the focus in this trial against Sean Combs will be similar, proving up the network,

the criminal enterprise, and their common goal and their common methods of helping facilitate the crimes that Didi allegedly committed. There was one glaring difference I also saw between the R. Kelly indictment and the Sean Combs indictment. I was expecting to see the term Man Act multiple times in the Combs indictment, and it's nowhere to be found. You in your indictment specifically called out the Man Act violations as predicate or underlying crimes in the racketeering case, and then you specifically charged him

with Man Act charges, namely, and when we're talking about the Man Act, that Kelly had transported people for the purposes of illegal sexual activity. And that illegal sexual activity, and that illegal sexual activity could have been exposing someone to sexual diseases or reckless endangerment, that this was illegal sex crimes. And in Combs' indictment, they don't mention the man act. They say sex trafficking, but they have sex trafficking charges by fraud, coercion, or force of one person. Were you surprised that you didn't see that?

So they actually, they do have a man act charge in the case, count three. They just don't call it, you know, don't specify that it's the man. But transportation for purposes of prostitution is, I believe, the third count, and that is a count under the Man Act. And I think that's also listed as, you know, one of the types of crimes in the RICO conspiracy. So I think there will be evidence in that case of, you know, transportation, I think, mainly of commercial sex workers for these freak-offs that are kind of described. in the indictment. But the sex trafficking that they have charged and the Man Act charge, these are just different statutes at the disposal of federal prosecutors.

The sex trafficking charge, the force-frauded coercion one, is a very serious charge. It carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years if he's convicted of it and up to life. So it's a serious charge. Now, one of the things that they have come out and talked about, I'm glad, thank you for clarifying that, but one of the things that they have come out and said in their subsequent letter to the court regarding bail is, you know, they've gotten, I think it was coming from the defense, that there's only one victim in this case. There's only one victim. They said, no, there's multiple victims. And do you get the sense, I mean, one of those charges seems to

be with respect to only one victim. But in your case, in your indictment and this indictment, how specific do you get in terms of how many victims there are, who those victims are, who those victims are. What do you make of that? Well, I think it's clear that in the RICO conspiracy charge, they, you know, explicitly state that they use the plural. There's more than one victim there. You know, part of the reason they may have charged it this way is because they are concerned about witness intimidation, witness harassment, and in charging it as a conspiracy, they don't have to layout at this stage, kind of the detailed specifics about each victim who they've received information on, whereas as we charged it in R. Kelly, we kind of listed out predicate acts involving

specific victims. That being said, my guess, and this is all just speculation, is that the reason the substantive sex trafficking charge only includes one victim is because this is a case out of the Southern District of New York, and so they need, for those substantive charges like sex trafficking, they need venue in New York. They need a nexus to New York. So the RICO conspiracy charge may include sex trafficking victims because of the way RICO works from throughout the country, that the Southern District would not be able to charge a separate sex trafficking counts because they don't relate, they don't have a nexus to New York. just so I understand you're saying that this something could be illegal maybe in another state

but it not necessarily in New York or my misunderstanding it's it's a bit complicated but it's essentially a venue issue not that it's not illegal in New York but that they would need to charge it out of venue in New York so you could have a charge that said you know victim number two was sex trafficked in the central district of California if it happened in Los Angeles, let's say. Right. And a defendant could challenge that and say, you don't have venue to bring that charge here in New York. But with RICO, the advantage of RICO, whether it's a conspiracy or a substantive RICO charge is as long as part of the RICO has a tie to the district where you are prosecuting the case, you can include conduct that occurred entirely outside of New York.

Gotcha. Gotcha. other glaring differences, of course, is that R. Kelly's indictment, it was about sexual exploitation and abusive children. That was a main theme. And one of the things, and I've spoken to different legal analysts about this, they were surprised not to see that in the Combs indictment, because there were allegations, allegations, we don't know if they were true, but there were allegations regarding minors being around these parties or soliciting minors. And there was nothing about that in this indictment. Now, you could say it all stems from one alleged victim of his. It all

stemmed from Rodney Jones, who said that he was tasked with securing minors for these parties and things like that and whether or not he was credible. But were you surprised there was nothing about underage people in this indictment? I can't say I was surprised because obviously I'm not privy to the evidence that the prosecutors have been able to gather in this case. And they can only pursue charges that they believe that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So while there may be allegations out there, you know, to the extent they haven't been able to reach that threshold that they think they can win a case charging those types of crimes, it's not surprising that they wouldn't be included. I will say, though, they have, you know, repeatedly said in their press

conference, that the investigation is ongoing. And I think they likely anticipate that now that the charges are public and that Mr. Combs is in jail, that there is a possibility at least of other people coming forward, other victims potentially feeling more comfortable coming forward now that they see that this is a serious investigation with charges pending. And so maybe we will see additional charges of that ilk in the future. By the way, just generally speaking, when you were reading this indictment, did it remind you of R. Kelly's indictment because there are similar themes, right, of coercion, power, influence, violence. Did you, a network of people? Did you get that feeling that it read very similar? There are certainly similarities, and they are similar types

of figures and relying on the same type of network that a lot of kind of powerful entertainers have around them. So yeah, I certainly, I certainly saw some parallels between the two cases. Both of those cases involve forced labor allegations, right? The idea that, you know, I think for Combs, and please amplify this when it comes to Kelly, is that getting people to do what you want with promises either of money or promises of something of value or promises of opportunity or threats to their career or livelihood, forcing them to engage in certain behavior, Talk to me about that forced labor allegations and because we see it in the Combs case and we definitely saw it in the R. Kelly case. Yeah, in the R. Kelly case, it was focused primarily on the forced labor of being essentially sexual services, which courts have have found can constitute labor under that statute.

So not only kind of the actual performance of the sexual services, but also In the R. Kelly case, there was videotaping, so essentially kind of compelling people to star in these pornographic videos with others. It's not specified in the Diddy indictment exactly what the forced labor charge encompasses there, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also these sexual services and related to the freak-off events. that can, I can see that being charged as both sex trafficking and forced labor. Interesting. Another comparison I think you can make between the Combs and Arkellie legal cases is the issue of bail. So when the issue of bail came up for R. Kelly, my understanding was it was denied.

And here for Combs, after two attempts, both in front of a magistrate judge and then appealed to a district court judge, they both denied him pretrial release. The judges found that he was incredibly dangerous, that he allegedly had been kind of. contacting witnesses and victims in the case. So what similarities do you see on that issue between Combs' situation and R. Kelly's situation? Yeah, in both cases, obviously the seriousness of the crimes and the potential lengthy prison sentence that each individual faced is, you know, a key determination for the judge. And I think also the allegations that are included in the Southern District indictment about obstruction of justice and witness tampering, those are things that judges take very seriously when they're considering their bail determinations.

And I imagine that that was a key consideration for the judge in this case. And Combs had offered a bail package of $50 million secured by his house, GPS monitoring, home confinement, where he would be monitoring. by an outside security team, no passport, no phone, no internet visitor logs to his house that could be shared with the court. And the court felt that was insufficient. Did R. Kelly ever put up a similar kind of package that was denied? It was nowhere near as extensive as the one put up by Diddy in the Southern District case. I don't remember the specifics, but it's certainly, you know, I think at the point where R. Kelly was prosecuted, his kind of wealth had diminished substantially. He still was a wealthy person, but I don't think at the level

that Diddy currently is where he has the ability to put up $50 million property on the line. Do you think it was the right decision from both judges to deny bail? Well, I certainly thought it was the right decision in the R. Kelly case. We argued for it. And I think, look, I think bail determinations are tough decisions, but I think where there's a real concern about witness intimidation and obstruction of justice, that it's appropriate that a person be held. That being said, there's no question that being incarcerated while your trial is pending makes it more difficult. to prepare for trial, just kind of obvious things, like your lawyers being able to meet with you frequently, being able to review discovery, particularly electronic discovery, which sounds like there may be a lot of in this case. That's obviously much, much more challenging when an individual

is incarcerated. Talking about moving forward, A, let me first ask you real quick, when do you think this trial would even happen with Combs? That's tough to predict. I think. I think kind of your run-of-the-mill federal trials usually take about a year to get to trial, sometimes more. It's possible that this case will be designated complex by the judge, given what we're hearing about the type and volume of electronic evidence in the case. Certainly if Diddy stays incarcerated pending trial, his lawyers may wish. to move expeditiously in the case, but it's a balance when you're a defense attorney. Obviously, you want to get your client out of jail as quickly as possible or potentially as quickly as possible, but you also want to make sure you're prepared for trial, and

that involves ensuring you have enough time to prepare the case properly. And again, moving forward, with respect to the witnesses and the victims who would potentially be testifying at a trial, how do you keep them? protected? When do you reveal who they are? How does it work in terms of them testifying in an upcoming trial? Because that's a very, very sensitive issue moving forward, particularly since now after the release of the indictment, we're still not entirely sure who is cooperating with the government. Yeah, that was a big concern for us in the R. Kelly case because the victims that were publicly known faced an incredible amount of harassment, both online and some

even had crimes committed against them. So, you know, you have to at a certain stage tell the defense who your witnesses are going to be and who the, and identify the victims for the defense so they can prepare properly. But I imagine that the prosecutors will do what we did and tried to do in the R. Kelly case, which is kind of make sure that the, the, the identities of the victims are not publicly disclosed for as long as possible. And for certain victims who were kind of never publicly known in our case, we filed motions to allow them to testify under pseudonyms, which the court granted. So I imagine that similar motions will likely be made in the Diddy case, and they now have a precedent to follow for doing just that.

ago. One final question about pretrial release. Look, I think his attorney at the time of this recording is now appealing that decision to a higher court. Are there any, and from your experience with the R. Kelly case, and I don't recall off the top of my head how many attempts he might have made to have that bail issue revisited, but are there opportunities for Combs to have a court revisit this? Are there opportunities for him where that bail, he will be allowed out on bail? or do you think given the decisions of the magistrate judge, the district court judge, your experience with R. Kelly, that that is unlikely? I think it's unlikely that he gets released, but I don't think it's unlikely that he will continue

to try to get released. R. Kelly filed a number of motions and appeals to do just that. He was not successful. I think it's particularly difficult on appeal to the Second Circuit because they will not be conducting a de novo review of the district court judge's decision, they will apply a very deferential standard. And so the question won't be if those judges would have made a different decision if they were deciding this in the first instance, but rather whether the judge below made a clear error. And that's a tough, tough road to climb. Yeah, because it makes sense why the judge decided this way. You might disagree, but you're like, it might have the legal backing to to understand that.

Like, the district court judge was actually reviewing the magistrate court judge's decision de novo, fresh, clean slate, clean eyes, not giving deference to what the prior judge said and clearly was persuaded by the prosecution's argument. So this is now the beginning of it. It will progress. I'm sure there's going to be more similarities moving forward between Combs case and Arkellie's case, but Nadi Shihata. Thank you so much for coming on.

Again, really, really appreciate your insight, your perspective, your experience, your experience, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever we get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. add free right now on Wonderry Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.