Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy Deletes Instagram Posts Amid Federal Trafficking Investigation

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

Sean “Diddy” Combs, who has nearly 20 million followers on Instagram, deleted all of his photos and videos this week, including a video where he apologized for a vicious beating caught on hotel surveillance video. There is reportedly a federal trafficking investigation underway with connections to Combs, but he has not been arrested or charged. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the decision to cut ties with social media with Nadia Shihata, the former federal prosecutor who helped put R. Kelly behind bars. 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 DeiningerScript 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 Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I was f***ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. Amid his legal trouble, Sean Diddy Combs has just deleted all of the content off of his Instagram page, a platform he has been using to communicate to the world during this saga. Why the move? Well, we bring on former federal prosecutor who helped put away sex abuser R. Kelly, Nadia Shihata, to talk more about what the strategy might be here.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. One an interesting move, apparently made by Sean Diddy Combs. The rapper and producer has now deleted all of his posts off of Instagram, nothing for his almost 20 million followers. to see. Now, why is that significant? I'm going to tell you why. It's significant because he has used Instagram numerous times during the course of his legal saga to send out certain messages. So let me explain that. We know that beginning in November of 2023, Combs has been hit with a number of sexual assault lawsuits and that there is reportedly a federal investigation into human trafficking being conducted. This is when we remember federal agents raided his homes in L.A. and

Miami back in March. Now, we don't know the exact details of this investigation, who they're looking at, but after speaking to a number of different experts in this and reading different reports, it would seem that Sean Diddy Combs is somehow a part of this. Okay. Now, as we discussed on a previous sidebar, there are reports that a grand jury is being assembled in this case out of New York. And even though Combs hasn't been criminally charged or arrested or even found liable for any of the allegations surrounding him, allegations of sex trafficking, rape, a legal possession of drugs and weapons, episodes of extreme violence. Why do I say Instagram is important here?

Because when Combs is getting hit with lawsuit after lawsuit and all this is happening, there have been a number of very interesting posts. So back in December of 2023, so he's already been hit with a number of lawsuits, He posts this to Instagram, and he posts, Enough is Enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation, and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday.

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. Let's just keep that in mind for a second. Then in April, after the raids on his homes, he posted on Instagram the music video for his song, Victory. And in that video, Combs is running from the police. And in the caption, it was written, Bad Boy for Life with the closed fist emoji. What he was trying to say and why he posted it then.

Not entirely clear. We don't know. We can make sort of assumptions about what he was trying to say. And by the way, during that post, he actually opened up his Instagram to comments again. It had been closed off after the raids. And then let's talk about what happened in May. So after the raids and facing all of these lawsuits, Combs seemingly posted on his Instagram the phrase, Time tells truth.

Again, we don't know what that was in reference to, but I think a fair argument could be. It was made in response to everything that was going on with him. And of course, most recently, in a direct response to an allegation, I have to use quotations here, the reason I usually say allegation, but he posted his infamous apology video. This was in response to CNN publishing a video from 2016 of Combs purportedly savagely beating and dragging his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, in an elevator bank area at the LA Intercontinental Hotel. this was captured on CCTV footage. Absolutely, absolutely horrific. And as we mentioned on sidebar, it was almost a play-by-play account visually

of what was described in Ventura's lawsuit against Combs back in November of 2023 when she alleged she was attacked by Combs. And then two days later, Combs posted this apology on Instagram. I was f***ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. But I make no excuses.

My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I'm disgusted. I was disgusted then when I did it. I'm disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I had to go into therapy. I'm going to rehab.

Had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I'm so sorry. But I'm committed to be a better man he's in every day. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm truly sorry. But now, Sean Combs has deleted all of his content. off of his Instagram page. Not just the posts I mentioned, but everything, everything. And he's had posts about his career. He's had posts about his family. He's had posts about Kim Porter.

And why did he do this? Assume of course, this wasn't just, I don't know, an accident. He hit the wrong button or somebody that manages his account hit the wrong button. Why would he do this? For that, let me bring in Nadia Shihata, one of the New York prosecutors on the R. Kelly case, who's now a criminal defense attorney. And remember, Kelly was convicted. of child pornography, racketeering, sex trafficking charges, multiple cases in two states, sentenced to 31 years in prison. Nadia, so good to see you and in person. Great to meet you. Great to meet you, too. So why do you think he did this? It's perplexing. You know, it could be that he wanted to just make sure he didn't post anything else that could be potentially incriminating.

to the extent he was trying to kind of thwart investigators, that wouldn't really be helpful because chances are they've sent a preservation request to Instagram and any other accounts he has. So it's really hard to understand why he did that. Would you have advised him to do this? Because maybe, look, I'll tell you right now, we've talked about some of the problematic posts.

He posts, enough is enough. I'm innocent of all this. I didn't do any of this. And then a few months later, he admits essentially that he was beating Cassandra Ventura in that video. So kind of made that post a little questionable. A lot of people thought that that apology video was nonsense. Yeah. Because he only posted it after the video came out.

After he knows, LA prosecutors can't charge him with assault. Do you think that this was his lawyer saying, you need to delete everything right now? We don't even want, it's not like he deleted his account. He could post something. But do you think it was, his lawyers advised him of this? It's possible. I mean, I think when you're under investigation, particularly a serious federal investigation, the best course of action is generally to stay silent, let your lawyers do any of the talking

and see how it plays out. Would you have advised him to delete everything off his Instagram account? I don't know that the deletion is helpful. I certainly would have advised him probably like stay off the Instagram account or at least don't talk about this. I thought from a personal point of view, could be wrong. If you delete everything, there are no comments. And if in the interest of his family and his friends,

maybe he didn't want them reading the comments that were posted on his account? Yeah, that's definitely possible. I mean, social media is a hotbed for comments from all sorts of people, and some of them are very unkind. So that's definitely a possibility. You know what was interesting? I said he didn't delete just the things that I mentioned, but he deleted so much more, right?

I think if he were to delete just those posts, that could have backfired on him, right? If he just deleted the posts that were arguably in relation to his legal saga, that would have been a problem. Yeah, and look, actually in investigations, social media posts can actually provide interesting and useful evidence to show where someone was a certain time, particularly if you don't have kind of like cell site location data

from a long time ago. sometimes the social media posts, they're not incriminating in and of themselves, but it can corroborate that you were at a specific location on a specific date and time. So, you know, like I said, I imagine that prosecutors, particularly after that apology video was posted, probably had already put in a preservation request and have potentially done search warrants and subpoenas to Instagram and Facebook and other social media. Hey, guys, so we have fantastic sponsors who help support the show. And I want to call out one. right now. Upside. Now this is very cool. So Upside is a free app that gets you cash back on daily essentials like gas, groceries, dining. Now believe it or not, I do know how to pump my own gas. I don't know if that's a shocker to you out there, but I do. And when I do, I can use the free Upside app. And why not get cash back when you fill up your tank? And yes, this is actually real cashback. No confusing rewards or points or credits, just actual money you can

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I do wonder if it was a way to not give people a platform to comment on him. I think that's fair. I mean, they can comment in other ways. But to go back to this problematic post, the apology video, you and I talked about this, right? He posts this, but it made no sense because he's still potentially under federal investigation. And as you talked to me about in a previous sidebar, right, that video, even though he can't necessarily be charged in L.A. with assault because of the statute of limitation, that video could be used in a potential federal case against him, right? Absolutely. And I imagine it is being used in the investigation. Certainly any time you have video evidence of anything that corroborates what a witness is telling you, that's very powerful. And the investigation seems to relate to sex trafficking, seems to relate to use of force, fraud, or coercion. Certainly a beating of that type is evidence of the use of force. Let me ask you this. We don't know the exact status of this investigation. We don't know what's going to.

on. Do you think there's a scenario where his lawyer said, I want you to delete everything off Instagram for a potential jury, right? In the sense, we talked about it before, certain posts may seem disingenuous or contradict other ones. So he writes enough is enough on Instagram denying everything. And then later on he admits to, or essentially admits to the Cassandra Ventura video, he doesn't want potential jury members, maybe a grand jury to see anything about that and do their own. They shouldn't be looking at it, but anyway, but not having them any, not looking at anything on his Instagram page. Is that possible? It's possible. I will say in my experience, jurors generally, I think, do a good job of following instructions from a judge

to only focus on the evidence presented. And, you know, some of that evidence from the social media post, certainly potentially the apology video and maybe other things, could well be used by prosecutors if there are charges in an eventual trial in this case. So it is being reported, and I mentioned that a grand jury might be hearing witness testimony right now. In your experience in New York, if a federal grand jury is being impaneled, is it A, for the purposes of an indictment, or is it more of a fact-finding investigative function? So it's both in the sense that obviously you're not predetermining kind of necessarily

what the outcome is going to be. have to, of course, present evidence sufficient to get an indictment. But in these kind of multiple week grand jury investigations, or multiple month even, generally speaking, you probably have an idea of the charges you're looking at. You are picking who you want to testify in the grand jury, sometimes to lock in their testimony,

if you're concerned of memories fading or someone being a reluctant witness. But generally, you're all. also kind of building towards the indictment you are going to eventually present. If you are looking at a sex trafficking, racketeering kind of case, how long does it take from the presentation of evidence to an actual indictment and arrest? It can take a significant amount of time. So some cases might be weeks, some might be months, and that's not unusual.

These are complicated cases. You're hearing from a lot of witnesses. putting in a lot of other evidence through usually like a summary witness, like a federal agent to testify. And then presenting the indictment in these cases is usually kind of one day in itself in front of the grand jury, given how complicated those instructions are. And we know getting an indictment back from a grand jury is much easier than eventually getting a conviction from a jury at trial, right?

The standard is much lower. Absolutely. Yeah. You just need probable cause for a grand jury indictment. And obviously at a trial, it's proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, how much does, would Diddy know about what's happening at this grand jury? So grand juries are secret. Prosecutors aren't allowed to discuss and agents aren't allowed to discuss who's coming before the grand jury with anyone, even a potential target.

So all he will really know is what he hears from others. So a witness who testifies in the grand jury is not sworn to secrecy. they can tell whoever they want that they testified. Really? Yeah. So, I mean, often they're advised not to, but they're under no legal obligation to keep that secret. So to the extent anybody that's somehow aligned with him as testified,

they may be telling them, hey, I got a grand jury subpoena, hey, I testified, here's what they asked me. That's certainly possible. And they won't get in trouble for saying what they told the grand jury? No. Wow. They are not sworn to secrecy. Interesting. So assume, okay, let's play that off for a second. We hear there's reports about a grand jury being in panel. We hear witnesses might be testifying. Some wonder whether it could who that could be, whether it's law enforcement, whether it could be accusers who have come out against him. Let's say he was made aware of this. Is that, again, we're speculating here. But do you think that would be a motivation to delete anything from his Instagram?

It's possible. I mean, it's hard to tell. And I would just say one caveat to a person can obviously is not sworn to. secrecy if like telling people they testified in the grand jury there is a fine line though right where you go from just informing people that you were a grand jury witness and obstruct trying to obstruct the investigation let's be clear about that yeah don't do that that's a problem um now again because the million dollar question is about this is is it possible sean didy combs will be arrested um we just don't know again he's innocent so proven guilty hasn't been charged with anything These are just allegations. We don't know the status of the criminal case.

But is it possible law enforcement or authorities they can get, prosecutors can get a grand jury indictment and decide not to actually move forward with an arrest for a period of time? Or do they want to act quickly? Generally, you get the grand jury indictment under seal and then a judge signs the arrest warrants pretty quickly thereafter under seal. And generally, law enforcement, as a policy matter, likes to do those. arrests relatively quickly after an indictment is issued for security reasons. Yeah. How, you said it might take months.

Do they present a full case to the grand jury if something like this? Because you would talk to me before, it's not so simple, right? What they, a case they might be building here, maybe talk to me about with R. Kelly, right? It's not like you, I think you told me it's not like a robbery. It's simple like this is, when you talk about a sex trafficking or racketeering case, Walk us through why it might take some time to present this to a grand jury, why it's a little complicated. I mean, any case where you have a lot of testimony from victims or other witnesses that are just lay people takes a lot of time. You don't have, I mean, you do have the Cassie video, but you don't generally have surveillance video of the actual crime happening.

So you have to obtain that information, put people in the grand jury to testify, corroborate their information, and all of that can take time, particularly in cases where, you know, the witnesses may be throughout the country in different places, so they have to travel to New York and testify and so forth. Would I be totally off to think that is it possible that they want to get grand jury indictments against other players, and presuming this is about Combs, other players in Combs orbit and not seek an indictment against him yet to try to get indictments against others before they indict him,

or do you think it would be a situation if they are planning to indict, multiple people, including Combs, they would do it all at once? It's certainly possible. They could be doing the former, but I think in a case like this, they are likely, if they're going to indict more than just Mr. Combs, that they're going to do it all in one. There may be superseding indictments that add people. And then once you've indicted a group of people together, and it's clear that one person is kind of the leader of the enterprise, there is a lot of, obviously, incentive and and pressure for people kind of lower on the totem pole of the organization to potentially

cooperate. So, yeah, again, I think the timing of this is so interesting deleting the Instagram as we're talking about this because, you know what, he didn't delete? He didn't delete his X account. And his X account has almost 15 million followers. And by the way, that enough is enough post is pinned. It's still the pinned. Do we call tweet anymore?

Message? I don't know what we call it. X. It's still the PIN tweet up there. And so it makes it very, very interesting that he decided to delete one platform, but not the other. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's perplexing. If you're going to delete, it would seem that you would just delete everything. Now, we've been talking so much about the potentiality of him being criminally charged. There's been a lot of fallout for him. And I'm curious what you make of it, because there's been, he just handed back the key to the city, the New York City back to Eric Adams, Howard University, the prime

Historically Black University out of Washington, D.C. has rescinded its honorary degree. It awarded him. This was back in 2014 that awarded him. They just rescinded it. He has no more Hulu reality show that was planned. There's the problems with revolt where he stepped down as chairman. His actual play numbers on airways, like his actual songs, they've gone down. He's taken a major, major hit from a PR point of view, from a career point of view, from probably a financial point of view. point of view and obviously even just being hit with lawsuits is from a legal point of view if all of this it's hard for me to say it after the Cassie video but

after if all of these allegations you could say the Cassie video is one thing but does it make everything else true if all of this is not true or they we don't see charges against him or the cases don't make it the lawsuits are dropped and they nothing happens do we all owe an apology here does the legal system provide him any kind of recourse? Because his reputation has been forever tarnished in a way that other celebrities could never recover from. And I just wonder, as we talk about this and we think about the fallout, does he have any legal recourse in any way if nothing comes of this? Yeah, I mean, look, he certainly, to the extent people have kind of defamed his character

in a way that's legally actionable. He could, if he wanted to. to sue people on that basis. But it's difficult, right? If you're under investigation and it's public and the investigation doesn't lead to charges, you don't have a lot of recourse, certainly, against the federal government in those cases. Which is, you know, but I think the government,

federal government at least, generally knows that, right, and tries to, you know, you have not heard anything from the prosecutors in this case or the agents. And that's because there is an awareness that, you know, when something's under investigation, the person is presumed innocent. They're building a case potentially, but it may not pan out. They may determine that they do not have sufficient evidence that they could prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Of course, when you're a public figure, there's media, there's others commenting, and, you know, that certainly does result in a hit to his reputation. So it's highly unlikely based upon the raids. and what we're seeing, that charges wouldn't come out. You wouldn't put in that level of force. You wouldn't go in that way. You wouldn't see what's happening here unless you were sure you had a case

and could build a strong case. I can only speak for how I acted. Sure, sure. But I would say most federal prosecutors understand the steps in an investigation and the seriousness of taking those steps, especially in cases involving public figures where there will be media attention.

And so I would be reluctant to say that they took that step without thinking that they had a viable case. Whether they will ultimately be able to obtain a grand jury indictment or seek a grand jury indictment is another question. But I think the raids were a serious big step in an investigation. And I think it suggests that they believe, and they certainly had probable cause to get search warrants. they believe there's a case to be made. Have you ever seen off the top of your head a raid where there aren't charges, where there isn't an indictment, a federal raid like that? Not in a case like this.

I mean, there's federal cases across the country, so I'm sure it's happened. It's an unfair question, but let me ask you this. When you're dealing with a high-powered celebrity like an R. Kelly or like a Sean Diddy Combs, is there extra reservation, extra hesitation before you act? I think you're certainly aware that there's extra scrutiny on your investigation and your prosecution. And so, and there's usually, you know, there may be additional levels of supervision in the

prosecutor's office when it's a high-profile case. You may be briefing the, what's known as the front office more than you would in your kind of run-of-the-mill case. So I think there's definitely an awareness, and I'm, I suspect, they have, you know, experienced good prosecutors working on this case who are going to take this into account. They're not going to change kind of how they do their investigative steps, but I think they are going to think about, you know, what steps do we take? And when we're seeking a search warrant, they, that means they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed

and that evidence of that crime would be at those two locations. So that is the standard for a grand jury indictment as well. The reason it, I suspect, you know, charges haven't come yet is because prosecutors want to make sure, not just that they have probable cause, but that they can win this case if they take it to trial. So to wrap a bow on it, we're not entirely sure why he deleted his Instagram. The timing could be in relation to some of these ongoing legal issues. There's a number of different reasons why it might be happening. I, you know, the grand jury announcement or the reporting of a grand jury is very, very circumstantial. and very interesting that this happened at this time.

What would you be advising if you were representing Sean Diddy Combs? What would you be advising him to do right now? I would be advising him to go about his life, but not to comment on anything that could possibly pertain to this case. No more Instagram posts. No more Instagram posts. Totally got it. Nadia Shihata.

Thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. 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 you get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series. Add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.