Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy Makes Huge Decision About Plea in Sex Trafficking Case

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Sean “Diddy” Combs is just weeks away from his federal trial on sex crimes and racketeering charges in New York. During a pre-trial hearing, prosecutors revealed several shocking new details about the disgraced music mogul. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber got caught up on the latest courtroom developments with correspondent Elizabeth Millner, who was in the courtroom.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’ve ever been 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/YouTubeTakeoverHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest 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. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A rejected plea offer. The 2016 tape of Diddy allegedly beating Cassie. Expert Testimony. The rapper's purported bad acts from the 90s. Another big hearing in the Sean Combs' criminal talked about all of this as we get closer and closer to the May 5th trial date. We're going to bring on our long crime reporter, Elizabeth Milner, who is in the federal courtroom today to give us the latest on what happened and what we can expect next. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. Back with a lot more updates and a brand new court hearing today for Sean Diddy Combs, who's facing, as we know, federal sex crimes charges. Scheduled to go to trial, by the way, in what? Two weeks, basically, May 5th? So straight from court, just got back to our office we have with us. Elizabeth Milner, Long Crimes Reporter. Elizabeth, good to see you.

Thanks for coming back on here. You're on sidebar. So you were in there. A lot to go away through. First we'll start off. How did Sean Combs look? What did he do? What did he say?

And who was there? I mean, what attorneys were there for him? Yeah. So Diddy just walked into the courtroom like he normally does? He hugged all of his attorneys. He, you know, dabbed up Mark Agnifalo. I think he was kind of searching in the gallery to see. if he had family there. Because when court had first started, nobody was there from his family. And I think

he kind of looks forward. And I'm just speculating here. Obviously, I'm not in his mind. But I think he looks for people, especially his mom, to be inside that courtroom in the gallery. But today, it was just Justin Combs all by himself. I think in the moment when he had first walked into the courtroom, because it was a little bit after it had started. He kind of was like clearing his throat. I don't know because he actually had to clear his throat or if it was to get his father's attention just to let him know that he is here. Oh, interesting. Yeah, but Diddy did turn around a couple of times. I don't know if it was to see if more of his family came in or to see just to kind of like check in with Justin during that, but he seems to always kind of be more excited to see his family inside that courtroom. But as far as

the attorneys go, it was the usual bunch, Mark McNifalo, Tenney Garagos. Diddy sits kind of in between Tenney and Alexandra Shapiro. She was in the courtroom as well today. Jason Driscoll, Anna Estavow. there was no Brian Steele though today, which I found particularly interesting, especially given that he kind of made his presence known in the last hearing last week. But I will say that was just me doing some research that Nicole Westmoreland, she had previously represented another YSL defendant. She was in that courtroom as well too. So maybe it is to kind of like keep him in the know of what things were happening because she had attended court with him as well last time when they had all come in. All the cameras were surrounding Brian Steele and her. And so that

was pretty much who was in the courtroom today. But yeah, Diddy seem in good spirits, as I could tell. You know, maybe it's just like another hearing, another day, another time to get out of MDC. Well, look, I want to talk about this for parent-rejected plea deal, but I mean, he's ready to go to trial. He's been waiting for this. There's a lot of mixed reporting. I don't know if you have the answer on it. Mark Garagos wasn't in court. I don't know if he's representing Sean Combs or not, right? Right, exactly. Like, we were waiting for Mark Garragos to make his big announcement, possibly be inside that courtroom. You know, Harvey Levin had made that joke on the two angry podcast that he bet his house that he's going to be representing. Did he come trial? But it looks like

Harvey might have to give up his house because as of this recording, as we're speaking right now, no sign of Mark Garragos being on the team yet. Talk to me about the news of this rejected plea deal? What happened in court? So that was kind of brought up a little bit at the end, just so nonchalantly that I was like, oh, whoa, a plea offer was given to him. So the government didn't go into full details as far as what the offer was, how much time it might have possibly been for or just any of that sort. And so the government said, you know, they had made an offer to Diddy. He rejected it. And I remember, well, one, I'm not surprised that he rejected it because I remember when we had first started covering this, I was particularly noting how confident

the defense seems about the case as far as whether or not this was actual sex trafficking, whether or not these individuals and alleged victims had consented to being a part of the freakoffs and that type of sort. And so it wasn't surprising at all that Diddy had rejected an offer, I there is something in his mind that believes that he might possibly beat this case some of his even former friends have gone out publicly saying that did he can beat the sex trafficking charges and maybe did he believes that as well too hey just going to give a shout out to morgan and morgan for sponsoring today's law and crime youtube takeover now morgan and morgan is a firm with over a thousand attorneys you know why they have somebody because they win a lot in the past

few months morgan and morgan secured a 9.3 million dollar verdict for a car crash victim in Florida, a $5.6 million verdict for another car accident victim in Atlanta, and not to mention $1.8 million in Kentucky after insurance offered them a mere $5,000 in that case. And even if you think, your case isn't worth millions of dollars, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve? You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. The whole process can be done from your phone. So if you're hurt, visit for the people.com slash YouTube takeover, click the link below or scan the QR code on screen. Something came up today about a defense, right? Something the swinger defense? Is that give us an idea of, you talked about consensual sexual relations,

which I think is going to be their main argument that all of this was on the up and up. But what is the swinger defense exactly? If I'm understanding correctly. It seems like that was something that Mark Agnifalo just kind of put out there, really. It was when the judge was addressing the motion to preclude evidence, which the judge did grant. And this was a government motion, by the way. And it was about other couples who, you know, bring in escorts into their private endeavors. The defense says, though, that it's relevant just about the intent of this. And so Mark Aganiflo was making the argument that Combs, the defendant, might think it's appropriate to partake in this type of lifestyle because other people do. Other swingers do. You know,

I remember, you know, covering this case, you know, we all have covered this case so much. And I remember asking one of our legal analysts, like, is sex on trial here? But it seems like the defense all along, their defense being that the sex was consensual, that everyone was a willing participant. But to me, it's always just that one moment that someone doesn't want to participate, doesn't want to be a part of it, that that makes it kind of the grounds of a little great area here where I assure jurors will have to weigh in in this decision. But as far as just the swingers go, Mark Aganifalo kind of made it clear that Diddy was a part

of this lifestyle. It's not unusual for him to hire escorts. Other people do it. other couples do it. And so the defendant may have not thought that this was criminal behavior. See, this is what I find interesting about it, right? First of all, first of all, he is not steering away from the idea of the freakoffs. They seem to be saying, yeah, these were called freakoffs. We're going to call them freakoffs, but they're not illegal. But one of the charges he faces is transportation to engage in prostitution. If he's saying, yeah, I hired sex workers,

but if he's transporting them and paying for them, I feel like it's going to be very, very difficult to argue he's not guilty of that charge. We talked last time about how he tried to get it dismissed from the case, basically saying it's a racist charge, but it's going in. So I'm curious to see about that. Okay, a lot more to get into about what happened here. Something about a medical procedure.

Let's start there. I hadn't heard anything in the prior filings about a medical procedure. Was this about Did he or was this about one of the alleged victims? Talk to us about that. So initially, I was kind of thrown off by that as well, too, were like a motion about a medical procedure. I was like, oh, did he have to go through surgery in the middle of trial? That's where my mind went to. But pretty much it was a government motion that was granted. I just want to go ahead and spoil that there. But the government

argues that they want to put in evidence of coercive control. They say it kind of goes to the whole consent issue. Obviously, that's going to be a big issue when it comes to trial. They say that as far as the medical procedure, which by the way, they didn't specify what the particular medical procedure was, or even what victim it had pertained to, alleged victim it had pertained to. But the government argues that it goes to the harm of this type of sexual activity. They say that it's relevant to the sex trafficking charge. Again, unclear what the procedure is, but they say that the procedure was a result of the sex trafficking claim.

And so they're going to confirm more particularly about this at the next hearing, which is next week, but for right now, the judge did grant that motion. Again, I have no idea what it is, but it sounds to me. me, it could be one of these alleged victims who say, I mean, maybe I was forced into this sexual event, this sexual episode, and I had to maybe get an evaluation of some sort. I mean, that's a possibility. But that's interesting because that's the first time I think I've heard and you've heard about a medical procedure. And even in the indictment, you know, you're laying out, you know, the IV fluid. Yeah, exactly. The IV fluids that were laid out in the indictment. And so,

you know, maybe it is also kind of pertaining to just how hard. particularly participated in these events that you don't want to even participate in in the first place, what it does to your body. And it looks like that'll be a topic of discussion. Because they talk about prolonged sexual activities, drug use. So again, we're not, we can't, we won't guess what it is, but we'll see. Okay, I want to move on to a big issue. And this, and I'm going to lay out a little bit of the context here, and then I'm going to jump back to Elizabeth, but this pertains to the infamous 2016 footage of Combs allegedly beating Cassandra Ventura in a hotel hallway, more specifically, the Intercontinental Hotel,

in Los Angeles. And we believe Cassandra Ventura is victim one in the indictment. And the prosecution wants to introduce this evidence to prove sex trafficking, that there was a sex worker in that hotel room from which Ventura was escaping, the evidence of the infamous freakoff, or one of the freakoffs. And again, let me lay this out what the arguments are. So in a previous filing, Combs has been trying to have this evidence excluded from trial. Obviously, he doesn't want a jury to see this. One of the arguments he made was, quote, there's no longer any dispute from the CNN footage from March 5th, 2016 at the Intercontinental Hotel, offered by the government at three separate bail hearings, is wholly inaccurate, having been altered, manipulated, sped up,

and edited to be out of sequence. As indicated below, CNN paid redacted, don't know who this person is, we can guess, redacted for footage, copied that footage in unknown ways, presented that footage out of order, and destroyed the original. Accordingly, all the footage from CNN is inaccurate and inadmissible. As for the two items of footage filmed by an iPhone six, those pieces of footage are inaccurate and admissible as well, and then they go into reasons why. Now, apparently someone took cell phone videos of that footage, too, and Combs' defense argued several points, like the CNN video and the iPhone videos have to be excluded because the government can't provide sufficient evidence of their authenticity. How can you prove what you're purporting it

to be? The defense argues that none of the files at issue are the actual original. even though they make the argument that they made a good faith effort to find the originals, that the probative value, so their relevance at trial to prove, let's say sex trafficking, is outweighed by the risk of unfairly prejudicing the jury. The jury seeing this footage and all the problems allegedly associated with it, whatever relevance it has, it's outweighed by all that. Now, in a recent filing from the government, the government objected to all this. They argued, for example, it is by the defendant's own hand that the original version

of this damning footage no longer exists. It was deleted and given to the defendant as part of a cover-up orchestrated by the defendant and his co-conspirators. The court must not reward the defendant for his actions by precluding the video that remains available despite the defendant's obstructive efforts.

And that goes to the allegation that he paid for the footage and hit it and all that. And I thought this was also an interesting response to the argument of authentication. The government responded in a filing. The defendant himself also authenticated the content depicted in the videos.

Following CNN's initial, broadcast of footage from the Intercontinental Hotel, which, by the way, we all saw last year when CNN published it, the defendant posted a video on his Instagram in which he admitted that he was in the video and apologized for his behavior depicted in the video. At no point did the defendant dispute the accuracy of the video or the events it depicted. That's a good point. And also, they say, the defendant raises a variety of potential issues with the available videos ranging from their playback speed to their time stamps, which he claims. makes the videos unreliable. Not only are the videos reliable, but the defense's concerns are

relevant only to the weight the evidence is accorded rather than the videos admissibility. In other words, meaning allow the jury to decide what value to give these videos. Don't just not let it in. So, Elizabeth, I laid it out. What was the discussion regarding this 2016 footage, which I will go on record as saying, I think arguably the most important piece of evidence? I say that. I don't know what the rest of the evidence is, but from what we see so far, what was the discussion regarding that footage and is the judge going to allow it to come in? Yep. Well, it looks like yes.

I just want to spoil it for everyone. The judge is allowing this CNN video to be played so we are going to see it. And just even taking a step back, there were a lot of moments throughout our coverage of this entire legal saga from Cassie first filing her lawsuit. It was settled.

But there were two moments outside of Diddy's arrest that were humongous in this case, one being his homes being raided. by the feds and then also when this video came out this video is huge a lot of people have seen this video and the prosecution um the government has long said that this piece of evidence the video is critical to their case obviously they want to use it remember just how everyone's speaking of this video or even just of ditty's legal battles they were you know oh um just women want to take him down women want to take him down and then everyone kind of just

flicked their opinions once this video came out and so the video will be admitted into evidence into evidence. And it was interesting the government's kind of response to this, which obviously they wanted this video in, but they do have a video expert who adjusted some of the video. The government expert was able to slow it down because when we saw it on CNN, it was sped up. I don't think anybody, you know, you don't need a degree in video production to know that that video wasn't in real time or at a normal speed, I should say. But the expert has also lifted the cell phone video as well, too, and kind of were able to correct it. So the video will play in a normal speed. It won't be the same video that we had all.

all saw blasted on CNN. And as far as what the judge had said, he had pretty much ruled the remaining footage will be used with witness testimony, or actually this was what the government was saying, that the remaining footage will be used with witness testimony, who can say that the video is accurate. And to the government's point, and what you had just read in their letter to the judge, you know, they say the video is accurate. Diddy came out with that apology video where he had apologized for his actions because of the swift backlash that he was receiving after this video was made public, and the judge also said that the probative value was not substantially outweighed. And so, you know, how a jury will actually react to seeing the video in a normal

speed. It'll be up to the jury to see what their thoughts are about it, but just even the depiction of it is ingrained in my brain. A couple of things about that. So one, we know the defense is probably going to characterize this as just a domestic spat. It's an unfortunate domestic back, but not evidence of sex trafficking, that it was maybe Cassandra Ventura catching him cheating or something like that. Did they say anything about the iPhone videos more specifically? Because I think, didn't they say the person who shot the iPhone videos of the surveillance footage is going to testify? And I wonder, is that victim one? Is that possibly Cassandra Ventura? I don't know. Yeah, that part is a little unclear, but the government does have that cell phone

video. And so again, they're going to kind of piece together, one, in normal speed, the surveillance video that we saw, but also the cell phone video as well, too, unclear on whether or not it was taken by victim one or if it was somebody who had taken a video of this, you know, so that part's a little unclear. It's a little dicey for me to explain right now. But the hugest part of this is that it's going to be admitted that a jury will see this, whether or not a jury can believe that that equates to sex trafficking or just, you know, alleged assault is two different things. I guess we'll see once trial comes. It's a really important piece of evidence.

Okay, so now I want to get into expert testimony, and this is important, and I'm going to lay this out again, and then we'll talk about it. So the next part that came up was about the testimony of prosecution witness Dr. Dawn Hughes. We've discussed her before. She is a clinical and forensic psychologist who actually testified, by the way, in the Johnny Depp Amber Hurd trial. The defense objected to her testimony. In fact, here's how the prosecution described what her anticipated testimony would be like,

and this is from a recent filing. The following includes the anticipated opinions. The government expects Dr. Hughes will offer regarding sexual abuse and victim responses to sexual abuse, coercive control, coping strategies during in relation to sexual abuse, delayed disclosure and memory of sexual abuse. All important to understand maybe why the alleged victims did or did not do what they did in this case. And it went on to say that the government expects that Dr. Hughes will testify about coercive control as a tactic of victimization. i.e. the state or process of becoming a victim, and a strategy to gain dominance across a spectrum of relationships. Coerce of control, they say, often includes a variety of physical, sexual, and or emotional tactics that together function to control the victim, such as actual or threatened

physical violence, aggression, sexual assault and abuse, sexual degradation, financial and economic control, control over reproductive health, control through the use of drugs or alcohol. This almost mirrors a lot of the allegations from the indictment. And in another recent, filing, the prosecution said, quote, Dr. Hughes is expected to testify that interpersonal violence is violence or abuse committed between individuals, including rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, or intimate partner violence among others, and also refers to dynamics related to coercion and emotional abuse that may not necessarily involve physical violence as commonly understood. Dr. Hughes will not purport to explain what coercion is under the law

applicable to this case. Rather, she will explain the concept of course of control as understood within academic literature and within the practice of psychology. Throughout her testimony, Dr. Hughes will make clear that the terms she uses and the concepts she explains are all used within the field of psychology and are not legal terms or definitions. The reason that's important is because the defense objected to this. And in one of their filings, they said Hughes also proposes to testify about what coercion means in the context of her discussion of the concept of coercive control. And her definition is different from the legal definition.

According to Hughes, coercive tactics can include not just violence and threats, but a variety of other subtle tactics, including ostensibly positive behavior, such as rewards, positivity, affection, normalcy, which can create emotional attachment and psychological dependency. According to her, anything counts. That's what the defense said. And then Combs provides a specific example in one of his filings that, quote, the evidence in this case will show, for example, that Combs financially supported his girlfriends. That does not count as coercion under the legal definition, but it would count under Hughes definition. Suppose the evidence shows that after a fight,

Combs apologized, expressed love, and bought his girlfriend a gift. That would not count as coercion under the legal definition, but it would count under Hughes definition. And then Combs further argues that while Hughes provides a concrete definition of coercive control, in one of the articles she apparently cites it's explained that coercive control is really undefined. And other sources don't help her either with her definition. So in other words, the defense says if she starts talking about coercive control, it's going to confuse the jury.

There's a definition, the legal definition, he's charged with crimes like this, and her definition of it. So I think I laid it all out. Elizabeth, what was the discussion on Dr. Don Hughes, coercive control, interpersonal violence, and what was the decision? So it was granted in part and denied in part. So pretty much the judge ruled they cannot talk about coercive control. That will be out when it comes to her testifying. And she can also not testify about the intent slash motivation of abusers. Okay.

And so what was granted, though, is that she can testify about delayed disclosure. She can also testify about memory issues. And we've seen it a lot in other cases where there are victims who have, you know, delayed and disclosing what they went through either with, you know, know, a partner, or even just in general from their alleged perpetrator, we've seen that before. And so to me, I'm not surprised that the judge ruled that way. He seemed to be fair in both sides, kind of being respectful, just to kind of make sure that nothing bad happens once this case actually starts. But in terms of interpersonal violence, the judge did say

that the jury can understand what abuse is. The jury aren't too into the weeds to not understand what this means. You don't need an expert. Exactly. You don't need an expert to tell you. And so the judge, by the way, will monitor these lines very, very strictly. So there's not a lot of distracting sidebars. There's not a lot of moments where we have to, for example, you know, start court later or something like that so they can argue about these types of things. So it seems like the judge, especially once Dr. Hughes gets on the stand, will be very strict in monitoring what can be said and what can't be said. But for now, it looks like no coercive control.

We won't see those words uttered out of Dr. Hughes's mouth, no intent about or motivation of abuser. but can't testify again about delayed disclosure and memory issues. And that's important, right, because a juror member could say, well, wait a minute, if she really was attacked or was a victim, why didn't she report it? Why didn't she go to the police? Yeah, and our understanding has changed, and sometimes you do need an expert opinion about that. Okay, now I want to move on to this other thing. We talked about this last time.

There's a lot of discussion about whether or not the prosecution can introduce evidence of uncharged acts, like alleged sexual assaults committed by Combs, allegedly committed by Combs from back in the day in this case. What did the judge say or say about that? What did the government say about that more specifically? So it was a defense motion. And so the judge granted it, but absent the door opening. So if someone opens the door, they can go ahead and talk about it.

Because the defense said it was so unfair to bring in all of this other stuff to prove the federal crimes. I mean, you're talking, they actually objected and said they would have to do all of this research. They'd have to be like a mini trial within a trial. It's overly prejudicial. So what in terms of, when you say open the door, you mean if the defense does something or Combs takes the stand, then they might be able to introduce it? What else did we learn? So, yeah, in a previous filing, the government said that at this time, the government does not currently intend to offer evidence of redacted unless the defense opens the door to these types of topics at trial. So, for example, if the defense were able to or argue through opening statements or cross-examination

that the defendant has never engaged in acts of violence, has never engaged in obstruction, or has never possessed a gun, then the government may ask the court to consider admitting certain evidence to redact it to respond to those arguments or areas of cross-examination. So again, if the door is open, then it seems like that's a whole other story for a whole other day. But somebody just has to open that door. And that could happen just at a blimp of a moment. So we'll see how that plays out. Defense has to be careful about what they say. All right.

Now, there was a lot of stuff about charts, right? And the way I understand it is, right, the government wants to introduce charts because there's so much evidence, travel records, hotel records, financial records, phone records, text messages, emails, photographs. They can't go one by one by one, right? So if we can have an expert talk about a chart showing, I guess, all the evidence that was collected, I mean, what did we learn about charts today? Yeah, and that's one of the things about.

federal cases, or just cases in general, where, especially in this case, things are just so complex. So it was a motion also in liminey. Started with the motion about timely disclosure, and it was denied as mood. And so pretty much the government and the defense came up with an arrangement that the government will provide those summary charts before openings. Now, what those will look like, how that'll be, and the time frame that we have right now, a little unclear, because I can only imagine how many pages that is, how many documents that is. But it seems like the defense and the government have worked out a solution and that solution being those summary charts that will be provided prior to openings and then more charts will kind of come

in as more evidence and exhibits are put in as well too. So it looks like it's not just a before openings type of thing. It'll continue on. Yeah. And maybe just give an idea of what was collected by the government. Final point. There was discussion in their previous filing so much about other victims. So victims three, victims four. Any discussion about? those victims today? Yeah, not too much discussion about it. I remember seeing just in the court filings that the defense still objected to victim three and victim four, alleged victim three and alleged victim four, into using pseudonyms when it can testifying at trial. Now at the last hearing, the judge ruled that the victims two, three, and four can testify under pseudonyms.

The defense says that they object to particularly victim three and victim four. Now, as why they don't object to victim two, that's unclear. That portion was redacted in their filing to the judge. But it looks like for now that victim two, three, and four will continue on testifying under a pseudonym. And what that pseudonym will be, that's a wait and see, but. Usually it can be Janeo, yeah.

And victim one, we believe it's going to reveal her name. Again, we believe that to be Cassandra Ventura. And there's a lot of reasons why alleged victims want to proceed anonymously. They're worried about harassment. They're worried about their safety. And if some are, like, possibly known figures who have gone on podcasts and talked about their time with the defendant, then I can understand why they'd want to go under a pseudonym, too. And, Jesse, yeah, one more thing I do want to mention is that there was a moment in court today where there were issues coming up just about the indictment, specifically the defense questioning how the grand jury voted when they did their proceedings.

And by the way, you mean like the new indictment. Yeah, the new indictment because there's been, yeah, three superseding indictments from the one we first got back in September. And so I can see why the defense is a little frustrated here. They keep getting more documents. They keep getting more things filed against their client. And, you know, with two weeks now until trial begins, I can imagine why they're a little frustrated. But Mark Agnifalo made this argument, and he said there might be a constitutional issue when it comes to this, especially when it comes to his client going on trial for what the grand jury voted for,

as opposed to what has been put in in the superseding indictments that have come in afterwards. And so the defense says that they're going to. So the judge didn't make a ruling as it pertains to this at all. The defense is going to file some or find some cases that talk about precedent, that type of thing, and they're going to submit a letter. So we should see the filing for that by Monday. But as far as the government's response, they say that there's fair notice when it comes to adding in more incidents of forced labor. They say that as far as their argument goes, a bunch of records have come in that might not appear initially.

Once they kind of dive into it more, they're able to add in more. information into these documents, and that's what ends up happening in these types of situations. But the defense... Yeah, and one of their indictments, the superseding indictments, they focused a lot on forced labor, which is one of those underlying acts, underlying crimes of racketeering the criminal enterprise. And I remember it was like that they had people working like over, you know, overtime hours. They weren't allowed to sleep.

And they were denied certain things. And so it makes you wonder who is going to testify to support that. It's one of those underlying crimes to support the overall racketeering charge, which, by the way, carries the most prison time. And so it's very significant. All right. Elizabeth Milner, thank you so much for going to court being our eyes and ears about what's happening there. Really appreciate it. And you're going to be doing live reporting for us when this trial starts, right?

Definitely will be. So we'll have more of this. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us.

And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you. You should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.