Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy Slams Feds for ‘Lying’ About Jail Cell Search

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Starting point is 00:00:35 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. High-powered defense attorneys for Sean Diddy Combs are once again blasting federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York, accusing them of not only allegedly targeting their client in an unconstitutional rate of his cell, but also lying about it to the court. Combs' sex trafficking and racketeering case is just a few short months away from going to trial, and the defense is demanding a hearing in front of the judge. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. Over the last several weeks, lawyers for Sean Diddy Combs have

Starting point is 00:01:21 filed motion after motion, letter after letter, wanting more details about how the feds were able to get into their client's cell at the notorious metropolitan detention center out in New York and whether anybody broke the law to do it. Remember, Combs has been locked up since September out in Brooklyn after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by forced fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution. The prosecutor's allegations date back years, but Combs also has been accused in civil court of misconduct that allegedly dates back to the 1990s, lawsuit after lawsuit, after lawsuit, accusing him of seriously heinous acts against men, women, and children.

Starting point is 00:02:06 But to be clear, Combs has always, always, always maintained his innocence, and he has never been convicted of or found liable of any sort of sexual assault or abuse. And his attorneys are saying he is looking forward to clearing his name in court, upcoming trial in May. Now, at the heart of much of the most recent legal drama is a raid that was carried out at the MDC back in October. This is a jail, by the way, that is infamous for drugs, weapons, violence. So officials were reportedly looking for any sort of contraband that any of the inmates might have, not just Sean Combs. He was questioned, photographs were taken of items in his cell.

Starting point is 00:02:46 And according to a filing from federal prosecutors, quote, the sweep was pre-planned and coordinated to ensure, of the safety and security of staff and inmates at the MDC and was part of a larger safety and security initiative and not in response to any particular threat or intelligence. The MDC suite planned well in advance of the defendant's arrest and not conducted to target any particular inmate included the jail and the warehouse where MDC food and other property are stored. During the MDC suite, multiple housing units were searched, including the defendants unit. Although the case team, members of the government responsible, for investigating, charging, and trying the present case, were aware in advance that the defendant's

Starting point is 00:03:27 housing unit, in addition to other areas of the jail, would be searched. No one on the case team supervised, conducted, or participated in the search of any housing unit, nor the search of the defendant's bunk area. The case team was not aware in advance of which agents and officers were taking part in the MDC sweep, nor what role any specific agent or officer would play in the MDC suite. So according to the government, a person referred to as Investigator 1 had apparently been monitoring Sean Combs' phone calls and other communications. That's one of the ways that officials learned that Combs was allegedly breaking the jail rules by reportedly doing things like using other inmates' ID numbers or initiating three-way phone calls to potentially contact

Starting point is 00:04:12 somebody he wasn't supposed to. But the defense has raised alarm bells when they say that this investigator improperly took photos of privileged notes in Combs' Cell and then gave that information to the prosecution, despite the fact that the defense claims the word legal was written on the notepads, meaning there's attorney-client privilege issues. So there ended up being some sort of confusion about what was labeled legal and when the word legal may have been written on them. But in the end, the judge determined that the prosecution needed to get rid of some of the photos and said they weren't allowed to use the information in the latest round of bail arguments that they made several months ago. By the way, Combs' team tried to secure him bail

Starting point is 00:04:55 three different times in front of three different judges, but pre-trial release was denied every time, and it seems at this point he has given up any further fight on that issue. But the defense argued, look, something's wrong here, something's up. We think the prosecution acted in bad faith with respect to this search, with respect to this sweep. So they have asked for sworn declarations from the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting this case, Christy Slavic. And they also asked it for Investigator 1. Now, something we have to note here. The declaration from the investigator that was filed under seal, meaning the public doesn't have access to it. But we do know that some of what was said was based on Slavik's declaration and the response

Starting point is 00:05:36 from the defense. So when we talk about court cases like ditties or incidents connected to it, like the search of the MDC, it is so important. that we have all the facts and then we don't fall into the trap of, you know, bias or conjecture. And that is why, on a separate note, we are thrilled to partner with a company like Straight Arrow News. So this is an app and website focused on objective, unbiased reporting. And just like Sidebar, they have been covering all of the legal drama surrounding Sean Combs since the very beginning, from his sexual assault cases to his friend and fellow rapper Jay-Z getting drawn into the fray. And as somebody who is always doing research for Sidebar, I know how easy

Starting point is 00:06:14 it is to get lost in biased journalism. But straight hour news, they help us cut through that with tools like the media landscape, shows where outlets fall on the political spectrum, the media miss tool, highlighting stories that mainstream media might be skipping. And you can check it out for yourself for free. Just go to saan.com slash sidebar or click the link in the description. Supporting them means supporting journalists like us who are committed to delivering the truth. So with that in mind, now I want to take a look at the AUSA's statement. So Slavic has been with the Southern District of New York's office since November of 2019 and has been prosecuting this case since August of 2024, September of 2024. Now, Slavic writes, on or about October 13th,

Starting point is 00:06:53 2024, I spoke with Investigator 1, who provided an overview of some of the defendant's calls that he had monitored. Investigator 1 also detailed the unauthorized methods of communications the defendant was using, including using other inmates pack numbers, using three-way calling, and using a third-party messaging service. Based on my discussion, with another USAO SDNY unit chief who does not supervise the prosecution team or otherwise have involvement in the defendant's prosecution. This is supervisor too. So somebody who's not connected to the Diddy case. I have learned that beginning in or around June and July 24, the BOP and the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General began planning a large-scale

Starting point is 00:07:36 search of the MDC for contraband. So this is before Sean Combs was even arrested. Now Slavic says that she went back through some emails around the time of the sweep, October 28th. Now, according to those emails, the prosecution team learned about the sweep when Supervisor 2 sent an email to the whole office, letting them know that the sweep was underway in response to, quote, persistent contraband issues. And she says the supervisor relayed that no specific threat was being investigated. And Slavik says she understood those emails to also be saying that if anything related to any of the cases that the AUSAs were working on, like the Diddy case, if anything like that was seized, they would be told about it. But the search apparently

Starting point is 00:08:20 was taking way too long to do, and there were concerns that investigators may not even make it to the jail unit where Combs is being held. So Slavik's declaration reads, Supervisor 2 informed Supervisor 1 that the sweep of the west side of the MDC was taking longer than expected, and it was unclear whether the east side of the MDC would be searched. Supervisor 1 informs Supervisor 2 that in her view, the MDC sweep should include the east side of the MDC as planned, in part because of what the prosecution team had learned regarding the defendant's conduct at the MDC. At the request of Supervisor 2, Supervisor 1 conferred with USAO SDNY senior leadership about the search of the east side of the jail. This conversation included in substance that the sweep was taking longer than expected and did not include discussion of the defendant. It thereafter, Supervisor 1 relayed to Supervisor 2 that the position of the USAO, SDNY, was that the MDC sweep should stick to the original plan to search the entire jail.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Supervisor 2 relayed to other personnel present at the MDC in substance that the sweep of Unit 1 should proceed as planned. Now, I want you to pay very careful attention to that because that's something that the defense is going to seize on, that they were directing the Bureau of Prisons on who to search. Okay. AUSA Slavic continues. On or about November 3, 2024, following the completion of the MDC sweep, the prosecution team first became aware of Investigator 1's involvement in the MDC sweep through a phone call between myself and Investigator 1. Investigator 1 informed me that he had spent time in the defendant's unit and checked the defendant's bunk area for contraband, including cell phones. Investigator 1 also informed me that he took photographs of certain of the defendant's papers and an address book. Investigator 1 provided a high-level overview of the contents of the BOP notes, including the defendant's plans to discredit possible witnesses and find dirt on people.

Starting point is 00:10:17 At the conclusion of the November 3rd, 2023 call, I requested that Investigator 1 send the BOP notes directly to the AUSA leading the filter team, i.e. the team charged with reviewing material that may contain attorney communications or work product. We've talked about this before, but a filter team is not the prosecutors in this case. is a separate third-party team, goes through the communication, sees what might be privileged and what can and can't be turned over to the prosecutors. So again, the investigator's sworn statement was filed under seal, so we can't see exactly what was said, but the defense team can.

Starting point is 00:10:51 And they hit back with a filing of their own, and they have been calling out the prosecution for parts of the declaration that they called, quote, remarkably vague. And they say, actually, the U.S. Attorney's Office is proving the defense's point. Combs defense writes, quote, the declarations show that ever since the government first tried to use Mr. Combs' privilege notes to continue his detention, it has presented a materially false narrative about how it got access to these sensitive privileged materials containing his defense strategy and communications with his attorneys. Most significantly, the declarations reveal SDNY supervisors directed the BOP to search Mr. Combs' unit because of its investigation and prosecution of Mr. Combs. And they demonstrate the government has consistently monitored Mr. Combs' legal calls. In other words, they confirm what Mr. Combs has been arguing all along, that the search was conducted based upon a pretext, not for any legitimate peniological reason, and that

Starting point is 00:11:50 investigator won's surveillance before and during the search violated Mr. Combs' constitutional rights and invaded the attorney-client privilege. They go on to say, the declarations exposed that after the sweep began, it was unclaimed. clear whether Mr. Combs' unit would be searched at all. Moreover, the search of that unit was carried out specifically at the direction of SDNY supervisors, including the supervisor for this case because of their interest in obtaining evidence against Mr. Combs. The prosecution would counter that and say, no, we only directed this because we were getting word that he was breaking the jail rules and was possibly doing stuff to interfere with this case. So again, two different

Starting point is 00:12:32 narratives here. But the defense claims that the declarations here, they just aren't good enough, alleging that they're inconsistent with one another and they rely on hearsay. Quote, the truth is that the search of Mr. Combs' unit apparently was not even part of the BOP's original plan for the sweep, but it was SDNY supervisors, including the trial team's own unit chief, supervisor one, who ultimately directed the search. And the search was conducted not for legitimate institutional security reasons, but because Supervisor 1 was interested in searching Mr. Combs. The declarations confirm that the government has, via Investigator 1, consistently monitored Mr. Combs' privileged communications with his attorneys. In its opposition to the defense

Starting point is 00:13:17 motion, the government claimed it made, quote, good faith efforts to avoid coming into contact with privileged material, and that it is contrary to facts and logic to suggest Investigator 1 was its informant in the defense camp. But it turns out, Investigator 1 has been spying on the defense team all along. Investigator 1 thus repeatedly informed the trial team he was eavesdropping on privileged communications, but the trial team never instructed him to stop. That is outrageous. Worse, the trial team endorsed his conduct by requesting the communications at issue. Accordingly, the government has obtained and produced to the defense over 30 of the defense's own calls with Mr. Combs.

Starting point is 00:13:59 Now, talking declarations, the defense team also calls out problems they see with aUSA Slavic statement in particular, writing the Slavic declaration is largely based on unsworn hearsay, much of which is vague and raises more questions than it answers. For example, the discussion between the unidentified BOP personnel and Supervisor 1 on October 10th, 2024 lacks any detail. Important questions remain. Who are the BOP personnel? What was said? Why was Supervisor 1 contacted seemingly out of the blue by the BOP? And how did the BOP know who to contact? Based on the chain of events, it is likely the BOP had standing orders from Supervisor 1 or other SDNY personnel to monitor Mr. Combs and report on his conduct. When were such orders given and why? Were there other communications leading up to this call? AUSA Slavic also fails to show. share what she personally discussed and when with Investigator 1. She merely states,

Starting point is 00:15:00 I spoke with Investigator 1 on several other occasions in October and November 24. Curiously, in contrast to the Slavic Declaration, Investigator 1's declaration nowhere states that he described the contents of Mr. Combs' notes to AUSA Slavic. Why the inconsistency? And what is he hiding? Inconsistencies like this undermine the credibility of the declaration. and further underscore the need for a hearing. Indeed, it is clear, Investigator 1 previously misled prosecutors by telling them he took the photographs of Mr. Combs' notes. That is apparently not true.

Starting point is 00:15:35 Yet Investigator 1's declaration still fails to identify the individual who actually took the photographs. Who is this person? What did he do with the photographs? Who else saw them? And did the government have any communications with this individual? Did the government ever interview that individual before filing its response to Mr. Combs' motion or to comply with the court's order to file

Starting point is 00:15:57 the declarations? So what the defense is asking for is a hearing right now in front of Judge Arunne Sub-Romanian who's overseeing this case. They want to hammer out all of these details, these allege inconsistencies to get to the bottom of how exactly Combs' jail cell was searched and why? Because the defense ends their filing by saying, instead of sharing the full story, The government has cherry-picked a few facts and submitted declarations that undermine the credibility of its previous submissions, omit key facts, and raise numerous important questions about what really happened. A full hearing in which Mr. Combs' counsel are afforded the opportunity to cross-examine the government actors with knowledge of the facts relevant to the search is the only way to find the true facts and understand the full picture so the court can assess how best to remedy this grave violation of Mr. Combs' constitutional. rights. So Combs team is also demanding any more discovery mentioned in the documents that the prosecution may not have turned over yet. Now at the time of this recording on Monday, the judge has not

Starting point is 00:17:02 yet made a ruling on whether a hearing will be held and if so, when it will be held. But big picture here, if you can present enough egregious violations of a defendant's rights, evidence could be suppressed from this trial. Maybe he'll have another opportunity to present. a bail defense, although seems unlikely, but maybe you could have the prosecutions team be recused from this case. That would probably effectively delay this trial, or even in the most extreme example, charges could be dropped, the case could be dismissed. Not saying anything like this could happen here, but let's see where it unfolds. But that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please

Starting point is 00:17:46 subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

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Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy Slams Feds for ‘Lying’ About Jail Cell Search

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