Lawyers working for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs have written a letter to the court overseeing his criminal prosecution for sex-trafficking and racketeering asking it to issue a wide-ranging gagging order.
They want to restrict what potential witnesses can say in public about the allegations they have made against Combs - including in civil lawsuits - because, argue the lawyers, constant media coverage and commentary is negatively impacting on Combs’s “constitutional right to a fair trial”.
That trial should be able to proceed “free from the influence of prejudicial statements in the press”, say Combs’s lawyers, who also note that the court has an “independent obligation to avoid the creation of a ‘carnival atmosphere’ in high-profile cases”.
With another seven lawsuits filed this weekend, the steady stream of allegations against Combs ensures that what is already a very high profile criminal investigation is rarely out of the headlines. Some of the lawyers involved in lawsuits against Combs have also been very vocal about the allegations being made against the musician, in both the civil cases and the criminal case.
That includes lawyer Tony Buzbee, who previously said that he had 120 clients who were planning to sue Combs, and that hundreds more had contacted a dedicated phoneline set up by his firm for people who say that they are victims of Combs.
Combs “has been the target of an unending stream of allegations” in the press from “prospective witnesses” and their lawyers, says the letter. This includes “numerous inflammatory extrajudicial statements” aimed at “assassinating Mr Combs’s character”.
There have also been “shockingly prejudicial and false allegations of sexual assault and abuse of minors” - the details of which “need not be repeated”, the letter adds - as well as public claims from lawyers about “the credibility and character of their clients” who are suing Combs, and offering opinions on “potential evidence”.
Those lawyers act as unpaid PRs for the prosecution in the criminal case, it says, by “repeatedly vouching for the government and commenting on the strength of the government’s case”. The lawyers have also admitted, the letter points out, that they are in communication with the prosecution about the criminal investigation and the prospect of their clients acting as potential witnesses.
All of this will “undoubtedly threaten Mr Combs’s right to a fair trial” and, as a result, concludes the letter, the court, “should exercise its discretion in issuing an order requiring all potential witnesses and their counsel to refrain from making extrajudicial statements that have a substantial likelihood to interfere with Mr Combs’s trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice”.
As part of that gagging order potential witnesses and their lawyers should also be ordered to take down any previous comments they have made online, Combs lawyers add, and the government should declare what communications there have been between the prosecution and the lawyers of potential witnesses.
It’s not the first letter sent by Combs’s lawyers to the court. They previously asked the judge to force the prosecution to disclose the people who have made claims against Combs as part of the criminal investigation, insisting that information is required to mount an effective defence.
That letter also raised concerns that coverage of and commentary about the flood of allegations made against Combs would prevent him from getting a fair trial.
The seven new lawsuits filed this weekend - by three women and four men - are the latest to be coordinated by Buzbee. As with the last batch of Buzbee-led litigation, the new lawsuits include allegations that Combs sexually assaulted minors.
One lawsuit claims that Combs sexually assaulted a seventeen year old boy, while another accuses him of drugging and raping a thirteen year old girl in 2000 after she told his limo driver she was trying to get into the Video Music Awards.
Combs continues to deny all the allegations that have been made against him, in both the criminal investigation and in relation to the civil lawsuits - now numbering at least 28 - that have been filed against him.