Diddy Returns To Court For Pretrial
Diddy Returns To Court For Pretrial Hearing, Claims CNN Altered Cassie Attack Footage
Source: Scott Dudelson / Getty
Sean “Diddy” Combs returned to court in Manhattan on Friday for a pretrial hearing where he was arraigned on a superseding indictment.
Diddy isn’t currently facing any new charges — which is almost surprising considering hardly a week ever goes by without new headlines of new accusers filling our news feeds —, but prosecutors have recently expanded the allegations related to racketeering and conspiracy charges to include three additional victims, according to CNN. Diddy has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which allege that he forced an employee to engage in sexual acts and threatened others with physical and financial harm if they didn’t aid him in a two-decade-spanning sex trafficking operation.
Here’s where the deeply embattled Bad Boy mogul is at in his ongoing legal woes via CNN:
He is currently being held at a federal detention center in New York City as he awaits trial set to start on May 5. Attorneys for Combs have petitioned for jury selection to start on that date, with opening statements to follow on May 13. Prosecutors want jury selection begin on April 21.
Prosecutors have accused Combs and others of coercing at least three women to engage in sex acts with him and, at times, with male prostitutes. The occasions where prosecutors say the women were often drugged and forced to engage in sex for days were known as “Freak Offs.”
Authorities allege Combs recorded some of the sex acts and controlled his victims by promising financial and career opportunities, as well as through threats of violence and other harm.
In addition, the indictment alleges when Combs’ authority was threatened by employees, witnesses or others, he reacted at times violently, including “multiple” acts of kidnapping. On one occasion, the indictment says, Combs allegedly “dangled a victim over an apartment balcony.”
Meanwhile, Diddy and his legal team have gone on the offensive and are accusing CNN of altering the hotel surveillance footage published by the network last May that showed him viciously attacking singer and ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
“The defense has confirmed, through a forensic video analysis of the CNN footage that the government provided to this Court and of the footage provided by CNN in response to the defense subpoena, that all CNN video footage was substantially altered in significant respects,” Combs’ legal team wrote in a letter filed in court Thursday. “This includes covering the time stamp and then changing the video sequence. It also includes speeding up the video to make it falsely appear that the actions in the video are taking place faster than they are. As a result, the CNN videos do not fairly and accurately depict the events in question.”
First of all, it’s unclear why Diddy and his people believe it would matter if the recording had been sped up “to make it falsely appear that the actions in the video are taking place faster than they are.” It’s a video that shows him violently beating Cassie. Slowing it down would do what? Give us a better look at it?
And, curious enough, Diddy hadn’t complained about the video CNN aired being altered up until now. He never even mentioned it during the weak apology video he released not long after the hotel footage went viral.
At any race, CNN denies that it aired significantly altered footage or that it destroyed the original video it obtained from the hotel.
“CNN never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source,” a spokesperson for CNN said in a statement. “CNN aired the story about the video several months before Combs was arrested.”
An attorney for Cassie, Douglas Wigdor, also weighed in on the allegation by Diddy and his camp.
“It is not surprising that Combs would make a disingenuous argument to exclude the disturbing video from being shown to the jury in the upcoming trial,” Wigdor said in a statement to CNN. “I am confident that the video fairly and accurately represents what happened, will be admitted into evidence, and that Combs will be held accountable for his depravity.”
See social media’s reaction to the shocking video below.
