Sean “Diddy” Combs’s legal team is giving a glimpse at his defense.
As the rap mogul’s lawyers launch another attempt to free him from jail before his trial — on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution — his attorney Marc Agnifilo appeared on his behalf in TMZ’s documentary The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment.
In the doc, now streaming on Tubi, Agnifilo was grilled about the case, including Combs’s plans to testify, the hip-hop star’s relationship with Cassie Ventura, the alleged “freak offs” and the 1,000-plus bottles of baby oil and lubricant found during the federal raids of his homes in L.A. and Miami.
Combs, who was arrested on Sept. 16, is accused of, over a period of more than 16 years, threatening and coercing women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires. That allegedly included forcing victims into sex performances, some lasting days and fueled by drugs (ketamine, ecstasy and GHB), with male commercial sex workers that he recorded as collateral. Prosecutors accuse Combs of creating a “criminal enterprise” — through his various businesses — with employees engaging in crimes such as “sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice,” according to the indictment.
Combs maintains his innocence and has pleaded not guilty.
What does Combs’s attorney say in the doc?
Agnifilo tried to paint Combs as the victim of overzealous federal prosecutors and Cassie — whose allegations against Combs are at the core of the case — as a willing participant in the “freak offs.”
He alleged that federal prosecutors are pursuing charges against Combs as a “takedown of a successful Black man.” He said Combs has “made some of the most important businesses owned by a Black man” and “we have reduced him … to being a monster.”
He thinks Combs is being vilified because the government “[doesn’t] like the way he’s having sex.”
Agnifilo said “freak offs” in his day “were called threesomes.” In this case, he insisted that they were consensual between “his woman at the time,” referring to Ventura, who sued Combs for alleged rape, abuse and sex trafficking in 2023, and third parties. “I’ve spoken to about a half dozen of these different men involved,” the lawyer said, and they told him there was no indication it was not consensual. He also claimed they told him “no one was too high, no one was too drunk.”
As for the 1,000 bottles of lubricant, he replied that Combs “has a big house. He buys in bulk. I think they have Costcos in every place where he has a home. I mean, have you sat in the parking lot of a Costco and see what people walk out of there with?”
Agnifilo said Combs will absolutely testify at trial, adding, “I don’t know that I could keep him off the stand.” He called him a “fighter” who’s set on getting a not-guilty verdict. “His state of mind is actually remarkably positive,” he said, noting, “I spend several hours with him every day.”
As for a potential plea deal with prosecutors, Agnifilo said, “I don’t see it happening” because “he believes he’s innocent. And what’s more, he believes that he needs to stand up, not just for himself, for his family and for everybody who’s been targeted by the federal government.”
The lawyer spoke about the surveillance tape appearing to show Combs physically abusing Ventura in an L.A. hotel in 2016. He said Combs publicly apologized when the video surfaced in May. “It was hard to watch for him,” the attorney claimed. “It was hard to watch for me. It’s hard to watch for anyone. That being said, it is not evidence of sex trafficking.”
He claimed that Combs and Ventura’s decade-long relationship was a “story of love,” of “hurt” and “heartbreak.” He alleged problems on both sides, saying, “There was a certain level of toxicity and drug use.” He said “their difficulties did not stem from their intimate time together. Their difficulties stemmed from the fact that she was cheating on him and he was cheating on her.”
Asked if Combs regrets not settling his case with Ventura — before she filed it and made it public, leading to the federal investigation — Agnifilo replied, “You know, he is so focused on trying to right this wrong that it’s actually giving him a form of strength and a form of confidence that I think is going to get him through this difficult time period.”
What’s the latest in Combs’s case?
Combs’s legal team is making a third attempt to free him from the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn before his trial.
On Monday, a notice of appeal was filed by new legal team members Anthony Ricco and Alexandra Shapiro asking that the previous decision to deny Combs bail be overturned.
Combs’s lawyers previously put together a $50 million bail package with his Miami home and his mother’s house as collateral. In it, the performer offered to be under 24-hour surveillance, have his travel restricted and surrender his passport. He also agreed to ban women (minus his mother and the mothers of his children) from visiting his home, not see or speak to anyone who could be considered a witness or co-conspirator and undergo weekly drug testing if his release on bail was granted. The offer was rejected.
Before this latest appeal, Combs was actually denied bail twice. U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky was the first to make the decision, siding on Sept. 17 with the prosecutors’ argument that the wealthy hip-hop mogul could be a flight risk or tamper with witnesses. On Sept. 18, U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. denied Combs’s release request hinged on the $50 million bail package.
Combs has expanded his legal team. Agnifilo accompanied Combs to court and appeared in this documentary. Teny Geragos, the daughter of celebrity criminal defense lawyer Mark Geragos (who previously represented Combs), also represented him in court and has been defending him on TV as well as on TikTok.
Ricco and Shapiro are the latest additions. According to Business Insider, the latter also represents Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto CEO who was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for fraud. Combs and Bankman-Fried are reportedly housed in the same area of MDC.
