Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, July second, and Sean
Speaker 1: Diddy Combs is not going home after all, at least
Speaker 1: not yet, after what was a wild, at times bizarre,
Speaker 1: at times emotional, at times surprising, at times explosive final
Speaker 1: day of the Diddy trial. Bottom line, did he one?
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to this Diddy update episode of Amy and
Speaker 1: TJ Ropes. I cannot believe we are here. The trial
Speaker 1: is over mixed verdict, but it's clear who won this thing.
Speaker 2: Well, you said did he one? But I would say
Speaker 2: he partially WONO.
Speaker 3: I gotta hear this because yes, yes, he obviously evaded
Speaker 3: the most punitive and the harshest counts against him, and
Speaker 3: so he avoided life in prison. So yes, for that alone.
Speaker 3: Of course, his freedom is coming. But a lot of
Speaker 3: folks thought, and including you, thought that he might actually
Speaker 3: be on his private plane tonight, flying back to Miami
Speaker 3: or wherever he wanted to go, with.
Speaker 2: A few conditions attached to that bail.
Speaker 3: But he was denied bail, and right now his sentencing
Speaker 3: hearing this could be moved up a little bit, but
Speaker 3: right now it is scheduled for the fall October third,
Speaker 3: so he's still behind bars.
Speaker 1: He lost his bail hearing. He won his trial today,
Speaker 1: he won flat out. I would love to see any lawyer,
Speaker 1: any analyst get on TV and try to spin this
Speaker 1: any other way than total humiliation for the government, a
Speaker 1: total loss by the government, and some will tell you
Speaker 1: a total waste of time by the government in overcharging
Speaker 1: this man. They can have that argument down the road.
Speaker 1: But he racketeering, not guilty. That was life in prison,
Speaker 1: the two counts that came with minimum fifteen years. Not
Speaker 1: guilty sex trafficking. He has now been found guilty of
Speaker 1: being a john. He has been found guilty of paying
Speaker 1: for a prostitute, and he could possibly get two years
Speaker 1: in jail or less.
Speaker 2: That is correct. Absolutely, you are correct.
Speaker 3: However, the reason why he was denied bail because a
Speaker 3: lot in to your point.
Speaker 2: He was convicted of being a john.
Speaker 3: That would not normally be a conviction in which somebody
Speaker 3: would be held or denied bail until a sentencing hearing happened.
Speaker 3: But because of the domestic violence that he clearly admitted
Speaker 3: to that the defense absolutely capt to, because the judge
Speaker 3: said that he has a propensity for violence behind closed doors,
Speaker 3: and there were two victim or at least witness statements
Speaker 3: to the judge asking to keep him behind bars until
Speaker 3: his sentencing. That is why he is still behind bars
Speaker 3: tonight and until his sentencing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cassif interrefined as part of the reason he is
Speaker 1: still behind bars tonight. She is one of the folks
Speaker 1: who sent a letter to the judge making a case
Speaker 1: for why he should be denied bail. He should not
Speaker 1: be released while awaiting awaiting sentencing. So, if we go back,
Speaker 1: it started this morning. You got the no news. I
Speaker 1: know everybody got the alerts, but this was around eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock eleven this morning. The jury sends a note we
Speaker 1: have a verdict. The jury eventually comes in, the verdicts
Speaker 1: get read. We knew four were already settled. We knew
Speaker 1: racketeering was the problem. But lo and behold rope. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: they must have figured it out. We were told people
Speaker 1: were unpersuadable.
Speaker 3: You know what, isn't that so interesting? Because yes, we
Speaker 3: were conjecturing last night. We're like, is he guilty on
Speaker 3: some of the charges, and they're trying to figure out racketeering?
Speaker 3: Is he guilty on all of the charges. We figured
Speaker 3: there had to be some guilty verdicts in there. We
Speaker 3: just weren't sure which was which. That made the most
Speaker 3: sense for them to be confused about racketeering. But it
Speaker 3: is remarkable that they could go from actually just initially
Speaker 3: deliberating for sixty minute, an hour, seventy minutes saying this
Speaker 3: one juror will not budge, they will not move, and
Speaker 3: then after the second day saying we can't come up
Speaker 3: with a unanimous decision.
Speaker 2: The deliberation has stopped. People are unmovable.
Speaker 3: And yet somehow when you ask a juri to go
Speaker 3: back and to keep trying, they do.
Speaker 2: And wow, I was impressed that that quickly.
Speaker 3: They all reached unanimous verdicts on all five clouds.
Speaker 1: So they were movable. Somebody was movable, exactly the word
Speaker 1: they they were ready to They actually told the judge
Speaker 1: the day before. It was pointless. They didn't even need
Speaker 1: to keep deliberating because nobody's going to change their mind on.
Speaker 3: To night's sleep changes a lot of folks minds and
Speaker 3: disposition sometimes, right, So.
Speaker 1: We get that word so here it is so the reaction,
Speaker 1: at least the reaction we were. Yes, we were able
Speaker 1: to read through some of the notes from people who
Speaker 1: were in the room describing what happened. But this might
Speaker 1: have been the most valuable courtroom artist sketch I have
Speaker 1: seen for the whole trial.
Speaker 2: It was incredible.
Speaker 3: It showed Ditty on his knees in praying position, and
Speaker 3: that was pretty remark well. That was the emotion that
Speaker 3: he was experiencing as he was awaiting these verdicts coming down.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just so many of us tried to
Speaker 3: imagine what it would have been like for him, for
Speaker 3: his family members, knowing that verdicts were in, that they
Speaker 3: hadn't been announced, that they were waiting on this final,
Speaker 3: most important, most serious charge, and when the news came
Speaker 3: in that they had unanimous decisions, he fell to his
Speaker 3: knees in prayer.
Speaker 2: That was a very powerful sketch.
Speaker 1: And applause in the courtroom from his family, and you
Speaker 1: better believe those cheers erupted. And it makes sense that
Speaker 1: they would look every judge, and I know you've been
Speaker 1: in plenty of court rooms. I think I would say
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty and seeing whether or not the folks
Speaker 1: in the courtroom obeyed the judge when he says, now,
Speaker 1: when the verdict is read, I do not want any
Speaker 1: reactions from either side, and sure enough it gets blown
Speaker 1: out of the water. It's never the case. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you can imagine the eruption of emotion because they knew
Speaker 1: when they heard it what they were hearing, and they
Speaker 1: knew that did he had won won that trial. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: he lost his bail hearing. Again, Look, there was a
Speaker 1: high bar. Remember he put up his fifty million dollar house,
Speaker 1: twenty four hour security, all these things he offered, and
Speaker 1: the judge wouldn't let him be out on bail awaiting trial.
Speaker 1: During the trial, so this judge is essentially saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you haven't proven that you're any less of a flight risk.
Speaker 2: Nothing changed.
Speaker 3: And he also said even when did he knew he
Speaker 3: was under investigation, that there was still that admission of
Speaker 3: domestic violence while he was waiting to see if he
Speaker 3: was going to be arrested in charge, but he knew
Speaker 3: he was being investigated. And he pointed out to the
Speaker 3: point of the fact that Jane even testified to this
Speaker 3: and did he did not deny physically assaulting her.
Speaker 2: While he knew he was being investigated.
Speaker 3: So that was part of the reason why the judge said, no,
Speaker 3: your bail is denied. But even his mother, his sister,
Speaker 3: his eldest daughter, actually put up a million dollars bond.
Speaker 2: They signed it.
Speaker 3: They said he would only travel to four states Florida, California,
Speaker 3: New Jersey, and New York. They said he would surrender
Speaker 3: his passport. They really did everything they could to try
Speaker 3: and compel the judge to allow him to await sentencing
Speaker 3: at home until he was then sentenced.
Speaker 2: And the sentencing.
Speaker 3: Actually came down quite a bit because we heard initially
Speaker 3: from Komy from the prosecution saying they were going to
Speaker 3: ask for twenty years. That changed pretty quickly, which is
Speaker 3: interesting throughout the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you probably went and opened up that legal
Speaker 1: book and saw what they were looking at and saw
Speaker 1: what the guidelines were. And so I don't have the
Speaker 1: months and you haven't had it frown yet, but they
Speaker 1: have the And the judge said this, like the defense prosecution,
Speaker 1: y'all are so far off yea on what y'all want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they wanted twenty years. Then they amended it to this.
Speaker 3: The prosecution is asking for fifty one to sixty three
Speaker 3: months in terms of sentencing, so that's anywhere from.
Speaker 2: Four to five years roughly.
Speaker 3: The defense is asking for twenty one to twenty seven months,
Speaker 3: so just shot, Yeah, just shy of two years to
Speaker 3: two years in three months.
Speaker 1: So if you take do the twenty one months, say
Speaker 1: they want to send him to twenty one months, you
Speaker 1: know what that is? One year time served is nine months.
Speaker 1: It counts against the sentence. He's already served nine months in.
Speaker 2: Rail, so that's another year behind bars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all they would be. Let's say he got
Speaker 1: twenty one months, nine months of that is time served?
Speaker 1: Did he is gonna go away for one year and
Speaker 1: be back after all this? Possibly not. We don't know
Speaker 1: what the judge you're gonna do, but it's just it
Speaker 1: is fascinating to see what the possibilities now are. I
Speaker 1: guess we should explain to folks what was going on
Speaker 1: with us today. We actually live very close by to
Speaker 1: where the trial takes place. We've talked about this plenty.
Speaker 1: If you listen to any of our podcasts, you know this.
Speaker 1: So we live, what are we a few blocks away
Speaker 1: from where the trial is happening. We've been following this
Speaker 1: thing closely every single day, doing at least one ditty update,
Speaker 1: sometimes doing two. I mean because it's warned it and
Speaker 1: sure enough the verdict comes down. You know where we were.
Speaker 2: At JFK and.
Speaker 1: Then thirty thousand feet in the air with no Wi Fi.
Speaker 3: Yes, and so this we have actually a family vacation
Speaker 3: with all of our daughters that has been planned for months,
Speaker 3: months before.
Speaker 2: We even knew that the Ditty trial was going to
Speaker 2: be what it was.
Speaker 3: That we'd be covering it and the way we were,
Speaker 3: and Murphy's Law would have it so that the very
Speaker 3: day this trial we've been following so closely, where all
Speaker 3: of the decisions are made, the verdicts come down, the
Speaker 3: bail is either granted or denied. We are stuck without
Speaker 3: any service, without any Wi Fi and no oh wait,
Speaker 3: so we were the last people to know actually what.
Speaker 1: Probably were We were probably the last certainly the sentencing.
Speaker 1: I was losing it as we were laying and nobody
Speaker 1: was getting Wi Fi. I was snatching your phone. I
Speaker 1: was snatching Sabine's phone. Somebody, does anybody get this to work?
Speaker 1: But it's just how it happens. But I rose, I say,
Speaker 1: we live a couple blocks away. We probably would have
Speaker 1: walked over today. But seeing this is something we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about, is the what's described is pretty wild scene
Speaker 1: outside the courthouse today, wild involving arguments evolving yelling and
Speaker 1: screaming and baby oil in all kinds of food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hear.
Speaker 3: About baby oil being like thrown at different people and squirted,
Speaker 3: and given all of the testimony that we heard, you
Speaker 3: could think maybe it was in jest.
Speaker 2: Or I don't want to say it was playful, but
Speaker 2: you could think maybe it.
Speaker 3: Was just people expressing themselves and using certain props that
Speaker 3: were pertinent to the trial. But no, this was described
Speaker 3: as mean spirited, as anger, as volatile, as not. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I say, we probably would have gone down there and
Speaker 3: just observed, but it didn't sound like a scene anyone
Speaker 3: wanted to be near. In fact, we actually on our
Speaker 3: way to the airport, we were driving what was it
Speaker 3: six point thirty in the morning, It was already a
Speaker 3: zoo out there. All the media attempts were packed, all
Speaker 3: of the influencers and YouTubers and all the folks who
Speaker 3: have come on to describe and be kind of novice journalists.
Speaker 2: They're just describing the thing. We had all just swarmed
Speaker 2: that area.
Speaker 3: It was fascinating to see as we were driving through it,
Speaker 3: and then to see what it's turned into. This afternoon,
Speaker 3: given the verdict and given the sentencing is wild, and what.
Speaker 1: Will they do now? I am sure as we speak
Speaker 1: it's possible juror interviews have already been secured, but they're coming,
Speaker 1: and folks are chasing those folks down. The judge did
Speaker 1: encourage the jury today before he let them go. You
Speaker 1: can do an interview if you want to. You're certainly
Speaker 1: not obligated. You can say no to all of them.
Speaker 1: But he encouraged them to not talk about the deliberations.
Speaker 1: What happens in that juror room should stay there. He
Speaker 1: reminded them of that.
Speaker 2: Is that in part because obviously there were.
Speaker 3: Juror issues throughout this trial, not as significant as we've
Speaker 3: seen in other trials, but certainly there were juror issues.
Speaker 2: And that is.
Speaker 3: Always possibly a way for the defense to ask for
Speaker 3: an appeal based on certain things that may or may
Speaker 3: not have gone on during those deliberations. If jurors are
Speaker 3: talking about it, that could also lend itself to create
Speaker 3: certain issues within either party, but the defense specifically to
Speaker 3: ask for an appeal. And now, granted you said that
Speaker 3: he won, but he still was convicted of two charges,
Speaker 3: and if those two charges.
Speaker 2: Went away, he wouldn't have to spend any time at prison.
Speaker 1: Are you still pushing back on the notion that Sean
Speaker 1: did he Combs won today?
Speaker 2: Oh, of course, this was almost best case scenario.
Speaker 3: Obviously, an acquittal on all charges would have been a
Speaker 3: full victory.
Speaker 1: Goodness, I have no if he got convicted on just
Speaker 1: one of the accounts of prostitution, for transportation for prostitution,
Speaker 1: maybe that was there is nothing. This is unbelievable. This
Speaker 1: is a massive Yes, it's a massive victory for this man.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: It absolutely is. And look the overcharging what needs to happen,
Speaker 1: look like I guess they think they're doing what's best.
Speaker 1: I guess they think they're putting a monster in prison
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, a mobster, the CEO
Speaker 1: of a criminal enterprise. You have to think they had
Speaker 1: they were doing this in good faith. You want to
Speaker 1: think that. But we've been talking about this Ropes for
Speaker 1: the past few weeks. Our conversations have been about this thing, like, Wow, really,
Speaker 1: this is what the case spoils down to. And if
Speaker 1: I had to sit on that jury saying I gotta
Speaker 1: send a man a jail for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: for being a criminal enterprise CEO.
Speaker 3: Well, the puzzling thing is if you're a juror, or
Speaker 3: if you're just a spectator like us and you're just
Speaker 3: watching this from afar, if you know he committed crimes
Speaker 3: that are irrefutably evidenced and he's even admitting them, but
Speaker 3: you choose not to charge him with those crimes because
Speaker 3: you try to go after some bigger fish, You try
Speaker 3: to create some larger, bigger, trumped up charge. That's where
Speaker 3: you lose the confidence of people, of jurors, of humans
Speaker 3: who are witnessing this. I think everyone can say he
Speaker 3: did not treat women well, he was abusive, he did
Speaker 3: commit criminal acts, charge him with those. Why then try
Speaker 3: to go make some bigger case to put him behind
Speaker 3: bars for the rest of his life when clearly he
Speaker 3: could have been charged and convicted and he even says
Speaker 3: he would have admitted and please he did guilty to
Speaker 3: the charges that he did, I mean the crimes that
Speaker 3: he did commit. And I think that's an issue that
Speaker 3: a lot of folks are going to talk about, and
Speaker 3: it's already being talked about among legal experts that the
Speaker 3: prosecution overreached and this blew back in their faces because
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: He's an abuser that they tried to convince us was
Speaker 1: a racketeer and it just didn't make sense to us
Speaker 1: intellectually and legally. But it just that's tough, and that's
Speaker 1: a very tough day for the prosecution to go through
Speaker 1: all this. Who knows how many millions this costs those raids.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of police time and investigation time and
Speaker 1: trial for this. And look, this is difficult because we've
Speaker 1: seen him behave badly. People want him to be in
Speaker 1: prison for what he did, but they actually don't want
Speaker 1: him to go to prison for racketeering and sex trafficking
Speaker 1: and all this. It's a bizarre thing that you look
Speaker 1: get this result and it's a win and a loss
Speaker 1: no matter who you are.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, obviously there are plenty of victims advocacy
Speaker 3: groups stepping up and speaking out and saying this has
Speaker 3: done such a disservice to victims around the world who
Speaker 3: are sex trafficked, who are abused, whatever. So in a
Speaker 3: weird way, yes, I hear what you're saying. The Diddy won,
Speaker 3: but so many people lost, and I do think a lot.
Speaker 2: Of it is because the prosecution overreached.
Speaker 1: You know what, who And again when you say lost,
Speaker 1: is do they turn that anger to ditty or where
Speaker 1: should it be directed? We're not going after him for
Speaker 1: the right thing for why'd you overcharge him here? I
Speaker 1: don't who knows about that? But here's my wild card
Speaker 1: now for you Trump, Trump, with Trump now not mined
Speaker 1: at all. Pardoning a guy who's found guilty of hiring a.
Speaker 2: Prostitute, I don't know, it's a worthy question.
Speaker 1: That's a much different pardon. Trump would love to be
Speaker 1: in the middle of the story right now.
Speaker 2: Who knows it? Could?
Speaker 3: You know, with everything that's happened in this case, it
Speaker 3: would not surprise me if Trump jumped into the mix
Speaker 3: of all of this. But you know what, as much
Speaker 3: as we've been covering this, and yes, technically the trial
Speaker 3: is over, the verdicts have been handed down, but we're
Speaker 3: still awaiting sentencing that he is still behind bars, and
Speaker 3: who knows how quickly the defense can expedite the sentencing
Speaker 3: because they said that they obviously would, and it's the
Speaker 3: judge said he's open to hearing that inquiry by the
Speaker 3: defense to get this sentencing over with so that he
Speaker 3: can continue. He's obviously serving his time regardless, so he's
Speaker 3: getting credit for time served. But yeah, a year from now,
Speaker 3: A year from now, did he could be a free
Speaker 3: man again.
Speaker 1: We await the sentencing hearing. I had one more thing.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll go ahead, right, well, the jurors.
Speaker 2: The jurors are the other thing.
Speaker 3: Like I think, the second we start hearing from jurors,
Speaker 3: we'll jump back on this because I actually, personally, on
Speaker 3: a human level, cannot wait to hear who is willing
Speaker 3: to talk and what they're willing to tell us about
Speaker 3: their feelings about what they heard, what they witnessed, what
Speaker 3: they thought, And I.
Speaker 2: Cannot wait to hear what they have to say.
Speaker 3: And of course, once we get any of that kind
Speaker 3: of information, we will absolutely jump back on and give
Speaker 3: you the latest on that.
Speaker 1: I remember, I thought it was about the justice system. Okay,
Speaker 1: just took another hit. Every time Right Biden said it,
Speaker 1: Mayor Adam said it. Trump always says it that the
Speaker 1: justice system is unfair, It unfairly goes after people that
Speaker 1: they were being right persecuted by the Justices Apartment. It's
Speaker 1: being used against them, and all these things and these
Speaker 1: high profile folks. Joe Biden partned his son, right talking
Speaker 1: about the justice system all these things. So now when
Speaker 1: we see this the government just went after this guy,
Speaker 1: the jury, the public said, no, that's not okay, that's
Speaker 1: a hit for the justice system. That's a hit now
Speaker 1: to where everybody can say, well, those charges are false.
Speaker 1: You can't believe now in so many instances, well yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and government said it must be true.
Speaker 3: And by the way, obviously yes did. He is a
Speaker 3: black man. But he is a wealthy, wealthy, wealthy black
Speaker 3: man who can hire the best attorneys there are in
Speaker 3: this or at least in this country to defend him.
Speaker 3: And how many people don't have that, how many people
Speaker 3: don't have that sort of resource.
Speaker 1: To that point, it just sucks. It's another hit for
Speaker 1: the justice system. He is one of the he's a unicorn.
Speaker 1: He is one of the most successful black men we've
Speaker 1: ever seen exist in this country. He just and we
Speaker 1: witness his rise. He hired institutes and you're a federal
Speaker 1: case out of it. That again, it will sit with
Speaker 1: the public a certain way that you're still coming after us,
Speaker 1: no matter how low on the totem pole or how
Speaker 1: high you're coming after us. Unfairly, the Justice Department, yes,
Speaker 1: lost today that's all I got.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, we will continue to follow any developments
Speaker 3: that come out of this case.
Speaker 2: Again, yes, when we start hearing from jurors, we will.
Speaker 3: Jump back on. But in the meantime, y'all thank you
Speaker 3: for listening to us. We hope you have a wonderful
Speaker 3: day today, and yeah, just digest everything that happened in
Speaker 3: Lower Manhattan today.
Speaker 4: I'm Amy robot on behalf of my partner T. J.
Speaker 2: Holmes.
Speaker 4: Have a great Wednesday, everybody,