Speaker 1: This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1: Chris Harrison and Lauren Zema coming to you from the
Speaker 1: home office in Austin, Texas. Hope everybody's doing good, LZ.
Speaker 1: We're going to dive into, gosh, one of the most
Speaker 1: bizarre stories, and I think what's going to turn out
Speaker 1: to be one of the most bizarre legal cases this
Speaker 1: country is seen in quite some time. I would put
Speaker 1: it up there with the OJ trial, that is, the
Speaker 1: United States of America versus Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy, AKAP, Diddy, Diddy,
Speaker 1: pd Love. I've never heard the ak Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of his names are literally named in this
Speaker 2: indictment because he's used so many different stage names over
Speaker 2: the years.
Speaker 1: To make sure they cover him. But obviously this is
Speaker 1: up there in the same pond for sure as the
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein situation. That is something we're going to discuss today.
Speaker 1: We also have a very very good coming up that's
Speaker 1: that will break this down with us on the legal side.
Speaker 2: And you know him, Yes, so, Jesse Weber of the
Speaker 2: Lawn Crime Network is joining us. Jesse I did a
Speaker 2: lot of spots with him on ET when we had
Speaker 2: ET Live over the years. He's a lawyer and a
Speaker 2: legal expert, and he's just going to give us some
Speaker 2: really good insight here because this case, you and I
Speaker 2: actually weren't together this weekend. You were on a guy's
Speaker 2: golf trip shocker, and I was home and my mom
Speaker 2: and also the kids came to visit and so. But
Speaker 2: I think we were both separately when we had downtime
Speaker 2: reading about this on Twitter and in the news as
Speaker 2: much as possible. Because you just likened it to Epstein,
Speaker 2: I would like in it. I think this could be
Speaker 2: the next Harvey Weinstein type of case, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: because of the Hollywood side of it, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe a better analogy.
Speaker 3: Well I think both, but I mean.
Speaker 1: But bigger because of the you know, the Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: of it all is just he was this kind of
Speaker 1: gross figure that people would think on stage, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't as front and center as Shawn Combs. Like this guy,
Speaker 1: this is the biggest name. That's why I guess I
Speaker 1: likened it more to the OJ thing because everyone knew OJ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, I mean, P Diddy is a massively
Speaker 2: public figure. He's a rapper, he's an actor, he's an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: He had a clothing line, Sean John. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: built a whole brand and company for decades. Everybody knows
Speaker 2: who p did he is, and so there's allegations in
Speaker 2: this indictment against him, and he's been arrested and he
Speaker 2: was denied bail. If you've missed it, it was it's
Speaker 2: been a huge news story.
Speaker 3: Over the past pay twice I believe he is.
Speaker 2: Now he is being charged with sex trafficking, with racketeering,
Speaker 2: with kidnapping after a grand jury indicted him. He's been
Speaker 2: charged with three counts racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking by force,
Speaker 2: fraud or cohercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution. And
Speaker 2: one of the things I want to bring we wanted
Speaker 2: to bring a legal ex on to get into was
Speaker 2: you know what exactly those charges really mean. Something like
Speaker 2: sex trafficking by force is a little confusing to me,
Speaker 2: you know, I just want to understand it better. But
Speaker 2: according to the indictment liszt now far back, this goes
Speaker 2: from two thousand and eight to present, members of the
Speaker 2: Combs Enterprise and I'm quoting TMZ summary of it here.
Speaker 2: Members of the Combs Enterprise allegedly engaged in sex trafficking,
Speaker 2: forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution. Queer's an
Speaker 2: indictment to engagement in prostitution and narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery,
Speaker 2: and obstruction of justice. So that's going way back. And
Speaker 2: one of the biggest questions here is these videotapes. Allegedly
Speaker 2: there are tapes that were found in Diddy's house, and
Speaker 2: it's not really clear what's on these tapes, but it
Speaker 2: seems like all the rumors are that he was secretly
Speaker 2: recording people when he had these huge parties. Now, I
Speaker 2: never interviewed Diddy, and I don't think you ever did a.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you know. I was racking my brain.
Speaker 3: It's hard.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people ask me if you interviewed this person, and
Speaker 2: I say, listen to my knowledge, no, But I will
Speaker 2: say I've sometimes come across the footage of myself interviewing people,
Speaker 2: and I don't remember it. Because when you're on a
Speaker 2: red carpet, you might have interviewed at an award show
Speaker 2: red carpet one hundred people in a night.
Speaker 1: There was a picture of me someone posted from years ago.
Speaker 1: There was a picture of me and Katy Perry and
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift. Oh yeah, and you remember when Katie and Taylor.
Speaker 3: Were when they were like working their feud out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and someone posted this picture of the three of us,
Speaker 1: not like, you know, at a party or anything. We
Speaker 1: were on the red carpet. I think at the American
Speaker 1: Music Awards. If you would put a gun to my
Speaker 1: head and you said, is there a picture that exists
Speaker 1: of you and Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, I would
Speaker 1: have said no way. So I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever seen him on a red carpet or maybe interviewed
Speaker 1: him possibly, But and that is one thing I also
Speaker 1: want to mention before Jesse comes on. You see these
Speaker 1: pictures on X or whatever people will post a picture
Speaker 1: of like him and Steve Harvey or whatever, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you've got to be careful just because you see a
Speaker 1: picture of a celebrity in somebody else. To celebrities, especially
Speaker 1: means nothing. That is not a relationship. There is not
Speaker 1: necessarily a tie there, that's not an indictment. There are hundreds,
Speaker 1: if not thousands of people that met Harvey Weinstein that
Speaker 1: probably ran into Epstein, but definitely with p Diddy. The
Speaker 1: guy was on every red carpet in the world. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that necessarily these people are guilty of something
Speaker 1: did something wrong, but that is where we are in
Speaker 1: social media, and that's where a lot of these rumors go.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk to Jesse about this. These rumors turn
Speaker 1: into fact so quickly these days, and then people it's judge,
Speaker 1: jury and executioner in a weekend, and nothing has been
Speaker 1: brought as far as real evidence. And you have to
Speaker 1: be very careful in these situations and where to really
Speaker 1: draw that line between fact and fiction. And I'm just
Speaker 1: saying sometimes you see a picture and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: whow they friends not necessarily.
Speaker 2: But what is I think going to be a potentially
Speaker 2: huge thing here is these parties that did he had
Speaker 2: because the sort of center of this indictment is these
Speaker 2: quote freakoffs that he had where allegedly people were, you know,
Speaker 2: having sex in front of other people and allegedly, you know,
Speaker 2: people were being forced into.
Speaker 3: Some of this.
Speaker 2: And they found and this has definitely been a head
Speaker 2: like headline making discovery about one thousand bottles of baby
Speaker 2: oil and lubricant in his house when it was rated
Speaker 2: that was apparently part of this stock of freak off
Speaker 2: party supplies. So that gives you a thousand bottles, gives
Speaker 2: you a bit of an idea of the scope of
Speaker 2: these parties, how often they were happening, how big they were.
Speaker 1: And sex toys that were taken out as well. Oh
Speaker 1: yeah it was gross.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, that's coming back to mind, like hundreds of
Speaker 2: yes of Tilda.
Speaker 3: Okay, well we just said dildos.
Speaker 2: But so I will say over the weekend, you know,
Speaker 2: things are getting brought up on Twitter videos, old video
Speaker 2: interviews of a lot of people acknowledging these parties in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: like Ashton Kutcher is in it. I think it's a
Speaker 2: Hot Ones interview saying who the Diddy parties? Yeah, whoa,
Speaker 2: There's a lot happened at those And there's also questions
Speaker 2: about so I mean a these big parties, they're an
Speaker 2: old I think did he did the Vogue seventy three
Speaker 2: questions video and they asked him, you're famous for your parties.
Speaker 2: Who's your number one party guest you always want to invite?
Speaker 2: And he said, Leonardo DiCaprio, No, no hesitance. There's old
Speaker 2: photos that have surfaced from like he did He's famous
Speaker 2: white party in the Hampton's over Labor Day weekend and
Speaker 2: people are naked in them and and you know, Leonardo
Speaker 2: DiCaprio's there, and so it's like there are going to
Speaker 2: be I think questions of what's on these tapes, who's
Speaker 2: on these tapes, if he was secretly recording people, who's
Speaker 2: on these tapes?
Speaker 3: What might come out?
Speaker 1: But justin bieber of it all is very interesting, So I.
Speaker 2: Want to get into that. But separately, I just want
Speaker 2: to tie up on the party thing. Who was at
Speaker 2: these parties, what happened at these parties? And also was
Speaker 2: there maybe a more celebrity slightly more public version of
Speaker 2: the party happening in one room and other things happening
Speaker 2: behind closed doors.
Speaker 3: I don't know, So we'll see. But do I think
Speaker 3: there's the potential for big names to come out as
Speaker 3: part of this? Maybe?
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that's the biggest thing. And
Speaker 1: that's what I want to ask Jesse about because the
Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem that everyday people have with
Speaker 1: the Epstein lack of trial and lack of public knowledge
Speaker 1: and declaration of what really happened is we don't know.
Speaker 1: No names came out and you heard former presidents being named,
Speaker 1: the head of the biggest computer company in the world
Speaker 1: was being named. His wife very famously left Bill Gates
Speaker 1: right as all this stuff was coming out, and all
Speaker 1: the you know, presidents, royal family members, all these people
Speaker 1: were wrapped up in this Epstein situation. Crickets, the media
Speaker 1: dropped it, everyone's dropped it. This you know Jiselne Maxwell
Speaker 1: who apparently knew everything and ate it and embedded in
Speaker 1: this whole thing. And then Epstein was suicided and it's
Speaker 1: just gone away. So will I think people for this
Speaker 1: to happen so quickly on the heels of Epstein. One
Speaker 1: of my questions that Jesse is will this just go
Speaker 1: away and be brushed under the rug? Because there are
Speaker 1: high profile people that are clearly in trouble here and
Speaker 1: will go down if this comes out. Lives will be ruined,
Speaker 1: big influential people. Will this be brushed under the rug?
Speaker 1: Just like the Epstein situation?
Speaker 2: And there's definitely that element of why, how in hindsight
Speaker 2: a lot of things were going on even on a
Speaker 2: public level that we're just kind of okayed because of Hollywood.
Speaker 2: But really you look back in your life, like, wait,
Speaker 2: what and I say that to bring up what you
Speaker 2: just mentioned, the Justin Bieber thing. So I didn't really
Speaker 2: remember this, but what's coming out now. And there's old
Speaker 2: videos of Diddy and Bieber together, and there's old videos
Speaker 2: of Usher talking about this on Howard Stern. Diddy apparently
Speaker 2: took some now very famous but at the time very
Speaker 2: young music stars in to live with him, Usher being
Speaker 2: one of them. Usher went to live with Ditty, And
Speaker 2: I'm quoting Usher here. He said this on Howard Stern
Speaker 2: an interview. I just saw for the first time a
Speaker 2: few days ago. He lived with Ditty for a year
Speaker 2: when he was thirteen years old, So I think did
Speaker 2: he even have legal guardianship of him at the time.
Speaker 2: Why is a thirteen year old boy going to live
Speaker 2: with a man he doesn't know for a year in
Speaker 2: his home? And Usher hinted it, Yeah, I saw some
Speaker 2: stuff while I live there. Bieber a very similar thing.
Speaker 2: He was fifteen years old. I don't think it was
Speaker 2: for as long as Usher, but he was kind of
Speaker 2: given to Ditty at least for days at a time
Speaker 2: to understand the industry. For Diddy to teach him about
Speaker 2: the industry. There is a video of Diddy and Bieber
Speaker 2: together Bieber's fifteen, where Diddy says, have you ever heard
Speaker 2: of forty eight hours? We're going to go have forty
Speaker 2: eight hours and justin here is going to see some
Speaker 2: things that a lot of fifteen year olds would want
Speaker 2: to see, but we're not going to be able to
Speaker 2: disclose what happens over the next forty eight hours. He's
Speaker 2: fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: And at the time, it's funny that people just go, oh,
Speaker 1: these are these are rock stars, you know, these are
Speaker 1: the biggest everything's okay it and everything's just okay that
Speaker 1: they get to do. They can do whatever they want.
Speaker 1: And now in hindsight, we look back at these tapes
Speaker 1: and we're like, we all witnessed this, right, we all
Speaker 1: saw it go down when we weren't appalled then, and
Speaker 1: nobody same thing with you know, with you mentioned Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 1: It was the worst kept secret in Hollywood, and so
Speaker 1: many people, the biggest names in the industry knew and
Speaker 1: aid and abedded because they just kind of look the
Speaker 1: other way and they were being fitting from Weinstein and
Speaker 1: his movies and his parties and et cetera. No one
Speaker 1: wanted to be the person to kind of step out
Speaker 1: of line, and I think we're going to see it
Speaker 1: all over again on a very grand scale.
Speaker 2: What definitely happens is this mass mentality of oh, everyone's
Speaker 2: doing it, so it's okay, right, it's Hollywood, like I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't really know Justin.
Speaker 2: I've never met Justin Bieber's parents, but probably as they're
Speaker 2: breaking him into the music industry, people are saying, oh, well, no,
Speaker 2: did he takes people? And he took usher in and
Speaker 2: so that's normal, and so there it goes. I think
Speaker 2: Jesse's here, so we want to bring him in.
Speaker 1: Kind of reminds me a little bit too of the
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, you know, the mcaulay culkin stuff that came out.
Speaker 2: And we definitely have had the veil pulled back on
Speaker 2: what Child's stars go through and it's not okay.
Speaker 1: I think this is a good time to kind of
Speaker 1: to bring Jess into this again. He's an anchor and
Speaker 1: reporter for the Law on Crime Network. He's also hosted
Speaker 1: Crime and Justice and live trial coverage on CNN Chicago
Speaker 1: entertainment show A Little Thing called Entertainment Tonight, alongside the
Speaker 1: Beautiful Lauren Zima and basically every other entertainment show. Jesse, welcome.
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Oh my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I'm
Speaker 4: happy to talk to you, guys. I'm a big fan
Speaker 4: of the podcast, Jesse. You're so good at what you do.
Speaker 2: I think you and I first started working together when
Speaker 2: we had you on ET during the Johnny Depp amber
Speaker 2: Herd trial, and your podcast Law and Crime Sidebar became
Speaker 2: something I listened to every day during that trial. And
Speaker 2: now I know you've done already at this point, I
Speaker 2: think four or five episodes on all of the Diddy
Speaker 2: accusations since this came out a few days ago.
Speaker 3: So first I just want to start with what.
Speaker 2: Was your initial reaction when you read the indictment and
Speaker 2: heard the charges.
Speaker 4: Well S, we did four to five episodes a day
Speaker 4: after the end because there's so much here. Now. Look,
Speaker 4: a lot of people would look at this and say,
Speaker 4: what's going on? What's a freak off? I don't what Diddy?
Speaker 4: Where'd that come from? I had been following this case
Speaker 4: since November of last year, when that first lawsuit was
Speaker 4: filed by Sean Comb's ex girlfriend, Cassandra Venturo So I
Speaker 4: had been following this. From the beginning, I knew he
Speaker 4: was going to get indicted. A lot of people were
Speaker 4: saying it was going to happen at the end of
Speaker 4: the summer September. You know, wasn't surprised when you look
Speaker 4: at this and you say racketeering and sex trafficking. It's
Speaker 4: exactly what we expected. It's the same kind of playbook,
Speaker 4: the same allegations that were being asserted against him in
Speaker 4: all of these civil lawsuits. What I thought was remarkable
Speaker 4: was there wasn't more in it. I actually thought that
Speaker 4: he might be charged with more crimes. I thought there
Speaker 4: were going to be things about minors, because that was
Speaker 4: an how that had been circling around Sean Combs. I
Speaker 4: actually thought the indictment would be a little bit metior,
Speaker 4: there'd be more there. But the way that they have
Speaker 4: basically structured it is very similar to the R. Kelly indictment.
Speaker 4: This kind of criminal enterprise, that he is the essentially
Speaker 4: a gang leader, that he's involved in all of these
Speaker 4: crimes like kidnapping and forced labor and bribery. You forget
Speaker 4: for a minute that we're talking about Sean Combs, the
Speaker 4: guy that dominated the hip hop industry, for so long
Speaker 4: and essentially if you believe the prosecutors was running a
Speaker 4: criminal organization. I don't even want to say behind the scenes,
Speaker 4: because there's the question of did everybody see this well?
Speaker 1: And that's that Lauren and I just made that exact
Speaker 1: point of this was all out in the open. It
Speaker 1: was so brazen. I mean, you look at these old
Speaker 1: interviews and at the time, we're like, oh, that's Diddy,
Speaker 1: you know, the biggest hip hop star and clothing mogul
Speaker 1: in the world, and they're just being silly, They're being Hollywood.
Speaker 1: And now you look back and I think we our
Speaker 1: eyes have all been open to We mentioned the Epstein,
Speaker 1: we mentioned Harvey Weinstein, and as you just said, r Kelly,
Speaker 1: that's another great reference of I think we're now realizing,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we have been watching this play out
Speaker 1: literally for decades.
Speaker 2: Jesse, can you give us we're seeing and what Chris
Speaker 2: and I are reading out here, charges like sex trafficking
Speaker 2: and racketeering in arson, Can you give us just the
Speaker 2: basic understanding of what these charges are against Diddy and
Speaker 2: the gravity of them. And also, since this indictment is
Speaker 2: citing back to two thousand and eight, how is it
Speaker 2: all just coming out now, And how did he hide
Speaker 2: if he's if he did these things, how is it
Speaker 2: all hidden until now?
Speaker 4: Great question. I don't have the answer for that, and
Speaker 4: you know who else doesn't have the answer for that,
Speaker 4: the US attorney. That was the very first question the
Speaker 4: US attorney was asked in the press conference, why is
Speaker 4: this only coming out now? No good answer for that.
Speaker 4: I think there is a possibility that if you take
Speaker 4: the prosecutor's word for it, power influence buys you a
Speaker 4: lot of leeway. You take one of the allegations that
Speaker 4: he beat up Cassandra Ventur in twenty sixteen, that tape
Speaker 4: was hidden obstensibly he allegedly bribed security officials to make
Speaker 4: sure that never saw the light of day. So the
Speaker 4: idea of a cover up, But I also I believe
Speaker 4: that it was because of all those civil lawsuits shedding
Speaker 4: a light on it, these people coming forward, prosecutors looking
Speaker 4: into it. That's why we have the charges right now.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you want to give credit to credit
Speaker 4: due in terms of this happening, it's Cassandra Ventur. She
Speaker 4: started this, this lawsuit, her lawsuit in November of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three. Is why we have charges against Sean Combs
Speaker 4: today and he's innocent, so proven guilty. But that's why
Speaker 4: we have the charges now. In terms of what the
Speaker 4: charges are, so there's three main charges. They're all felonies.
Speaker 4: First one racketeering conspiracy. So what you're basically saying is
Speaker 4: there has to be an agreement between Combs and others
Speaker 4: to violate racketeering laws. What's that that there is a
Speaker 4: criminal enterprise, a criminal organization. The goal here was to
Speaker 4: basically sexually abuse women, to engage in sex trafficking, kidnapping,
Speaker 4: force labor. That they would use a variety of methods
Speaker 4: to do this, violence, threats, coercion, and as a result
Speaker 4: of this, there was a benefit to Combs, there was
Speaker 4: a benefit to others that were a part of this.
Speaker 4: And if you can show this illegal agreement, if you
Speaker 4: can show this illegal criminal organization with all of these
Speaker 4: underlying crimes, that's racketeering conspiracy and it's a big charge.
Speaker 4: In fact, in the indictment, I think that takes up
Speaker 4: the majority of the indictment. They're trying to explain what
Speaker 4: it is and there's so many underlying crimes as part
Speaker 4: of this criminal organization. It's like the mafia. He's essentially
Speaker 4: the don in a way. The second charge is sex
Speaker 4: trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion. That's with respect to
Speaker 4: one victim. We don't know exactly who that is. There
Speaker 4: are those who say Kube Cassandra Ventura. Sex trafficking is
Speaker 4: basically using fraud, coercion, force to have someone engage in
Speaker 4: sexual activity for a commercial purpose. For commercial sex, it's
Speaker 4: either they're paid for it, they're offered something of value,
Speaker 4: they're transported over state lines. That's sex trafficking. The final
Speaker 4: one is trumportation for a prostitution transporting people across state
Speaker 4: lines for the purposes of illegal s ex wort, prostitution.
Speaker 4: And they're three main charges. Again, I was curious if
Speaker 4: there were going to be more, but there's a lot
Speaker 4: built into those. We don't know exactly who all the
Speaker 4: accusers are, we don't know who all the witnesses are,
Speaker 4: we don't know all the evidence. But those are the
Speaker 4: three main charges that Sean Combs is currently facing.
Speaker 2: There's an old Conan clip of Diddy that has surfaced
Speaker 2: where he says in the clip, well, yeah, you've got
Speaker 2: to lock women up sometimes for these parties, and I
Speaker 2: turned the ac down, so everybody gets hot and it
Speaker 2: encourages them to do things. And you're thinking, he's literally
Speaker 2: saying on Conan, how he curates this party, and he
Speaker 2: just said he locks people up and he says that,
Speaker 2: but you almost think, I mean, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: guess at the time we all think he's joking, and
Speaker 2: everybody looks the other way.
Speaker 4: Well, look after these allegations and after the indictment, people
Speaker 4: will look at old videos and say, oh, that's proof,
Speaker 4: or that's going to be part of the case, or
Speaker 4: that we don't know for sure. I mean, he could
Speaker 4: have been talking about a random party. He could have
Speaker 4: been talking about what he's accused of doing here. I
Speaker 4: will tell you that that theme, that power, that influence,
Speaker 4: that is consistent in a lot of these cases. And
Speaker 4: not everybody's going to be charged with what Shawn Combs
Speaker 4: is charged with. Not everybody gets charged with running a
Speaker 4: racketeering enterprise or sex trafficking. You have to have the
Speaker 4: ability to do that. You have to have allegedly a
Speaker 4: network of people around you. And so when you see
Speaker 4: somebody like an R. Kelly or what Shawn Combs is
Speaker 4: accused of doing here, it's that rare set of individuals
Speaker 4: who have that ability, the power, the money, the influence
Speaker 4: to not only allegedly engage in these crimes but cover
Speaker 4: it up. That's a big theme of this as well,
Speaker 4: that the reason he never was caught was because he
Speaker 4: pushed everything under the run, and that is equally as disturbing.
Speaker 4: And by the way, one of the reasons why at
Speaker 4: the time of this broadcast time we're recording, he's currently
Speaker 4: locked up. He didn't get bail. Yeah, because he's accused
Speaker 4: of reaching out to the witnesses and trying to you know,
Speaker 4: color their testimony. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the judge said, turn him down twice for bail,
Speaker 1: and part of that was, as you said, tampering, witness tampering,
Speaker 1: but also just she couldn't be sure that even with
Speaker 1: a fifty million dollar bond, that he would ever be
Speaker 1: back in the courtroom, whether it's a flight risk or
Speaker 1: for his own safety. Chances of him actually remaining alive
Speaker 1: and coming back to court probably slim and none. And
Speaker 1: chances of him ever making it alive like Epstein did
Speaker 1: might be slim and none.
Speaker 4: And by the way, he offered a generous package, right,
Speaker 4: fifty million dollars secured by property. He said, that'll hire
Speaker 4: a third party security team to monitor in twenty four
Speaker 4: to seven, no phone, no internet, He'll give the visitor
Speaker 4: logs who comes to the house. Judge said that's insufficient
Speaker 4: because they were like and there were two judges that
Speaker 4: actually denied this. A lot of this conduct happened behind
Speaker 4: the scenes and the allegations. He might not have a phone,
Speaker 4: but he could get somebody who has a phone, and
Speaker 4: he has this network of people that might be able
Speaker 4: to do it for him. So him on the outside
Speaker 4: would be a danger to not only the alleged victims
Speaker 4: in this case of the witnesses, but the integrity of
Speaker 4: the case.
Speaker 2: Jesse, do you think that more as you're talking about
Speaker 2: this network, what do you think potentially will come out
Speaker 2: in terms of other people being charged or other you know,
Speaker 2: what's going to still come out here as being explosive
Speaker 2: because you just said you thought.
Speaker 3: The indictment was going to be metier than it was.
Speaker 2: Why wasn't it metior And who else could get in
Speaker 2: trouble for all this?
Speaker 4: Well, I think when you're dealing with the Southern District
Speaker 4: of New York or the prosecutors in this case. They
Speaker 4: have experience in this and they're only going to prosecute
Speaker 4: at this point what they have the goods for. There
Speaker 4: might be more down the line. But in one of
Speaker 4: their documents and one of the letters they filed with
Speaker 4: the court, they said they spoke with over fifty witnesses
Speaker 4: and victims. We don't know who those people are. They
Speaker 4: could be very well be the people who are allegedly
Speaker 4: involved in this network. And I think when you charge
Speaker 4: a Sean Combs with three felony counts that could see
Speaker 4: him face obstensibly the rest of his life in prison,
Speaker 4: that's a wake up call to people. We better contact
Speaker 4: the government before they contact us. And I think they've
Speaker 4: already spoken with a number of people they feel very
Speaker 4: confident in this case. They didn't lay out even a
Speaker 4: fraction of the evidence. They have even an idea of
Speaker 4: what the evidence they have. They've obviously been speaking with witnesses.
Speaker 4: They apparently have digital evidence, physical evidence. But this could
Speaker 4: become a time when more people come forward to build
Speaker 4: the case against Shawn Combs and maybe other people. Now,
Speaker 4: to be clear, just be tended a Shawn Combs party
Speaker 4: doesn't make you a criminal, doesn't make you legally liable.
Speaker 4: You would have had to be a part of this.
Speaker 4: You would have had to aid and abt these crimes
Speaker 4: to somehow be a participant in these crimes. And also,
Speaker 4: I can't tell you one hundred percent maybe other than Cassandravntur,
Speaker 4: because a lot of her allegations are very similar to
Speaker 4: what we saw in the indictment. I don't know if
Speaker 4: the other people who filed lawsuits against Shawn Combs are
Speaker 4: the main cooperating witnesses in this case. Very well could
Speaker 4: be the situation. Maybe the government spoke with them, maybe
Speaker 4: they corroborated certain claims. We don't know, but it's very
Speaker 4: possible in the weeks and months ahead, we could see
Speaker 4: an additional indictment. We could see other people charged. But
Speaker 4: right now they're alleging that Seawan Combs is at the
Speaker 4: top of that. And I've been asked, well, he's going
Speaker 4: to name names, right, He's going to give up all
Speaker 4: the details. Why would he do that. They're not going
Speaker 4: to off him a deal that doesn't include prison time
Speaker 4: at a minimum of ten to fifteen years. So the
Speaker 4: idea that he's just now going to talk to get
Speaker 4: some sort of deal, I don't see it happening.
Speaker 1: We were just talking before he came on one of
Speaker 1: the most disappointing things about the Epstein lack of trial,
Speaker 1: And obviously he died by suicide technically allegedly, but we
Speaker 1: all expected somebody was going to name names if it
Speaker 1: wasn't Epstein, it was Maxwell or somebody, and that there
Speaker 1: was going to be this. It was going to be
Speaker 1: this big explosive case of all the people who had
Speaker 1: been on his island, from the royals to the former
Speaker 1: presidents to the biggest celebrities or allegedly none of that
Speaker 1: came out he died. Maxwell came and went, so is
Speaker 1: this going to be history repeating itself? Or are there
Speaker 1: finally are we going to learn from those mistakes? And
Speaker 1: will there be names being named? Or is this we
Speaker 1: think there's going to be celebrities being because that's really
Speaker 1: what everyone's talking about, is all the big celebrity names
Speaker 1: and involved in all this. Is that ever going to
Speaker 1: bear fruit or is this just going to go away
Speaker 1: as well?
Speaker 4: Well? I certainly hope we have more transparency in this
Speaker 4: case than we did in the Epstein case. And I
Speaker 4: think as those documents came out, the number one thing
Speaker 4: that became clear is he was offered a deal that
Speaker 4: he shouldn't have been offered. And remember this was also
Speaker 4: happening in an earlier time. A lot of this alleged
Speaker 4: conduct that they're talking about from two thousand and nine
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty four. We're living in a day of
Speaker 4: digital media and a lot more is captured on cell phones,
Speaker 4: a lot more on surveillance footage. Hey, we saw that
Speaker 4: video of Cassandra Vntera allegedly being beat up by Sean Combs.
Speaker 4: That piece of evidence right there is more than we
Speaker 4: ever saw in the Epstein case. So there's a possibility
Speaker 4: that we may see more. There's a possibility that there
Speaker 4: are people who are speaking with the government. We will
Speaker 4: never know who those people are. There is a possibility
Speaker 4: that there are celebrities, high profile people that are on
Speaker 4: the government's radar that were never prosecuted, we're never interviewed.
Speaker 4: And there's and even stronger possibility that there are certain
Speaker 4: celebrities who will never say what they witnessed or try
Speaker 4: to distance themselves from Seawan Combs as much as possible.
Speaker 4: So as much as we would hope for full transparency,
Speaker 4: not only just for us, as a society to know
Speaker 4: what was going on. But the victims, the alleged victims
Speaker 4: of these crimes, I can't tell you one hundred percent
Speaker 4: what will happen. We're still in the early stages of this.
Speaker 4: He was just indicted. But when you're in the hands
Speaker 4: of the Southern District of New York, these are very
Speaker 4: serious federal prosecutors and they wouldn't conduct raids like that
Speaker 4: in that fashion unless they felt confident in the case
Speaker 4: and know what the path is moving forward.
Speaker 2: Justin I'm glad that you brought up that you'd been
Speaker 2: following it since November, because now I'm getting a little fuzzy,
Speaker 2: and can you refresh my memory? So I remember Cassandra Ventura,
Speaker 2: like you said, the singer known as Cassie. So she'd
Speaker 2: been in a long relationship with Diddy and then I
Speaker 2: it was kind of a bombshell. She sued him right
Speaker 2: for these allegations against him of abuse, and then it
Speaker 2: was like he very quickly settled with her. But then
Speaker 2: that was what started this ball rolling, right, or refresh
Speaker 2: my memory on why they raided his house in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 4: You're one hundred percent right. So it was November twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three, when Cassandra Ventura launches this bombshell lawsuit. I
Speaker 4: mean the idea of the freak offs. That's where I
Speaker 4: heard it for the first time. Unfortunately, I wish I
Speaker 4: never heard it, but that's where I heard it. And
Speaker 4: a lot of these allegations, including that she was beaten
Speaker 4: up at the Intercontinental Hotel in twenty sixteen, was part
Speaker 4: of that. I was reading through it, I did a
Speaker 4: breakdown on sidebar all of this. I said to myself,
Speaker 4: I know, we'll see where this case goes. And then
Speaker 4: she ends up settling the next day. Not uncommon we
Speaker 4: see settlements, but the very next day. You know, Sean
Speaker 4: Combs clearly wanted to keep it quiet, didn't want to
Speaker 4: go through a litigation where all this evidence could come out.
Speaker 4: And from there nine or ten law suits resulted, everything
Speaker 4: from former people who said that they were assaulted by
Speaker 4: him in the nineties. You have a former producer who
Speaker 4: says that he was sexually assaulted and sex trafficked by
Speaker 4: Sean Combs. And as this was going on, whenever you
Speaker 4: see these kinds of civil cases, you say, I wonder
Speaker 4: if the authorities are looking into this. Now a lot
Speaker 4: of these claims were old, so they were too old,
Speaker 4: they were pasted, they were too old for the statue limitations,
Speaker 4: you couldn't bring charges. But when we saw the raids
Speaker 4: at his properties in March, we didn't know exactly what
Speaker 4: they were for. We didn't know then as it happened,
Speaker 4: we learned that they were part of an ongoing sex
Speaker 4: trafficking investigation, and that was consistent with the allegations that
Speaker 4: were put forward in the civil suits. And then our
Speaker 4: next question was, well are these people cooperating with them?
Speaker 4: What evidence was collected? We know his sons were handcuffed
Speaker 4: and detained outside of the la property, and they had
Speaker 4: been listed in these lawsuits as well as being participants
Speaker 4: that was going on, and so as we were trying
Speaker 4: to make sense of that, we knew that there was
Speaker 4: going to There was a report a grand jury was
Speaker 4: impaneled in New York. We knew charges were coming well,
Speaker 4: we just didn't know exactly what those charges would be,
Speaker 4: when they would come, who with the cooperating witnesses would be.
Speaker 4: But what was remarkable is looks as attorney, I hate
Speaker 4: to say this, anybody can sue anybody for anything. That's
Speaker 4: the truth. It doesn't mean they're going to be successful.
Speaker 4: But anybody can see anything when federal prosecutors bring criminal
Speaker 4: charges seemingly done these allegations and use the term freak
Speaker 4: off that has been referenced in those lawsuits. How much
Speaker 4: more credibility does that give those those accusers. How much
Speaker 4: more credibility does it give a Cassandra Vntura. And look,
Speaker 4: there's a number of reasons people settle lawsuits, right, you
Speaker 4: can't falter for settling a lawsuit. We don't know what
Speaker 4: the terms of that settlement were, but I think it
Speaker 4: does give a little bit of credence to what she
Speaker 4: was saying. And obviously it seems to me she's going
Speaker 4: to be a star witness for the prosecution and she'll
Speaker 4: be questioned by the defense. But the idea that federal
Speaker 4: prosecute worked, which by the way, this case probably wouldn't
Speaker 4: have happened if it wasn't for those civil lawsuits. And
Speaker 4: one more thing, half those lawsuits wouldn't have been possible
Speaker 4: if there wasn't a change in the law. In New York.
Speaker 4: They made a law where you had a one year
Speaker 4: look back window to file civil claims that were otherwise
Speaker 4: too old. If they weren't didn't have the ability to
Speaker 4: do that. I don't know if this would have been
Speaker 4: on prosecutors radar. I don't know if any of these
Speaker 4: accusers would have felt comfortable coming forward. And so those
Speaker 4: civil lawsuits, this is a case where you have to say,
Speaker 4: if it wasn't for those, we probably wouldn't have seen
Speaker 4: federal criminal charges.
Speaker 2: So everybody's asking about these videotapes from these raids that
Speaker 2: you're mentioning, what is the process for the prosecutors after
Speaker 2: the raid happens. They get all this digital footage, obviously
Speaker 2: they go through it, and then are they potentially reaching
Speaker 2: out to people who might have been victims that they're
Speaker 2: seeing on these tapes? Are they putting together cases against
Speaker 2: maybe other potential criminals.
Speaker 3: From these tapes? How does that go?
Speaker 2: Because it makes me wonder, as Chris is saying, everybody's
Speaker 2: asking what names who's on these tapes? And how much
Speaker 2: will we hear about potentially famous people on these tapes.
Speaker 4: So look, it's a few parts. Number One, they wouldn't
Speaker 4: have been able to get the search warrants to search
Speaker 4: those properties if they didn't have probable costs when you
Speaker 4: search a property to get additional evidence like videotapes, Does
Speaker 4: it corroborate what you've already been told? It corroborates, That
Speaker 4: definitely helps the case. There are other people on those tapes,
Speaker 4: and remember the allegation as Sean Combs had videotape people
Speaker 4: without them knowing. It becomes a question do you let
Speaker 4: the victims know that they are essentially on these tapes
Speaker 4: and what it means if there are other people who
Speaker 4: are on those tapes that are facilitating this abuse, then
Speaker 4: they can come in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors and
Speaker 4: they have to sit down for an interview, and it
Speaker 4: becomes a question of how much you let them know
Speaker 4: what's going on. I've seen a million interrogations where you
Speaker 4: kind of let the subject speak a little bit, and
Speaker 4: when they try to say, I don't know anything about it,
Speaker 4: we have some evidence against you. Sure you want to
Speaker 4: stick with this story? And I think all of this
Speaker 4: was happening behind the scenes for months, building a case,
Speaker 4: reaching out to witnesses, reaching out to alleged victims, corroborating
Speaker 4: their stories. Again, what I took away from the past
Speaker 4: week the two letters from the prosecutors to the judges
Speaker 4: and the indictment was a confidence in the charges that
Speaker 4: they're moving forward with, and they wouldn't have brought this
Speaker 4: case unless they felt they had the goods. And they
Speaker 4: say that there is a wealth of evidence, a lot
Speaker 4: of evidence they have to prove these crimes legally.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to piggyback on what Lauren's asking. So we
Speaker 1: know they have thousands and thousands of hours of videos
Speaker 1: to comb through, which I can't imagine how daunting and
Speaker 1: horrifying that is to go through. If someone is being
Speaker 1: videotaped unbeknownst to them against their will, yet they see
Speaker 1: a crime committed, someone's with underage or committing some crime,
Speaker 1: that is that is that going to be sticky because
Speaker 1: this isn't exactly part of a sting operation. You see
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at. It's like, Okay, well they didn't
Speaker 1: know the other being videotaped against their will, yet you're
Speaker 1: watching someone make a you know, commit a crime. Is
Speaker 1: that something they can go after? They could just use
Speaker 1: it as leverage.
Speaker 4: So there's another States across this country have a number
Speaker 4: of laws in place about whether or not someone could
Speaker 4: be recorded without their consent. There's also revenge porn laws
Speaker 4: and what you can also see is the federal prosecutors
Speaker 4: can't bring state charges. But what they can do, and
Speaker 4: what you saw during the course of this racketeering case
Speaker 4: is they listed a number of crimes that are illegal
Speaker 4: under California or New York law, like kidnapping, forced labor, bribery,
Speaker 4: and they're building that into a larger racketeering case. Okay,
Speaker 4: so what they are basically saying is there's a criminal enterprise.
Speaker 4: We'll show you there's arson here, show you there's kidnapping.
Speaker 4: We're not charging Shawn Combs with that individually, but it's
Speaker 4: part of a larger case to say that he is
Speaker 4: operating this criminal enterprise that engaged in all of these
Speaker 4: different crimes. And they may tack on more because not
Speaker 4: to get too complicated, but for a racketeering case, you
Speaker 4: really only need to prove two underlying crimes. Imagine if
Speaker 4: they can show the jury so much more, and it
Speaker 4: does become a question even if Shawn Combs they can
Speaker 4: prove is guilty of state crimes, and you have state
Speaker 4: prosecutors that want to bring those charges, do you the
Speaker 4: federal case is going to go first. One of the
Speaker 4: things with r. Kelly is I don't even remember how
Speaker 4: many jurisdictions he was charged in, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York.
Speaker 4: Federal prosecutors are building a case where essentially, you know,
Speaker 4: he could go to prison. As I'm not emphasizing this
Speaker 4: light racketeering is twenty years in prison. One of the
Speaker 4: other charges fifteen years to life. If there might be
Speaker 4: enough there is it worth trying to prosecute him in
Speaker 4: a state case right now? But we'll see. But don't
Speaker 4: I think they're building more of those state charges into
Speaker 4: the federal case.
Speaker 1: Like I think I think we realize he's dead to right,
Speaker 1: like he's toast.
Speaker 4: Well, he's innocential, proven guilty of an opportunity he.
Speaker 1: Has another analysts said, kind of what you did is
Speaker 1: like they don't press charges of this type without knowing
Speaker 1: they got this guy dead to write, So let's assume
Speaker 1: you know allegedly he's he's toast. It's this much like
Speaker 1: the Epstein thing. The bigger issues with these situations is
Speaker 1: they're bigger than one man. This isn't just about p Didty,
Speaker 1: It's not about Sean Combs not it wasn't just about
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. This goes so much bigger. You know even
Speaker 1: this week it's you know, doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with it, We don't know. But then Usher and pink
Speaker 1: erased all their Twitter history this weekend, and so I guarantee,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know there are some very nervous celebrities
Speaker 1: and people in the music industry, in Hollywood business. This
Speaker 1: thing has to be bigger. It has longer tentacles than
Speaker 1: just Sean Combs. Correct Remember what have with Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 4: It was the darling of about and everybody starts to
Speaker 4: say I noticed something, he would talk, but they weren't
Speaker 4: a part of the actual abuse. They weren't there for
Speaker 4: when it happened. This feels a little bit different now.
Speaker 4: I want to be clear about something. If celebrities are
Speaker 4: taking some actions right now after the indictment, I don't
Speaker 4: know what to make of that. I'm not necessarily going
Speaker 4: to say they're a victim or a participant in what happened.
Speaker 4: We shall wait and see. But what I can say
Speaker 4: is if he was engaging in this behavior for years
Speaker 4: and people were a part of this, I mean it's
Speaker 4: going to be really hard for those individuals who were
Speaker 4: closest to him or kept attending his events to make
Speaker 4: a public appearance and say no comment or say I
Speaker 4: don't have anything to say about this. It's going to
Speaker 4: be really tough. I'm not saying they'll be charged, but
Speaker 4: to be in a position where you said you didn't
Speaker 4: see any of this going on, Now, what's the defense? Right?
Speaker 4: His defense is going to be kind of heard rumblings
Speaker 4: of it. It was consensual, Yeah, I engaged in freefs. Yeah
Speaker 4: there's a thousand bottles of baby oil. But it might
Speaker 4: be weird to you and me, but this is what
Speaker 4: I engage in. Everything was consensual. Okay. I think that's
Speaker 4: a tough road to go because I think this is
Speaker 4: not just about having sex parties. It's about using force,
Speaker 4: threats violence. That's what the key is. Transporting people across
Speaker 4: state lines, using drugs. It's more nefarious than that. But
Speaker 4: I think the question is again going back to transparency.
Speaker 4: Will we ever get the full picture of who was involved,
Speaker 4: who was abused? Maybe maybe not. Look, I'm a lawyer,
Speaker 4: love the law. I think our justice system does a
Speaker 4: great many great things, but it's imperfect. It's imperfect in
Speaker 4: many ways, and that also means in terms of getting
Speaker 4: full transparency. Sometimes it's not about whether somebody did it.
Speaker 4: It's not about what the truth is, it's about what
Speaker 4: you can prove. And so these are three charges, very
Speaker 4: specific charges in terms of getting answers as to everything
Speaker 4: Sean Combs did and was a part of. I don't
Speaker 4: know if this case will help solve all those answers.
Speaker 2: I see we mentioned that I first saw your work
Speaker 2: with the Johnny Depp amber Heard trial, which was a
Speaker 2: televised trial that a lot of people watched. Will this
Speaker 2: because of I mean, some of the horrific allegations made here?
Speaker 3: How public will this be?
Speaker 2: How much access will people have considering the high level
Speaker 2: of public interest in this trial. But it's not, you know,
Speaker 2: a divorce case. It's a serious criminal case.
Speaker 4: It won't be. It won't be. Unfortunately, there are no
Speaker 4: cameras allowed in federal courts, let alone New York. I
Speaker 4: think it's a travesty. I think cameras should be allowed
Speaker 4: in every courtroom, including the Supreme Court. Hey, listen, if
Speaker 4: you want a courtroom sketch, that's probably going to be
Speaker 4: the best we get, maybe some reporters explaining what's happening
Speaker 4: in the court. I covered the Harvey Weinstein trial. I
Speaker 4: was in that court a and I did my best
Speaker 4: to be in writing back what was going on. But
Speaker 4: that visual medium, which I think is so important in
Speaker 4: terms of transparency of our legal system, but also important
Speaker 4: for people to see the witness testimony for themselves what
Speaker 4: to make of it. I will tell you there's one danger.
Speaker 4: One danger, and I think this is actually the importance
Speaker 4: of not to tell my organization, but the importance of
Speaker 4: Long Crime and Cydebar. When Johnny Depp Amberhard happened televised,
Speaker 4: everybody saw, and I remember, why would Johnny Depp go
Speaker 4: to trial? Why would he want all of his dirty
Speaker 4: laundry air? And then as the case progressed, you saw
Speaker 4: his point of view, You saw the weaknesses of Amber
Speaker 4: Heard's case. You saw this, and I thought it was great.
Speaker 4: But what happens is, particularly on social media, people take
Speaker 4: clips and they actually splice it and they create misinformation.
Speaker 4: I was in that courtroom almost every day for that
Speaker 4: six week trial, and I remember seeing people splicing clips
Speaker 4: together and making Amber Heard look worse than she was.
Speaker 4: And that is one of the dangers as well. But
Speaker 4: that is why it's also great to have certain organizations
Speaker 4: like we do here at Long Crime to give people
Speaker 4: the real facts and give people what's happening, and there
Speaker 4: has to be an accurate portrayal of what's happening in
Speaker 4: that courtroom. So as much as I love I would
Speaker 4: welcome cameras in the Sean diddy Comb's trial, we're not
Speaker 4: going to get it, And you know, we lose that ability,
Speaker 4: We're not going to have that risk of people splicing
Speaker 4: information together. But I also will say that I think
Speaker 4: we lose something by not having a how many people
Speaker 4: can actually tell you what happened in the Gleainne Maxwell
Speaker 4: trial in Jeffrey Epstein transcripts people reading it. The visual
Speaker 4: medium is so important, particularly in a case like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was covering Britney Spears's trial for ET,
Speaker 2: I mean that was when I first learned they don't
Speaker 2: even let you take out your cell phone in the courtroom.
Speaker 3: They don't want you.
Speaker 2: So you have you're furiously, like you said, writing down
Speaker 2: notes on an old school pen and pad and then
Speaker 2: bringing it out and reporting on it. And it is
Speaker 2: amazing how little the courtroom scenario has evolved with the
Speaker 2: evolution of technology. The fact that you just mentioned, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to get courtroom sketches. It's wild that they
Speaker 2: don't even let someone take a photograph. I mean, we're
Speaker 2: having someone do an oil painting of P Diddy to
Speaker 2: show him on you know it is hearing it's kind
Speaker 2: of antiquated.
Speaker 4: Well, I also say, look, you're dealing with very sensitive
Speaker 4: subject matter. Imagine these witnesses testifying about what happened to them.
Speaker 4: You want to add that safeguard. I understand that it
Speaker 4: could be particularly difficult. Actually, remember I was in the
Speaker 4: Harvey Weinstein courtroom and there was a witness testifying and
Speaker 4: it was you could hear a pin drop. Nobody was
Speaker 4: saying anything. We were listening to her account. It was
Speaker 4: right at the moment where she's describing and being abused,
Speaker 4: and she thought somebody in the back of the court
Speaker 4: had taken a picture and she stopped. She goes, if
Speaker 4: someone recording and someone take a picture, and we all
Speaker 4: look nobody was. But it kind of shed a light
Speaker 4: on how tough this is for her, and you know,
Speaker 4: dealing with a case about what we're dealing with this
Speaker 4: subject matter, you can also understand the sensitivity.
Speaker 2: And those people deserve their moment in court. On that note,
Speaker 2: a lot of people as we've said, are wondering about
Speaker 2: the celebrit factor here, And you know, I see people
Speaker 2: on Twitter pointing out, Hey, Jennifer Lopez was with P
Speaker 2: Diddy for years and the kind of strangeness that's coming
Speaker 2: to light now, and I think we're all looking back
Speaker 2: differently of us or living with Ditty at age thirteen,
Speaker 2: or Justin Bieber being fifteen years old and being and
Speaker 2: spending a lot of time with Diddy who's much older
Speaker 2: than him and way into being a you know, far
Speaker 2: and away a legal adult over a kid who couldn't
Speaker 2: even drive yet. What do you think is the potential
Speaker 2: I don't know how much the indictment indicates of you know,
Speaker 2: some of these famous people being called to be witnesses
Speaker 2: in the in this case.
Speaker 4: Well, first I me just say, at the very least,
Speaker 4: it's disturbing. At the very most, it could be something criminal.
Speaker 4: We just don't know. Look, as I said, I thought
Speaker 4: it was surprising that there was nothing about underage girls
Speaker 4: or minors being a part of this. They were not
Speaker 4: mentioned all. Now could that change? Yes, is there a
Speaker 4: potential that you could have a witness this big celebrity
Speaker 4: who we might see just talk about the environment, what
Speaker 4: Combs was like, what the parties were like. It has
Speaker 4: to be relevant to some aspect of the case. But
Speaker 4: one of the reasons we do not know who these
Speaker 4: witnesses are, and it's not surprising at the beginning of
Speaker 4: this case we don't is we'll probably won't learn it.
Speaker 4: Closer to a trial, They're going to probably have some
Speaker 4: very sense of information and these could be I mean,
Speaker 4: who attended Shawn Combs's part It wasn't my accountant, Okay,
Speaker 4: it wasn't him, It was the you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It was So it was the people who high profile
Speaker 4: celebrities that can document what happened. And I imagine that
Speaker 4: number could grow, and as more people come forward. By
Speaker 4: the way, and as the prosecution builds their case, Seawan
Speaker 4: Combs may want to take a deal, And what I
Speaker 4: mean by that is he's not not going to get
Speaker 4: prison time, but there is a difference between thirty years
Speaker 4: in prison and life in prison. So as the prosecutor's
Speaker 4: case gets stronger, potentially and more people come forward. In
Speaker 4: the United States, attorney said that this is an ongoing investigation.
Speaker 4: Perhaps those celebrities are coming forward and giving their side
Speaker 4: of events about what happened. But if Justin Bieber is
Speaker 4: being subpoenaed or Jennifer Lopez, we don't know. At this point.
Speaker 4: We don't know if they've cooperated, but it would certainly
Speaker 4: be telling, and I think that it's I don't think
Speaker 4: it's a stretch of the imagination to say they probably
Speaker 4: have information. What that information is, how it fits into
Speaker 4: the overall criminal case, We're not sure. But people who
Speaker 4: were in Shawn Combe's orbit, there are the people you
Speaker 4: want to talk to.
Speaker 2: But you said you don't think he will be naming
Speaker 2: names because there wouldn't be anything valuable to Diddy to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 4: Usually in a case like this, you would name names
Speaker 4: to strike a deal. But when he is accused of
Speaker 4: what he's accused of doing, not just being a participant,
Speaker 4: but being the leader. And let's remember what he's accused
Speaker 4: of doing. He's accused of sexually abusing multiple people and
Speaker 4: using violence and threats and drugs to do what he wants.
Speaker 4: That he allegedly obstructed justice as a video of him
Speaker 4: allegedly beating Cassandra Ventura in that open environment a hotel hallway,
Speaker 4: I don't imagine that he's not going to get significant
Speaker 4: prison time. So even if he's he's fifty four years old,
Speaker 4: Let's say they say, you know, fifteen years in prison
Speaker 4: or ten years in prison, that's a big chunk of
Speaker 4: his life. He may say, listen, I think I can
Speaker 4: fight this. You know. One of the questions I keep
Speaker 4: getting ask is why didn't Sean comes just leave the
Speaker 4: country he new charges were coming, he voluntarily came to
Speaker 4: New York. Why would he do that? Two reasons. One,
Speaker 4: I actually think he thought he could make bail. I
Speaker 4: think that he thought if I was as cooperative as possible.
Speaker 4: I gave my passport over to my lawyers. I told
Speaker 4: the prosecutors where I was going. I'm not a flight risk.
Speaker 4: I'll be at home arrest for one to two years,
Speaker 4: and I think I could actually win this case. He
Speaker 4: won in the past. He's never gotten in trouble like
Speaker 4: this before. He might be able to say it was consensual.
Speaker 4: He might think he can have a chance to beat it.
Speaker 4: The other way is it's really really tough to try
Speaker 4: to leave the country. I can always see it on TV,
Speaker 4: But to go to a non extradition country to get
Speaker 4: a pilot to agree to you to take you there.
Speaker 4: If federal prosecutors got wind of him trying to leave,
Speaker 4: they would have arrested him on the spot. But I
Speaker 4: think the point is he might believe that he can
Speaker 4: beat this case and he might want to risk it
Speaker 4: roll the dice as opposed to just taking a deal,
Speaker 4: because when you take a deal, you forfeit your rights
Speaker 4: to appeal. That's it. You take a deal, you're going away,
Speaker 4: unless under extreme circumstances something happened where that deal wasn't
Speaker 4: valid or was made under false pretenses. You accept a deal,
Speaker 4: you're serving that time. And I don't think he wants
Speaker 4: to agree to that.
Speaker 1: You mentioned some time. I think what people listening will
Speaker 1: want to know too is when is this all going
Speaker 1: to play out? You know, we would love for this
Speaker 1: to play out immediately, that's not how the legal system works.
Speaker 1: So what is the actual timeline? What is next?
Speaker 4: So by law, Shawn Combs would have a right to
Speaker 4: a speedy trial, kind of put the fire to the
Speaker 4: prosecutor's heels. I don't imagine he's going to want to
Speaker 4: do that. If you want to actually properly defend this case,
Speaker 4: I think they're going to file a motion to basically
Speaker 4: say that this is a complex case. There's a lot
Speaker 4: to go through, and in federal cases like this, they
Speaker 4: might not see a trial for a year, year and
Speaker 4: a half, maybe two years. There's a lot of material
Speaker 4: to go through, and unfortunately for Sean Combs, we now
Speaker 4: have learned that he is going to spend that time.
Speaker 4: And I think that is the important thing to remember
Speaker 4: is this has to stay in the public consciousness. This
Speaker 4: is in a very very important story. And although we
Speaker 4: don't have these hearings or the trial to be televised,
Speaker 4: what we've seen already through transcripts and reporters and filings
Speaker 4: is we're getting a good sense of what this case
Speaker 4: is about. But in terms of a resolution, we're probably
Speaker 4: not going to see that, maybe till the end of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, maybe beginning of twenty twenty six, that's
Speaker 4: my guess right now, but.
Speaker 3: We'll see wow, and he'll be in jail until then.
Speaker 4: As of right now, I mean he is trying to
Speaker 4: appeal it to a higher court. But here's the difference,
Speaker 4: a little bit of law for you. So when we
Speaker 4: had the first judge magistrate judge decided the issue of
Speaker 4: bail denied it. It was appealed to a district court
Speaker 4: judge who doesn't have to listen to the magistrate judge.
Speaker 4: This district court judge can review it, anew can review it.
Speaker 4: From the beginning with fresh set eyes was not convinced either.
Speaker 4: The next court that they're appealing it to actually has
Speaker 4: to give deference to this lower court judge. So unless
Speaker 4: they can say this was completely improper, this is going
Speaker 4: to be upheld. And I mean, if you hear the
Speaker 4: arguments for why the judge denied bail, they make sense.
Speaker 4: You might not agree with it, but they make sense.
Speaker 4: The idea of him being in danger of flight risk
Speaker 4: reaching out to witnesses allegedly that I don't see a
Speaker 4: situation where he gets much relief.
Speaker 2: Well, Jesse, we're going to let you go, but I
Speaker 2: want to ask you, because we've brought up Epstein, Weinstein, R. Kelly,
Speaker 2: knowing what you know about those cases and now about
Speaker 2: these allegations against P Diddy, where does he fall in
Speaker 2: terms of the scope of the alleged criminal network he
Speaker 2: was run and how bad all these charges are. Where
Speaker 2: does he rank against what are now these very nefarious
Speaker 2: and notoriously horrifying, but celebrity and fame filled cases that
Speaker 2: we've seen in the public eye.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of similarities. It's the terms of power, influence, fame,
Speaker 4: the ability to use these certain means and methods to
Speaker 4: get what you want. What you are dealing with is
Speaker 4: a consistent theme of people who use this for their
Speaker 4: own sexual gratification and desires, and it's pretty disgusting and sick.
Speaker 4: I mean, every allegation is a little bit different. But
Speaker 4: if you're talking about what Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for,
Speaker 4: and you're talking about what R. Kelly was convicted for,
Speaker 4: and what you're talking about Sean Colmes is being accused of,
Speaker 4: there is this common similarity. But in terms of running
Speaker 4: a network, if you believe the allegations put forward by prosecutors,
Speaker 4: it's very similar to Epstein and it's very similar to R. Kelly.
Speaker 4: There have been comparisons. We did comparisons on sidebar where
Speaker 4: do it rank? Where does how do you match up
Speaker 4: the R. Kelly case versus the Jeffrey Epstein case. We
Speaker 4: actually interviewed the former prosecutor who put R. Kelly away
Speaker 4: and there are very consistent similarities. And he was charged
Speaker 4: with sex trafficking and racketeering. That's what Colmbs is being
Speaker 4: FA is charged with, and these are charges that actually
Speaker 4: make sense for this conduct. It's deplorable if you take
Speaker 4: this as true. Again, he's innocent until proven guilty. But
Speaker 4: these are really really sick allegations. And as I said before,
Speaker 4: not everybody would be charged with this. Not everyone have
Speaker 4: the ability and the means to do stuff like this,
Speaker 4: And it's just it's really frightening to think about who
Speaker 4: someone who gave a public perception. I mean, these were
Speaker 4: people who were beloved, not Epstein, but these were people
Speaker 4: who beloved R. Kelly, Harvey Weinstein, the darlings of Hollywood music,
Speaker 4: hip hop entertainment. To see what was allegedly happening behind
Speaker 4: the scenes air quotes is just even to this day,
Speaker 4: it's kind of unimaginable think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well, Jesse, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being with us. And again you guys check out Lawn
Speaker 2: Crime Sidebar Jesse's podcast. This is our one episode on
Speaker 2: the p Diddy situation, but I think he's got at
Speaker 2: least five or six ups, so there's so much more
Speaker 2: in depth.
Speaker 3: And Jesse, I know you spoke with several experts.
Speaker 2: There is there any one episode do you think people
Speaker 2: should start with on sidebar if they're really interested in this.
Speaker 4: Well, I think when we break down the indictment like
Speaker 4: day one, almost in real time, I think I filmed
Speaker 4: that literally twenty minutes after I got it. Wow, that
Speaker 4: was interesting. And then there was an episode where I
Speaker 4: interviewed the former prosecutor who put R. Kelly away and
Speaker 4: comparing that case with this case. I think it's pretty informative.
Speaker 4: So I hope everybody can check it out. And thank
Speaker 4: you both so much for having me on. Such a
Speaker 4: pleasure talking to you both.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your expertise. It was good to meet you,
Speaker 1: and we will probably be talking to you again about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you Jesse. And you can also check him
Speaker 2: out on the Lawn Crime Network. Jesse, so good to
Speaker 2: see you again.
Speaker 4: Good see you both.
Speaker 1: Thank you, our thanks to Jesse, who's also a contributor
Speaker 1: now on News Nations so you can see him everywhere.
Speaker 1: And I see why by the way the way he
Speaker 1: can simplify and cut this up into bite size little
Speaker 1: nuggets for simpletons like myself, it helps because these are
Speaker 1: big broad terms. Like you said, you hear racketeering, you
Speaker 1: hear these kidnapping, and I know, we know what kidnapping is,
Speaker 1: but you're like, how is this applicable to Sean Colmbs
Speaker 1: and what's going on? So it's nice to have somebody
Speaker 1: really break this apart and kind of spoon feed us
Speaker 1: what's really happening and when will it happen.
Speaker 2: Well, I think he really put into perspective how nefarious
Speaker 2: the soul is. I mean, not that it wasn't lost
Speaker 2: on me, but like you said, sometimes the legal jargon,
Speaker 2: we think of kidnapping and you think of a TV
Speaker 2: show and somebody getting thrown in a trunk, and there
Speaker 2: were a lot of horrible allegations thrown out, but seemingly
Speaker 2: part of this alleged bigger network of you know, and
Speaker 2: like you said, the influence of power and money and
Speaker 2: what that can do. And I'm glad that Jesse brought
Speaker 2: up cass He called her Cassandra Ventura, but she's known
Speaker 2: as the singer Cassie who had dated Culms from a
Speaker 2: very young age and her bravery and coming forward. You know,
Speaker 2: when you think about the influence he had over people's
Speaker 2: careers from a very young age, that was incredibly powerful,
Speaker 2: and he was incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1: He was a king maker and a lot of these
Speaker 1: people are they can make your career.
Speaker 2: He had that show, Remember the show on him was
Speaker 2: at MTV or vh one making the band. He literally
Speaker 2: had a reality show where he made you know that
Speaker 2: female pop group's career and I know that I'm Aubrey.
Speaker 2: Oda is someone who'd spoken out against him many times
Speaker 2: over the years, but he was also an incredible person
Speaker 2: of influence doing the voter Die campaign, his clothing line,
Speaker 2: appearing in movies, everything that he did made him seem
Speaker 2: to be someone you would idolize. And this is really
Speaker 2: pulled back the veil and we will see where it
Speaker 2: goes from here. So thank you again to Jesse. Go
Speaker 2: check out his podcast if you're interested.
Speaker 3: In more, and we'll see where this goes.
Speaker 1: And we will do it again next time because we
Speaker 1: have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening.
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Speaker 1: and make sure to write us a review and leave
Speaker 1: us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.