Speaker 1: Let's get to New York, where jury selection began today
Speaker 1: in a federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean
Speaker 1: Diddy Combs. Federal prosecutors alleged Combs used his power and
Speaker 1: wealth to sexually abuse, chorus and exploit alleged victims for decades.
Speaker 1: If convicted, Combs would be spending the rest of his
Speaker 1: life in federal prison. Defense attorneys for Homes contend that
Speaker 1: all of his sexual encounters were consensual, and have described
Speaker 1: a music mogul as a swinger who invited third parties
Speaker 1: into his bedroom. Last week, federal prosecutors offered Combs a
Speaker 1: chance to plead guilty for a reduced sentence. He turned
Speaker 1: down that offer. Joining us now, obviously to discuss the
Speaker 1: trial is Elie Honing, legal analysts for CNN, who's been
Speaker 1: on this show many times, one of our favorites. What's up, Ellie?
Speaker 2: How are you man?
Speaker 1: How's everything?
Speaker 2: Steve? This is going to be a fascinating trial.
Speaker 3: This is the courthouse I used to practice it, so
Speaker 3: I can bring you inside the huddle on this one.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't wait for you to do that. First
Speaker 1: things first, him turning down a plea deal for a
Speaker 1: lesser charge. Is that something to be expected? Should that
Speaker 1: be considered a surprise? What do you make of that?
Speaker 2: No, it's an interesting little bit of last minute gamesmanship here.
Speaker 3: It's not that uncommon for prosecutors to make an offer
Speaker 3: on the eve of trial. Now, the big question is
Speaker 3: what were they offering, right, It's one thing if they
Speaker 3: were offering him twelve years. It's another thing if they
Speaker 3: were offering him three years or something like that. The
Speaker 3: fact that he said no, you know, I guess it
Speaker 3: depends again on what the offer is.
Speaker 2: But he's dug in.
Speaker 3: Look, he appears to believe he's got a shot at
Speaker 3: winning this trial. Otherwise he would have taken that plea
Speaker 3: because the downside here, if he loses this trial, Stephen,
Speaker 3: he's going to get fifteen years minimum and as you
Speaker 3: said before, up to life. So Sean Combs and his
Speaker 3: lawyer must have sat down and said, look, there's a
Speaker 3: chance to get out of this for less. But but
Speaker 3: they're comfortable rolling the dice. Those are very high consequence
Speaker 3: dice to roll.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the jury selection, Ellie, which obviously started today.
Speaker 1: How long should we expect this process to take place?
Speaker 2: So this is federal court.
Speaker 3: Federal jury selection is way quicker than state jury selection. Right,
Speaker 3: We've seen state cases drag on for weeks and weeks
Speaker 3: and weeks. I have had jury selected in multiple murder
Speaker 3: cases in two days or so. Now we have the
Speaker 3: complication in this case that everybody knows the defendant. Everyone
Speaker 3: who comes in there as a perspective juror will have
Speaker 3: at least heard something about Sean Combs, about Diddy.
Speaker 2: So that takes longer to wade through. I am certain we.
Speaker 3: Will have a jury by the end of the week.
Speaker 3: If I had to guess, I would say we'll have
Speaker 3: one by Wednesday. Federal court moves pretty quick when it
Speaker 3: comes to jury selection.
Speaker 1: Given the charges federal prosecutor is levied against Didty, what
Speaker 1: type of jury should his defense team want to see?
Speaker 2: Actually, so this is where the gamesmanship comes in.
Speaker 3: Stevid, I'll never forget something that when I was a
Speaker 3: young prosecutor, a veteran defenselaer who've been practicing forty fifty years,
Speaker 3: said to be something like jury selection isn't just a
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 2: It's the whole ball game. I mean, these are the
Speaker 2: people who decide the case.
Speaker 3: Now, let's think about this from the defense side, Like
Speaker 3: you said, your Shawn Combs or Shawn Colmmes's lawyer, what
Speaker 3: are you worried about here? To me, it's pretty obvious
Speaker 3: you want to avoid anyone who a knows about this case.
Speaker 3: Mostly everyone does and be just has their mind made up,
Speaker 3: has already come to.
Speaker 2: Some sort of judgment.
Speaker 3: There will be many many questions asked of the jurors,
Speaker 3: the potential jurors. Have you heard about this case, have
Speaker 3: you formed any opinions? Could you still consider the evidence fairly?
Speaker 3: But look, the fact of the matter is this case
Speaker 3: has gotten an enormous amount of publicity. Shawn Colmbs since
Speaker 3: the indictment came down, has been the subject of all
Speaker 3: sorts of criticism, of jokes in the media, And I
Speaker 3: would be looking out for people who already had their
Speaker 3: minds made up against him and could not come in
Speaker 3: there and judge the case fairly and im partially. But
Speaker 3: the catch, though, Stephen, is a lot of people will say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I could be fair and impartial. I could put aside
Speaker 3: everything I've heard. But this is where your gut instinct
Speaker 3: comes in. As a lawyer, I tried a case against
Speaker 3: Jehan Gotti junior, right, everyone had heard of the guy
Speaker 3: of a lot of jurors said, oh.
Speaker 2: I could be fair.
Speaker 3: But then it gets into that gun like do I
Speaker 3: believe him? Am I sensing something weird that I don't
Speaker 3: think this person could be impartial? So defense is looking
Speaker 3: for people who've already convicted the guy.
Speaker 1: But defense is also looking for people who don't, who
Speaker 1: know little to nothing about the case. I would imagine
Speaker 1: how plausible is that, in considering how high profile he is,
Speaker 1: that people don't have four goinge conclusions because they're completely
Speaker 1: oblivious to what's going on.
Speaker 3: Right, So you'd be amazed that the types of answers
Speaker 3: you get from these potential jurors who sometimes like have
Speaker 3: barely heard of things. I think everyone's going to have
Speaker 3: to say they've heard of the guy. I imagine ninety
Speaker 3: percent of the people will well, I know he was
Speaker 3: in some trouble. But I actually think you're right. I
Speaker 3: don't think that many people are going to say, well,
Speaker 3: I know he's charged with racketeering and sex trafficking and
Speaker 3: all that. I think they're going to just basically come
Speaker 3: down to, well, I know he got arrested, I know
Speaker 3: he's in trouble I know it has something to do
Speaker 3: with sex and coercion and that kind of thing. So
Speaker 3: that's going to be a key question. How much do
Speaker 3: you know about this case? How much do you know
Speaker 3: about the charges? Have you read the indictment?
Speaker 2: Have you seen this story covered on CNN on Steven A's.
Speaker 3: Show, And you're just it's a guessing game, right, It
Speaker 3: really does come down to your instinct. But yeah, if
Speaker 3: I'm the defense I would want someone who knows less
Speaker 3: about the case. But on the other hand, if you
Speaker 3: get someone who's like, I've never heard of this guy,
Speaker 3: I've never heard of the case, they can start wondering like,
Speaker 3: is there something off about this juror maybe I don't
Speaker 3: want that?
Speaker 2: What about the defense team?
Speaker 1: From this perspective they've already put out They've described a
Speaker 1: music mogul as a swinger who invited third parties into
Speaker 1: his bedroom. I'm like, is that a detail that you
Speaker 1: wanted to just let out as a defense team? I
Speaker 1: don't know what to make of that?
Speaker 2: What say you.
Speaker 3: Third parties and fourth parties and fifth parties and sixth parties? Apparently,
Speaker 3: but that is going to be the defense And look,
Speaker 3: I know it's maybe not the greatest pr move in
Speaker 3: the world. But it's a viable defense, and I think
Speaker 3: this will be the core of the defense. It'll boil
Speaker 3: down to, maybe he's a freak, ladies and gentlemen of
Speaker 3: the jury, but there's no federal crime of being a freak.
Speaker 3: There's no federal crime of having these sort of aggressive,
Speaker 3: unusual sexual appetites going hand in hand with that. That's
Speaker 3: not going to be enough on its own, because you're
Speaker 3: going to have victims and witnesses testifying. You say, he
Speaker 3: coerced me, he threatened me, he assaulted me, and so
Speaker 3: they're going to have to combine that maybe he's a swinger,
Speaker 3: but that's not a crime with an attack on.
Speaker 2: The victims in the courtroom, they're.
Speaker 3: Going to have to suggest that these victims, these witnesses
Speaker 3: have bad motives, they're looking for a payday.
Speaker 2: They made up stories about him.
Speaker 3: It became a pile on and they all sort of
Speaker 3: picked up on each other's stories. And that's a common
Speaker 3: defense you see in these sort of multi victim, multi
Speaker 3: witness cases. So I think that's exactly what the defense
Speaker 3: is going to be.
Speaker 1: Says the last time you were on here weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Have there been anything. Has there been anything additional as
Speaker 1: it pertains to information or findings that have transpired over
Speaker 1: the last few weeks that you find potentially alarming or
Speaker 1: potentially beneficial to ditty to the Diddy case itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've actually been surprised the other way, Steven, which
Speaker 3: is I thought there would be more victims that are
Speaker 3: charged in the indictment. I thought there would be more
Speaker 3: expanded charges. Now prosecutors have tweaked this indictment up a
Speaker 3: little bit. They now reference victim one and victim two
Speaker 3: in the indictment. Apparently there is going to be a
Speaker 3: third victim as well. But given the number of civil suits,
Speaker 3: the dozens of civil suits, I thought that at some
Speaker 3: point the prosecution would.
Speaker 2: Either be a adding more and more.
Speaker 3: Victims than they did and be adding more and more defendants.
Speaker 3: This is a very unusual case in that the charge
Speaker 3: is racketeering, which means in this case they're charging Shankon's
Speaker 3: a thing at the head running a criminal enterprise, yet
Speaker 3: he's the only defendant.
Speaker 2: Now you can do that.
Speaker 3: R Kelly is another example of a guy who was
Speaker 3: a one man racketeering enterprise. But look, I used to
Speaker 3: charge racketeering cases I used to teach the course on
Speaker 3: racketeering within DJ.
Speaker 2: My racketeering cases were mob cases.
Speaker 3: There's twenty five guys, twenty eight guys, fifteen guys. So
Speaker 3: it's unusual and I think a bit surprising to me
Speaker 3: that the original indictment has more or less remained intact.
Speaker 2: I would have expected.
Speaker 3: I think, I said to you Steve and a back
Speaker 3: at the time, I thought that there was going to
Speaker 3: be bigger expansions of this indictment than their work.
Speaker 1: And because there aren't, is that an argument the defense
Speaker 1: makes in his favor? Where the other Where are the
Speaker 1: other defendants? How come he's the only guy that's really
Speaker 1: being prosecuted here? Why is it that you haven't been
Speaker 1: able to find anybody else that's you're accusing him of racketeering?
Speaker 2: Oh you bet.
Speaker 3: They're going to make some variation of that argument. They're
Speaker 3: going to go, oh, my goodness, folks, a racketeering enterprise.
Speaker 3: There must be a lot of people. Well, folks, guess
Speaker 3: what they say, he's the whole thing. How about all
Speaker 3: these other guys, how about these bodyguards, how about these handlers,
Speaker 3: how about these enablers. Now some of them will testify,
Speaker 3: some of them have been given deals, they've been given immunity,
Speaker 3: or they've been given non prosecution agreements. So some of
Speaker 3: these people are going to get on the stand and say, yes,
Speaker 3: I was part of this, Yes I helped him out,
Speaker 3: but in exchange for my testimony, I've been given a
Speaker 3: free pass.
Speaker 2: Now you know what the counter to that is going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: They got a sweet deal because they're just telling prosecutors
Speaker 3: whatever prosecutors want to hear.
Speaker 2: But it's not uncommon.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean more cooperation deals that I could
Speaker 3: even remember. So yeah, that's absolutely going to be a
Speaker 3: dynamic at this trial. He's the only one. They say
Speaker 3: this is a one man show. You shouldn't believe that,
Speaker 3: members of the jury.
Speaker 1: What about the video Cassie Ventura, his ex girlfriend, where
Speaker 1: he ran down the hallway half naked and dragged her
Speaker 1: through it to the ground, kicked and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: We saw that video. First of all, we don't know.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know whether you believe that's going to
Speaker 1: be admissible in this court case Number one and number two,
Speaker 1: the fact that she's agreed to testify against him according
Speaker 1: to the reports, how damning do you believe there is
Speaker 1: the potential for that to be.
Speaker 3: I think that video is the prosecution single most important
Speaker 3: and most powerful piece of evidence. It will come in.
Speaker 3: By the way, that was the subject of a pre
Speaker 3: trial ruling. The judge said, yes, you may play the video.
Speaker 3: Now the question is going to be what's the relevance,
Speaker 3: what's the context around it. It appear that the prosecutors
Speaker 3: are going to argue this was part of him threatening, forcing, coercing,
Speaker 3: abusing this woman as part of his effort to traffick
Speaker 3: her across state lines for sexual purposes. Apparently the defense
Speaker 3: is going to be, no, this had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with the sex trafficking, ring or coercion. This was a
Speaker 3: fight they were having over infidelity. And you know, I
Speaker 3: think Cassie will be Cassandra will be the most important
Speaker 3: witness for the prosecution. But the attack on her is
Speaker 3: going to be she's a liar, she's telling them what
Speaker 3: they want to hear, she's looking to raise her own profile,
Speaker 3: she's got a bad financial incentive, and so look, so
Speaker 3: much of this just comes down to the jurors are
Speaker 3: going to be sitting feet away from her.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been in these courtrooms.
Speaker 3: They're going to be four feet away from her, and
Speaker 3: so much of it is just going to come down
Speaker 3: to how they assess her demeanor, what does she look like,
Speaker 3: how does she deliver her answers? Is she credible? From
Speaker 3: what I've seen of her in public, she seems quite
Speaker 3: credible to me. But people don't always play the same
Speaker 3: on the witness stand as they do in front of
Speaker 3: a camera.
Speaker 1: What about the documentaries and stuff like that that have
Speaker 1: been put out about him and some of the allegations
Speaker 1: against them, and people essentially co signing on what he's
Speaker 1: being accused of because they're highlighting his behavior or what
Speaker 1: it was throughout these years. How much of an impact,
Speaker 1: if at all, do you expect that to have.
Speaker 3: So prosecutors cannot obviously just play the documentaries or pieces
Speaker 3: of the documentaries for the jurors, right that would be inadmissible. However,
Speaker 3: if there's a witness on the stand who has previously
Speaker 3: spoken in one of these documentaries, and there will be
Speaker 3: many of those, everything they've said previously can be used
Speaker 3: to cross examine them, to impeach them, as we say, so,
Speaker 3: if a witness gets on the stand and says something
Speaker 3: a little different than what he or she said in
Speaker 3: a documentary or leaves out a detail or adds a
Speaker 3: detail that they didn't say in the documentary, then that's
Speaker 3: absolutely fair game for cross examination. And I assume in
Speaker 3: this case, if the prosecutors are any good at their jobs,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure they are, it's my former office, they
Speaker 3: have not just whatever the documentaries are, but the raw
Speaker 3: footage that came before it, Because a lot of times,
Speaker 3: you know, you'll do a two hour interview and it'll
Speaker 3: end up being twelve minutes on the documentary. So I
Speaker 3: assure you both sides have watched that footage very carefully,
Speaker 3: and it's all in play just the same if it
Speaker 3: was prior testimony, you know, to a police officer in
Speaker 3: front of a grand jury, it can be used.
Speaker 1: You've raved about your formal place of of occupation, Southern
Speaker 1: District of New York, and what it brings to the
Speaker 1: table in terms of.
Speaker 2: Its high conviction rate, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You still feeling as confident in their case, considering their
Speaker 1: reputation and what they bring to the table. You're still
Speaker 1: feeling this confident with the whole diddy, with this whole
Speaker 1: Did he matter against them?
Speaker 3: That's a great question. So I of course, you know,
Speaker 3: look I came up through this office. I have a
Speaker 3: reverence for it. But I certainly do not think the
Speaker 3: SDNY is infallible. They've made a lot of missteps, including
Speaker 3: most recently, I think, throwing out the Eric Adams case,
Speaker 3: which I know a lot of the people there pushed
Speaker 3: back and disagreed with, but that came from up above. No. Look,
Speaker 3: I think the case is a sound case, looking at
Speaker 3: the indictment. I think the hype around it, and maybe
Speaker 3: the SDNY helped promote this hype got a little beyond
Speaker 3: what actually.
Speaker 2: Ended up happening.
Speaker 3: But look, the odds are stacked against any criminal defendant
Speaker 3: in that courthouse. You know, you'll see that conviction rates
Speaker 3: are ninety eight percent. Throw those out because that includes
Speaker 3: guilty please, which almost case plead guilty. There are no
Speaker 3: reliable data on how many trials result in conviction, but
Speaker 3: in my experience and just following that courthouse, seventy eighty
Speaker 3: percent or so of all trials resulting conviction. I don't
Speaker 3: think Shaw Colms is going to cut a sympathetic figure
Speaker 3: here for the jury. I think they're going to hear
Speaker 3: some horrible things about him. I think the witnesses are
Speaker 3: going to present some devastating testimony. I think that video
Speaker 3: that we talked about of the assault is really really
Speaker 3: damaging evidence. So I would put it, you know, if
Speaker 3: I had to make a picture, I would say seventy
Speaker 3: five eighty percent that he gets convicted.
Speaker 1: Last question, is he better off or worse off now
Speaker 1: than he was when he was first arrested as it
Speaker 1: pertains to this case and how he's looking.
Speaker 3: Well, I think he's slightly better off in that it
Speaker 3: hasn't been this explosion in the number of witnesses.
Speaker 2: But look, it could get a lot worse. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was given that plea offer.
Speaker 3: Again we don't know what it was, but he was
Speaker 3: given a chance to sort of hedge his bets and
Speaker 3: mitigate his bottom line loss here and he chose not
Speaker 3: to do it. And the way these trials work, it's
Speaker 3: it's a flip of a coin. It's yes or no.
Speaker 3: The jury can't come down and say, well, we want
Speaker 3: to kind of convict him. But if some you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, well, look they can split the verdict. I
Speaker 3: guess they should say that they can convict them on
Speaker 3: sun counts but not others. But man, if he gets
Speaker 3: convicted on anything. In this case, he's looking at double
Speaker 3: digits plus behind bars, so he's taken. Look, it's a
Speaker 3: huge gamble. It's terrifying for anybody to be in that position.
Speaker 3: You know, I've seen a lot of people go through it.
Speaker 3: The odds are against him. He has a very good
Speaker 3: defense team behind him, so anything can happen, but his
Speaker 3: life is on the line.
Speaker 2: Here forgive me.
Speaker 1: I got one more question. I just thought about if
Speaker 1: your case is that strong, if you're the Southern District
Speaker 1: of New York and your case is that strong, why
Speaker 1: offer him a plea?
Speaker 3: So it could be that they don't think that. They
Speaker 3: could be that they're worried about some aspect of their case.
Speaker 3: It could be they're worried about one of the witnesses
Speaker 3: or the victims. It also could be Look, the reason
Speaker 3: you offer a plea deal when you have a strong case,
Speaker 3: especially on the eve of trial, is A you might
Speaker 3: be worried about some aspect of your case, or B
Speaker 3: you're just trying to again.
Speaker 2: Cap your risks.
Speaker 3: You know, you lock in a conviction, you move on
Speaker 3: to sentence saying, and let's keep in mind there's always
Speaker 3: a risk.
Speaker 2: Stephen A.
Speaker 3: Of what we call jury nullification, which means when the
Speaker 3: jury or a single juror just says, I don't really
Speaker 3: care what the evidence is. I'm gonna vote not guilty,
Speaker 3: and all you need is want If you're the defense, right,
Speaker 3: you need.
Speaker 2: All twelve jurors beyond a reasonable doubt to convict.
Speaker 3: So you get one person on that panel and says,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't believe some of these victims,
Speaker 3: or I feel bad for Shawncolms, I feel like he's
Speaker 3: been railroad.
Speaker 2: Racial issues could come into.
Speaker 3: Play here if a black man sitting at the defense table,
Speaker 3: so a celebrity, you know, a universally known guy. So
Speaker 3: my fear going into this as the prosecutors would not
Speaker 3: so much be of an acquittal. I don't think you're
Speaker 3: gonna get twelve zero not guilty, but you never know.
Speaker 3: In a high profile cases, cases hang and then that's
Speaker 3: a win essentially for the defense. You can always retry
Speaker 3: a hung jury, but it's a nightmare for prosecutors. So
Speaker 3: it may have been they said, look, if we can
Speaker 3: lock in a conviction, get x's the penalty, avoid the
Speaker 3: time and expensive trial, and avoid the risk of a
Speaker 3: hung jury, maybe they calculated that would have been worth it.
Speaker 1: This case is not gonna be televised or anything like that, right,
Speaker 1: I mean cameras are not gonna be in the court,
Speaker 1: loud in the court room or anything. Right, Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Right? Federal courts are dinosaurs.
Speaker 3: They refuse to allow not only cameras, but even live
Speaker 3: audio feeds. Even the Supreme Court, by the way, it
Speaker 3: gives us live audio feed now. But they are old fashioned.
Speaker 3: I am on this soapbox, stephen A. They need to
Speaker 3: let cameras in there. The Constitution says, public trial. Why
Speaker 3: are we acting like it's eighteen forty show it? We
Speaker 3: can all watch it. We should get to see it.
Speaker 1: Ellie Honing, senior legal analyst for CNN, one of the
Speaker 1: best in the business. It'll be much watch television whenever
Speaker 1: you're on. I can promise you that. Thank you, Ellie, Man,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Man, take care of yourself.
Speaker 2: Thanks to today. I appreciate it. Talk to you soon.