NEW YORK (AP)– Sean “Diddy” Combs got a standing ovation from fellow prisoners when the music magnate went back to prison after winning acquittals on possible life-in-prison charges, supplying what his legal representative states may have been the very best thing he might provide for put behind bars Black guys in America.
“They all stated: ‘We never ever get to see anybody who beats the federal government,'” lawyer Marc Agnifilo informed The Associated Press in a weekend interview days after a jury acquitted Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Combs, 55, stays imprisoned at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after his conviction Wednesday on prostitution-related charges, which might put him in jail for a number of more years. Any sentence will consist of credit for time currently served. Far that’s practically 10 months.
After federal representatives robbed Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and the Miami location in March 2024, Agnifilo stated he informed the “I’ll Be Missing You” vocalist to anticipate to be jailed on sex trafficking charges.
“I stated: ‘Maybe it’s your fate in life to be the guy who wins,'” he remembered throughout a telephone interview briefly disrupted by a jailhouse call from Combs. “They require to see that somebody can win. I believe he took that to heart.”
Blunt trial technique works
The decision in Manhattan federal court followed a veteran group of 8 defense attorney led by Agnifilo performed a trial technique that resonated with jurors. Combs passed attorneys notes throughout reliable interrogations of almost 3 lots witnesses over 2 months, consisting of Combs’ ex-employees.
The attorneys informed jurors Combs was an envious domestic abuser with a drug issue who took part in the swinger way of life through threesomes including Combs, his sweethearts and another guy.
“You might believe to yourself, wow, he is a truly bad sweetheart,” Combs’ attorney Teny Geragos informed jurors in her May opening declaration. That, she stated, “is just not sex trafficking.”
Agnifilo stated the blunt talk was a “no brainer.”
“The violence was so clear and in advance and we understood the federal government was going to attempt to puzzle the jury into believing it became part of a sex trafficking effort. We had to inform the jury what it was so they would not believe it was something it wasn’t,” he stated.
Combs and his legal representatives appeared deflated Tuesday when jurors stated they were deadlocked on the racketeering count however had actually reached a decision on sex trafficking and lower prostitution-related charges. A judge bought them back to ponder Wednesday.
“No one understands what to believe,” Agnifilo stated. He slept on it.
Early morning surprise wakes up attorney
“I awaken at 3 in the early morning and I text Teny and state: “We need to get a bail application together,” he remembered. “It’s going to be a great decision for us however I believe he decreased on the prostitution counts so let’s attempt to get him out.”
He stated he “type of whipped everyone into sensation much better” after concluding jurors would have convicted him of racketeering if they had actually convicted him of sex trafficking due to the fact that trafficking was a supposed part of racketeering.
Agnifilo met Combs before court and Combs went into the courtroom renewed. Smiling, the one-time Catholic school child hoped with household. In less than an hour, the jury matched Agnifilo’s forecast.
The apparently chastened Combs mouthed “thank you” to jurors and smiled as household and fans praised. After he was accompanied from the space, viewers cheered the defense group, a couple of chanting: “Dream Team! Dream Team!” A number of attorneys, consisting of Geragos, sobbed.
“This was a significant triumph for the defense and a significant loss for the prosecution,” stated Mitchell Epner, a legal representative who dealt with Agnifilo as a federal district attorney in New Jersey over twenty years back. He credited “an all-star team of defense attorney” versus district attorneys who often win.
Agnifilo showcased what would become his trial method– belittling the charges and buffooning the examination that caused them– last September in arguing unsuccessfully for bail. The case versus Combs was what occurs when the “federal government enters into our bed rooms,” he stated.
Legal representatives carefully questioned most witnesses
Throughout an eight-week trial, Combs’ legal representatives chose apart the prosecution case with primarily mild however firm interrogations. Combs never ever affirmed and his legal representatives called no witnesses.
Sarah Krissoff, a federal district attorney in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, stated Combs’ defense group “had a story from the start and they did all of it without placing on any witnesses. That’s skillful.”
Paradoxically, Agnifilo broadened making use of racketeering laws as a federal district attorney on a the mob job force in New Jersey twenty years earlier, utilizing them frequently to prosecute street gangs in violence-torn cities.
“I understood the powerlessness in the statute,” he stated. “The statute is extremely mechanical. If you understand how the automobile works, you understand where the stop working points are.”
He stated district attorneys had “lots of stop working points.”
“They didn’t have a conspiracy, they simply didn’t,” he stated. “They essentially had Combs’ individual life and attempted to construct racketeering around individual assistants.”
Some individual assistants, even after seeing videos of Combs beating his long time sweetheart, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, had radiant things to state about Combs on cross evaluation.
As soon as released, Combs most likely to reenter domestic abusers program
For Combs, Agnifilo sees a long roadway ahead when he is released and resumes deal with individual devils, most likely reentering a program for domestic batterers that he had actually simply begun before his arrest.
“He’s doing OK,” stated Agnifilo, who talks to him 4 or 5 times daily.
He stated Combs really desires enhancement and “recognizes he has defects like everybody else that he never ever dealt with.”
“He burns hot in all matters. I believe what he has actually concerned see is that he has these defects and there’s no quantity of popularity and no quantity of fortune” that can remove them,” he stated. “You can’t cover them up.”
For Agnifilo, a last surprise awaited him after Combs’ bail was declined when a male collapsed into violent seizures at the elevators outside the courtroom.
“I’m like: ‘What the hell?'” remembered the attorney, who has experience in dealing with seizures.
Agnifilo straddled him, pulling him onto his side and utilizing a foot to avoid him from rolling backwards while a law partner, Jacob Kaplan, put a knapsack under the guy’s head and Agnifilo’s child took his pulse.
“We ensured he didn’t choke on vomit. It was insane. I was stressed over him,” he stated.
The male was ultimately removed mindful by rescue employees, leaving Agnifilo to contemplate a turbulent day.
“It resembled I was getting punked by God,” he stated.
Michael R. Sisak And Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press
