Crime and Punishment
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Diddy has just received his first piece of good news in a long time. A judge has ruled that prosecutors can’t use materials seized from his jail cell.
As spotted on Deadline, the now embattled mogul might be feeling more confident heading into his upcoming bail hearing. On Tuesday (November 19), Judge Arun Subramanian denied the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District the ability to leverage any information seized from an October raid in Diddy’s jail cell. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams submitted a filing last week alleging that the Bad Boy Entertainment founder had written notes detailing plans to “blackmail” witnesses, make unauthorized calls, and more.
“While attempting to evade law enforcement monitoring, the defendant has, among other things, orchestrated social media campaigns that are, in his own words, aimed at tainting the jury pool; made efforts to publicly leak materials he views as helpful to his case; and contacted witnesses through third parties,” the memo read.
Additionally, prosecutors also submitted a transcript of a call Diddy made to one of his sons that shows “the defendant’s goal is to blackmail victims and witnesses either into silence or providing testimony helpful to his defense.”
Some of the items seized in the raid include “intact pages from two different legal pads, (ii) pages of an address book, (iii) a ripped-out, folded-over page of a third legal pad, (iv) a ripped-out page of another legal pad and (v) a ripped-out page of yet a different legal pad.”
Diddy’s legal team pushed back citing the raid violated several of their client’s Amendments rights. Diddy’s third bail hearing is scheduled for November 22. He has previously offered a $50 million bond and agreed to only be in contact with his family and legal team.
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Lil Durk has entered a not guilty plea in his murder-for-hire case in California this week, setting the stage for an upcoming trial that has been set for the top of next year. Lil Durk is accused of ordering members of his OTF (Only The Family) collective to carry out a revenge killing in response to the shooting death of King Von.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Lil Durk, 32, was in a Los Angeles court on Thursday (November 14) for his arraignment in connection to the death of a family member of rival Quando Rondo. One of Rondo’s associates shot and killed Dayvon “King Von” Bennett in 2020 during an altercation in Atlanta, Ga.
Durk was initially arrested three weeks ago near a Miami airport where he was allegedly attempting to leave the country on a flight bound for Italy and according to reports, Durk was booked for three international flights on private airplanes.
The Tribune adds in its reporting that Durk is being held in a federal prison in California and prosecutors want him to remain jailed until his trial, which is set for January 7, 2025. The prosecutors in the case are stating that Durk is a potential flight risk and a danger to the community.
Lil Durk is accused of allegedly putting five OTF members on the task of taking out Quando Rondo after rapper Timothy “Lul Tim” Leeks shot and killed King Von. Charges against Lul Tim were later dropped according to Georgia’s “stand-your-ground” laws.
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PnB Rock was tragically shot and killed during a robbery while dining inside a Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles restaurant, leading to the arrest and conviction of Freddie Lee Trone to 31 years in prison. New footage of the incident has emerged and it suggests that PnB Rock was set up by a pair of patrons who presumably tipped off Trone and his teen son who carried out the robbery and shooting.
YouTube channel True Crime News shared a video featuring footage of the fateful day when PnB Rock, real name Rakim Hasheem Allen, and his fiancée Stephanie Sibounheuang visited Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles in South Central Los Angeles in September 2022.
True Crime News host Ana Garcia is heard explaining the happenings in the surveillance footage, which shows a person greeting Allen while outside footage shows two people allegedly planning the crime. Trone’s son arrived by car and fired three shots at Allen with restaurant workers, a security guard, and guests vacating the establishment.
The bodycam footage obtained from police showed the vantage point of officers who responded to the scene of the crime, with detectives asking Sibounheuang about the shooting. At that time, Sibounheuang is informed that her fiancée did not survive the gunshot wounds.
Sibounheuang absorbed blame for the incident after she posted on her Instagram Story feed that she was at the restaurant, including showing the location via geotag.
Some observers believed she was the reason the robbers were able to corner Allen. However, Garcia shared that according to the timing of the planning going on outside of the robbery and Sibounheuang’s Instagram post do not match up. The plot was hashed out well before she shared the location, thus effectively clearing her of any blame according to the True Crime News findings.
We will share a link to True Crime News‘ report but will not embed the video in the body of this post due to the disturbing details within. However, clicking here will lead you to the story but please proceed cautiously.
PnB Rock was 30.
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Lil Durk and his ongoing legal woes that led to his arrest are mounting after new information provided additional details connected to an alleged murder-for-hire plot. With the Chicago rapper already facing serious charges, two additional charges were handed down as Lil Durk awaits his fate.
In a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California last Friday (November 8), it was revealed that Lil Durk, 32, will face two additional charges connected to the brazen 2022 shooting at the Beverly Center shopping mall in Los Angeles.
From the Justice Department’s public relations hub:
Durk Banks, 32, a.k.a. “Lil Durk,” “Blood,” and “Mustafa Abdul Malak,” of Chicago, is charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death, and one count of using, carrying, and discharging firearms and a machine gun and possession of such firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death.
The indictment adds two felony charges against Banks, who previously was charged via criminal complaint in this case.
The four-count superseding indictment, returned late Thursday, adds Banks as the lead defendant to a previous indictment returned October 17 and charging the following defendants in connection with the August 2022 murder:
The other defendants named in the press release were Kavon London Grant, 28, a.k.a. “Cuz” and “Vonnie,” of Atlanta, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, 33, a.k.a. “DeDe,” of Chicago, Keith Jones, 33, a.k.a. “Flacka,” of Gary, Indiana; David Brian Lindsey, 33, a.k.a. “Browneyez,” of Addison, Illinois; and Asa Houston, 36, a.k.a. “Boogie,” of Chicago.
Lil Durk was arrested while reportedly looking to leave the country on October 17 near Miami International Airport. He was ordered jailed without bond until his transfer to Los Angeles for arraignment. He was charged in the 2022 shooting death of rival Quando Rondo’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, aka Lul Pab, in retaliation for the 2020 death of King Von in Atlanta.
Durk and his co-defendants have not entered any pleas.
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Source: MDOC / MDOC
Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, a founder of the infamous Black Mafia Family, is out of prison.
TMZ reports that Big Meech was transferred from FCI Coleman Low in Wildwood to halfway house that is supervised by the BOP’s Miami Residential Reentry Management Office. Meaning, Big Meech is in Florida.
Back in 2005, Big Meech and BMF, which was co-founded by his brother Terry Lee “Southwest Tee” Flenory, were both indicted under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute and each was sentenced to 30 years in prison. They were accused of making $270 million from drug trafficking during their run.
Southwest T was reportedly released in 2020.
In June 2021, Big Meech was granted an earlier release date by U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson, who shaved off three years from his sentence. He was originally scheduled to be released in 2028.
The question now is, will Big Meech make a cameo in the fourth season of hit Starz series BMF?
The story is developing.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs is going to trial, but he’s going to be sitting in jail for months. The disgraced music mogul’s trial date has been set to start in May 2025.
Per various reports, Judge Arun Subramanian scheduled a trial date of May 5, 2025 at a hearing on Thursday, October 10. Diddy’s legal team had reportedly requested the trial to occur in April or May.
However, while the defense got a date they wanted, Diddy was once again denied bail, his third attempt at a pre-trial release.
NEW: A federal judge in Manhattan has set a May 5, 2025 trial date for Sean “Diddy” Combs’ racketeering and sex trafficking case.
Combs is here in court, and smiled and waved to his sons in the gallery.
More to come…
— Ben Kochman (@benkochman) October 10, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Diddy was arrested in New York City on September 16 and has been jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on charges that include racketeering and sex trafficking.
The “Been Around The World” rapper has pleaded not guilty while the court of public opinion has been slamming him ever since his former girlfriend and ex-Bad Boy artist Cassie sued him back in late 2023. That lawsuit essentially set everything in motion, with soon after its settlement multiple lawsuits were filed alleging similar accounts of sexual abuse, a video surfaced of Diddy beating on Cassie (that confirmed an account described in her lawsuit) and in September, Diddy’s indictment.
Combs’ mother, Janice Combs, who recently described her son’s prosecution as a lynching, was in attendance along with several of his children.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs has employed his legal team to file an appeal to his recent bond denial after being denied twice so far. In a new report, Diddy and his team once more introduced the restrictions and guidelines the business mogul will follow as he awaits his day in court.
TMZ reports that Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal team once more reiterated that the $50,000 bail was set with several restrictions, including not allowing women to visit Combs at his Star Island home in Florida and keeping a visitor’s log among other guidelines.
As TMZ noted in its report, this is Combs’ third attempt to be released on bond. Adding to the restrictions, Combs’ lawyers are attempting to assure the court that their client will not be a flight risk and is attempting to sell off his private plane to boot.
Combs is currently housed in the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), a prison facility that has garnered a reputation for being unsafe and replete with issues. While Diddy himself has not made any public comments related to his stay at MDC, there have been reports that the Bad Boy Records honcho was under heavy surveillance to prevent self-harm.
While the appeal has been filed, it has not been reported when it will be officially presided over.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs is awaiting sentencing inside a holding facility in Brooklyn in connection with his ongoing case as new details surrounding the mogul continue to surface. An attorney for one of Diddy’s alleged victims says that she has heard word of sex tapes featuring the Bad Boy honcho along with at least three other top celebrities.
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Attorney Ariel Mitchell-Kidd — recently a guest on Piers Morgan Uncensored with Jaguar Wright and DJ Vlad — appeared on NewsNation’s Banfield program where she shared some new details regarding Diddy related to an alleged collection of sex tape footage that reportedly has made its rounds.
While speaking with Banfield guest host Laura Ingle, Mitchell-Kidd says she was contacted by an individual who allegedly has tapes featuring Diddy along with three other high-profile celebrities, and a fourth celebrity, said to be someone younger than Combs, was allegedly seen on tape in the throes of sexual activity.
It should be noted that Mitchell-Kidd has not seen video footage or images of the alleged tapes, only that she was informed of their existence and the potentially damning evidence within.
As we saw in a NewsNation article, Mitchell-Kidd also shared that she is no longer representing former adult film performer Adria English due to their shared vision of how the case should be handled.
“We agreed that she would stop undermining me,” Mitchell-Kidd said. “Then she went behind my back and violated it again. So fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. That’s where we are.”
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Source: United States Attorney’s Office / DOJ
A few years ago, four men were brutally butchered to death in a park in Long Island, New York. Now, a female participant in the murder has been sentenced to five decades in prison for her role in the grisly killings.
The New York Post is reporting that MS-13 member Leniz “Diablita” Escobar has just been slapped with a 50-year prison stint for luring the unsuspecting men to the park where other MS-13 members waited to murder the men for disrespecting their gang in April of 2017. U.S. Judge Joseph Bianco said that Escobar aka “Diablita” (Little Devil) “enthusiastically” set the men up to be murdered by her cohorts after they posted social media content mocking the hand signs that MS-13 uses to represent their gang.
Only 17 years old at the time of the murders, the now 24-year-old Escobar expresses regret for her actions as she faces a lengthy prison sentence for the four deaths she helped spur on.
The New York Post reports:
“All I can do is hurt,” she said tearfully. “Every breath reminds me that they are not here and their families are in pain. If I could trade places with them and take away that pain, I would.”
Escobar was only 17 when she convinced other members of the MS-13 gang to kill Miguel Lopez, 20, Justin Llivicura, 16, and Jefferson Villalobos and Jose Tigre, both 18, by showing them social media pictures of the victims supposedly mocking the group with gang signs.
She felt “personally offended” that one of the victims had worn items typically associated with the gang even though he was not a member,” Assistant US Attorney Megan Farrell said.
She then lured the young men to the park under the pretense of smoking marijuana with them, according to Farrell.
After her fellow gang members hacked the men to death with machetes (MS-13’s preferred weapon of choice), Escobar not only bragged about her role in the murderous plot but even told them to rid themselves of the evidence and do what they could to evade authorities. It gets worse.
During the trial two years ago, one witness testified that Escobar smiled while the victims were killed and even licked their blood off her lips when it got on her shirt.
“She was one of the most culpable people,” Farrell said Tuesday. “Without her, these murders would not have occurred.”
Though relatives of the victims felt she deserved the death penalty, prosecutors argued for a 65-year sentence before the judge settled on a 50-year bid.
Interestingly enough, Escobar has used her time in prison to better herself as she’s not only earned her high school degree but also leads a Bible study group behind bars. Bible Study with la “Diablita.” Go figure.
Don’t be surprised if Donald Trump references this particular case going forward on the campaign trail as the man revels in hate, division and fear mongering. Just sayin’.
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Justin Johnson, one of two individuals who were charged with gunning down popular Memphis rapper Young Dolph in 2021, has been sentenced to life behind bars. Also known as a hopeful rapper under the stage name Straight Drop, Justin Johnson’s case was deliberated in just under four hours according to local reports.
Justin Johnson, 26, was found guilty on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and felon in possession of a firearm. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Mitchell read the verdict on Thursday (September 26). Jurors heard three days of testimony and closing arguments on the fourth day. According to reports, Johnson did not take the stand during the hearings.
The sister of Young Dolph shared a statement with the media after Johnson’s verdict was heard:
On Nov. 17, 2021, our lives changed forever. A son, a father, a brother, a friend, a businessman, a music artist, a philanthropist, and life partner are among just some of the titles that my brother Adolph Robert Thornton Jr. held. Titles that have now left a missing piece in the lives of so many. I want to thank the jury for their service and decision in this case to bring us one step closer to justice for our family, friends, supporters, and the community that has supported us during this time.
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“We realize this act of violence has impacted so many outside of our family and friends. Your outpouring of love and support throughout this process does not go unnoticed. We ask that instead of focusing on those who committed this crime, you focus on that man that Adolph Robert Thornton was. Regardless of the name that you may know him as, such as Adolph, Dolph, or Young Dolph, we ask you to remember the man that enjoyed being a father and spending time with his family. We ask that you remember the man who enjoyed giving opportunities to those who were often overlooked and counted out. We ask that you remember the man who enjoyed giving back to others and being an inspiration to those who come from less than ideal backgrounds, and knowing that they are seen and can change their outcomes and the lives of others by doing something positive. We will continue to heal and keep Adolph’s legacy alive.
In addition, Young Dolph’s partner, Mia Jaye, shared a statement via Instagram with a picture of the rapper alongside his family.
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