Criminal Justice

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Diddy’s demand to have the names of witnesses against him in his upcoming criminal trial has been blasted by prosecutors in a recent filing.
According to reports, a request by the legal team for Diddy to reveal the names of those witnesses for the prosecution has been rebuked in a recent filing. “The Victim Gag Motion should be denied as an attempt to backdoor the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to compel the Government to prematurely disclose its witness list,” wrote prosecutors for the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York in a filing on Thursday (Oct. 31).

The 56-page motion blasted lawyers Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos for the move, writing: “Not only would such relief be unprecedented, but the defendant should not be permitted to use a local criminal rule as a sword to gag civil claimants whether or not their statements were connected to this criminal proceeding, or to evade established case law in this Circuit.” The motion also dismissed allegations levied by Agnifilo and Geragos that the federal government leaked to the public the 2016 hotel security footage that showed Diddy, aka Sean Combs, assault his then-partner Cassie Ventura.
“As the defendant is fully aware, the video was not in the Government’s possession at the time of CNN’s publication and the Government has never, at any point, obtained the video through grand jury process,” wrote U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who also swatted away other defense claims that the government leaked material to media outlets. “Here, too, the defendant is grasping at straws. Because the defendant cannot show that the information in the Cited Articles is grand jury material, and because he cannot show that Government agents with access to grand jury material leaked the information, he cannot make the prima facie showing required for the relief he seeks.”
The filing comes as the grand jury for the criminal case is continuing to meet and hear from witnesses as well as to review new evidence submitted by the government including text messages, video, and audio from 60 of Diddy’s devices. “The grand jury is always meeting. This is an ongoing investigation,” said one source close to the case to CNN. The case, set to be heard by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, will begin May 5, 2025. Diddy is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. 
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