Legal News
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Facing a federal court order to turn over all his copies of a rare Wu-Tang Clan album, Martin Shkreli is warning a judge that he can’t remember all the people with whom he shared the album – and that it’s “highly likely” that other people still have copies.
In August, Judge Pamela K. Chen ordered Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, an ultra-rare Wu-Tang album that he once owned but was forced to forfeit to federal prosecutors to help pay restitution after he was convicted of securities fraud.
In a sworn statement on Monday, Shkreli promised the judge that he had turned over all copies that he could find in his possession. But he also said he didn’t know exactly who he had shared it with, and that some of them probably still have copies.
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“Because I shared the musical work several times several years ago, I cannot recall each and every time that I have shared the musical work,” he told the judge. “It is possible, and indeed I find it highly likely, that one of the many people who viewed, heard, or otherwise accessed the musical work via my social media recorded the musical work and retains a copy of the same.”
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. In addition to the bizarre trappings, Once Upon came with strict legal stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103.
In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought Once Upon at auction for $2 million. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. PleasrDAO, a collective of early NFT collectors and digital artists, then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights for another $750,000.
Amid recent efforts to monetize Once Upon, Pleasr sued Shkreli in June after he made threats to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased. The lawsuit accused him of both breaching the federal forfeiture order and violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
In August, Judge Chen granted Pleasr a preliminary injunction requiring Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon that were still in his possession. His attorneys had argued Shkreli had the right to create private copies when he owned the album and could retain them even after he forfeited the original copy, but the judge rejected that argument.
Responding to the injunction order on Monday, Shkreli told the judge he had “searched my devices, electronic accounts, and other personal effects” and handed over any copies he owned. He swore that he had done so “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.”
But Judge Chen’s injunction also included another requirement: That he divulge the “names and contact information of the individuals to whom he distributed the data and files.” On that front, Shkreli offered less info on Monday.
“Between 2015 and 2021, I recall occasionally sharing the musical work, primarily by sending digital files of the musical work to others via email, [and] also saved copies of the musical work on USB or other drives and gave those drives to others,” Shkreli said, before saying that he “cannot recall” each of those occasions.
He also told the judge that he had “shared the musical work on my social media pages or livestreams” on at least three occasions, including once in 2023 and again in 2024. It was during these public postings, Shkreli said, that someone likely created copies of the album.
Both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday’s filing.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: A civil war within the Fugees as Pras sues Lauryn Hill for fraud; the latest on Diddy’s legal drama, including an appeal and two new lawsuits; New York mayor Eric Adams hires Jay-Z’s lawyer to defend him against federal criminal charges; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Fugee Feud
The Fugees — a hip hop trio made up of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel — rose to fame in the mid-1990s with hits like “Killing Me Softly,” “Ready or Not” and “Fu-Gee-La,” launching solo careers for all three. But 25 years later, it appears something is rotten in the state of Fugee.
In a scathing lawsuit Tuesday (Oct. 1) that took personal shots at Hill, Pras accused his bandmate of fraud and breach of contract. He claimed that she had exploited his need for cash amid mounting legal problems to get him to sign onto a plan for a 2023 tour in which she enriched herself at his expense.
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“It did not matter to Hill if she took full advantage of Michel’s vulnerability — her friend and creative partner of over 30 years,” his lawyers wrote. “In fact, she counted on exploiting that vulnerability to carry out her scheme.”
Michel also pinned the blame on Hill for the group’s recently canceled 2024 tour, which had been set to kick off in early August but was quietly called off just days before it was set to start. He cited her “gross mismanagement” as a key factor behind poor ticket sales.
Hill quickly responded with a detailed rebuttal, calling it “a baseless lawsuit” that was full of “false claims and unwarranted attacks.” She said Pras had omitted key details — like that she had expanded the tours specifically to help him pay his legal bills and had secured him advances that had not yet been paid back.
For more details on the lawsuit and Hill’s response, go read our entire story here.
Other top stories this week…
DIDDY, DIDDY & MORE DIDDY – It was a busy week for the indicted hip hop mogul, who stands accused of federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Most notably, his lawyers formally launched an appeal of a judge’s ruling denying him bail, marking their latest effort to get him released ahead of his trial. He was also hit with two new civil lawsuits, one from a woman who claims he raped her in 2001 at his New York City studio, and another from a Florida model who alleges he repeatedly drugged and sexually assaulted her over a four-year period. Oh, and 120 more victims might be suing him soon, if you believe press statements by a Houston plaintiff’s lawyer.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DIDDY CASE? – If you want a quick primer on the immediate next steps in the case — how soon might the trial be? where is he being jailed? — go read my explainer on the situation.
HIZZONER HIRES JAY-Z’S LAWYER – Facing a federal indictment of his own, New York City Mayor Eric Adams hired Alex Spiro of the law firm Quinn Emanuel, a prominent litigator with extensive music industry experience and a client list including Jay-Z, Megan Thee Stallion and 21 Savage. For a detailed breakdown of Spiro’s music litigation history, go read our full story here.
BRITNEY PERFUME BATTLE – A cosmetics company called Give Back Beauty hit back hard at a recent lawsuit filed by Revlon, which accused the smaller company of working with four ex-Revlon execs to “sabotage” the company’s decades-old fragrance partnership with Britney Spears. In the response, Give Back argued that Revlon only filed the “baseless” lawsuit because it was upset that Britney made the choice to “reject” the industry titan and sign with a competitor.
SUCKER PUNCH SETTLEMENT – DaBaby settled a civil lawsuit over a 2020 incident in which he allegedly sucker punched a property manager named Gary Pagar during a music video shoot at the man’s Los Angeles mansion. The settlement, reached two months after he took a plea deal to avoid jail time over the same episode, will avoid the need for a trial that had been set to kick off in November.
YSL JUDGE HAS HAD IT – Nearly two years after the trial kicked off, the judge overseeing Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial reached her boiling point with the prosecutors trying the case. At a hearing in which she appeared visibly frustrated, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker complained of “poor lawyering, “baffling” decisions and steps to repeatedly “hide the ball.”
AI LAW VETOED – California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models, a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models, but Newsom and other critics said it would have had “a chilling effect on the industry.”
The judge overseeing Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial appears to have reached her wits’ end with the prosecutors trying the case — complaining of “poor lawyering, “baffling” decisions and steps to repeatedly “hide the ball.”
At a hearing on Monday (Sept. 30), Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sharply questioned Chief Deputy DA Adriane Love over her handling of the trial, which has already been going for nearly two years and is expected to run well into next year.
“It is baffling to me that somebody with the number of years of experience that you have, time after time after time, continues to seemingly and purposefully hide the ball to the extent you possibly can, for as long as you possibly can,” Whitaker said to Love, appearing visibly frustrated.
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“I really don’t want to believe that it is purposeful but honestly, after a certain number of times, you start to wonder how can it be anything but that, unless it is just that you are so unorganized that you are throwing this case together as you try it,” she added, saying that the “haphazard” approach was making the trial more difficult for everyone involved.
The reprimand for Love, over an issue with evidence that she tried to introduce without a witness, prompted Young Thug’s defense attorneys to move to a mistrial. Though the judge ultimately denied that request, she warned prosecutors that she was nearing her breaking point.
“I truly am struggling with whether all of this is purposeful, or this is just really poor lawyering on the part of members of the state’s team. Either way, it’s really unfortunate. If it’s something other than poor lawyering, it’s more than unfortunate,” the judge wrote. “I don’t know if I can stress any more than I already have how much the state’s lawyers need to make an effort to be upfront and forthright in the trial of this case.”
Thug (Jeffery Williams) and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that their YSL was not really a record label called Young Stoner Life but rather a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, prosecutors claim the group operated a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
The trial kicked off in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and disruptions, including an unprecedented 10-month jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant and a bizarre episode in which the presiding judge was removed from the case over a secret meeting with prosecutors. Whitaker took over the case in July.
While the slow-moving trial has dragged on, Thug has been sitting in jail for more than two years, repeatedly denied bond by both judges to handle the case over fears that he might intimidate witnesses. Prosecutors have only presented part of their vast list of potential witnesses, and the trial is expected to run well into 2025.
Lauryn Hill is facing a lawsuit from her Fugees bandmate Pras Michel, claiming she defrauded him over the group’s shortened 2023 tour — and that her “gross mismanagement” also led to the abrupt recent cancellation of the 2024 tour.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Pras allege that Hill exploited his mounting legal bills to get him to sign onto a plan for the 2023 tour with false promises – a deal they say enriched Hill at the expense of her bandmate.
“Hill’s ploy to appear to be Michel’s supposed savior was actually a devious attempt to make a big score for herself by generating millions of dollars from a Fugees tour,” his lawyers write. In the process, it did not matter to Hill if she took full advantage of Michel’s vulnerability – her friend and creative partner of over 30 years. In fact, she counted on exploiting that vulnerability to carry out her scheme.”
The lawsuit also sheds light on the aborted 2024 tour – which had been set to kick off in early August but was quietly cancelled just days before it was set to begin, with no immediate reason given. In his court papers, Michel pins the blame squarely on Hill.
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“Because of the gross mismanagement by Hill and [her company], who had taken far too long to close the deal with Live Nation, the 2024 U.S. tour tickets sales were dismal,” his attorneys say. “There was little or no marketing for the tour, and not enough time between the announcement and the first concert date to do sufficient advance sales to justify the tour.”
Comprised of Hill, Michel, and Wyclef Jean, the Fugees rose to fame in the 1990s with hits like “Killing Me Softly,” “Ready or Not,” and “Fu-Gee-La.” After splitting up in 1998, the three each had successful solo careers and mostly stayed separate until recent years, when they have attempted multiple reunion tours.
In 2019, Michel was hit with sweeping federal criminal charges, including funneling money from a Malaysian financier to Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and then later trying to influence an extradition case on behalf of China. In April 2023, he was convicted on 10 counts including conspiracy, witness tampering and failing to register as a foreign agent.
In his lawsuit on Tuesday, Michel’s lawyers said Hill took advantage of a “desperate man” who needed to pay expensive criminal lawyers, using an advance of cash to get him to sign a deal with “onerous terms” that he would have “easily rejected in the years before his criminal conviction.”
“While the contractual advance paid to Pras enabled him to retain his new criminal lawyers, the 2023 tour agreement was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” his lawyers say.
The touring agreement was “based on a lie” about how much Hill was being paid, Michel’s lawyers say, and it “ceded all financial and creative control” to her and her company – which gave her the “total lack of transparency she needed in order to secretly siphon off money.”
The lawsuit claims that Hill secretly took 40 percent “off the top” from the tour revenue before accounting for the one-third split that was owed to each of the three members. And he says the tour made much less money than it should have, thanks to a “bloated” budget and an abrupt cancellation of the second half of the tour.
As for the 2024 tour, Michel claims that Hill misled Live Nation that Michel was “on board” with the plan for another run of concerts when no such deal had been inked – and did so in order to receive a $1.1 million advance.
“That was another lie by Hill and [her company] since Michel was not ‘on board,’” say Miche’s lawyers, adding that her company “never signed the fully-negotiated agreement, never paid Michel anything, and never intended to do either.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Hill of fraud, fraudulently inducing Michel to sign the 2023 deal and breaching both her contract and her fiduciary duty. It also demands a ruling that the 2023 deal is voided and a court-ordered accounting of the books from the tour.
A spokesman for Hill did not immediately return a request for comment.
Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs have formally launched an appeal of a judge’s ruling denying him bail, marking their latest effort to get him released from jail as he awaits trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
In a notice filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday (Sept. 30), the rapper’s lawyers said they would ask the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit to overturn Judge Andrew L. Carter’s ruling earlier this month, which kept Combs behind bars on the grounds that he might pose a danger if released.
Monday’s filing did not contain detailed arguments, which will be filed later at the appeals court.
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Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But earlier this month he was indicted by federal prosecutors over accusations of sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery. If convicted on all the charges, he potentially faces a sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors allege that Combs ran a sprawling criminal operation, aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” The charges detailed “freak offs” in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex with male sex workers, as well as alleged acts of violence and intimidation to keep victims silent.
“For decades, Sean Combs … abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment. “To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”
A day after the indictment was unsealed, Carter denied the rapper bail. Though Combs’ legal team had offered to pay a $50 million bond and submit to strict monitoring, the judge was swayed by arguments from prosecutors that he might still flee or might obstruct the government’s case by pressuring witnesses.
The ruling has left Combs at the Metropolitan Detention Center — a federal correctional facility in Brooklyn that has long been criticized for danger and dysfunction. In court filings, Agnifilo has called the MDC “horrific” and “not fit for pre-trial detention.” In a press conference after the bail hearing, he called the jail “inhumane housing conditions.”
DaBaby has settled a civil lawsuit over a 2020 incident in which he allegedly attacked a property manager during a music video shoot at a Los Angeles mansion, two months after he took a plea deal to avoid jail time over the episode.
The rapper (Jonathan Lyndale Kirk) was set to face a November trial in the case, in which Gary Pagar claims that DaBaby and others “beat, punched, spat on, threatened, shoved, and robbed” him after he confronted them for breaking rental rules at his Hollywood Hills mansion.
But in a court filing last week (Sept. 25) in Los Angeles Superior Court, attorneys for both Pagar and DaBaby said they had “reached a global settlement of this entire action.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed in public filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
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In addition to Pagar’s civil lawsuit, DaBaby was also initially charged with felony battery over the incident. But in July, he pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor battery charge and agreed to pay $10,000 restitution in a deal with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid prison time.
Pagar sued in February 2021, accusing DaBaby and others of fraud, breach of contract, battery and other wrongdoing. He claimed that the rapper and his associates had rented the house for “a private vacation with no more than nine people,” and swore to him that there would be “no crowds, no parties, and no filming.”
“In fact, the purpose of defendants’ trip to Los Angeles was to gather 40 people and a commercial film crew at Mr. Pagar’s house to film a music video,” his lawyers wrote at the time. “When Mr. Pagar asked them to stop, they beat and battered him, stole his phone by force so he couldn’t call the police, and threatened him. Then they vandalized his house and left, after stealing various valuable items.”
When DaBaby was criminally charged by Los Angeles prosecutors over the same alleged incident in April 2022, he released purported footage that appeared to show Pagar using a racial epithet during the encounter. He accused Pagar of lying to law enforcement and the media “not knowing that he’s caught on camera.”
Across more than three years of litigation, Pagar’s civil case moved slowly. Last summer, attorneys for DaBaby asked to delay the proceedings so that the rapper would not be forced to testify in ways that would “potentially incriminate him in the parallel criminal case.” Then earlier this year, DaBaby again moved to delay the case, citing scheduling conflicts for his lawyers.
Before the settlement, a trial had been scheduled to start November 11.
As reported by Rolling Stone, DaBaby pleaded guilty to a single count of misdemeanor battery at a July 11 court hearing, agreeing to pay restitution and serve one year of probation. At the hearing, prosecutors told the judge they had agreed to drop the felony charge because they foresaw to “problems of proof of proving serious bodily injury at trial.”
Indicted hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with yet another civil lawsuit, claiming that he repeatedly drugged and sexually assaulted an unnamed model over a four year period.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in New York state court, the accuser – identified only as a Florida model under the pseudonym Jane Doe – says that Combs abused her on multiple occasions from 2020 to earlier this year, often after giving her drugs and using other coercive tactics.
The allegations from the woman – at least the twelfth victim to accuse Combs of sexual abuse of over the last year – echo claims made by federal prosecutors in a sweeping indictment unsealed last week, which detailed elaborate, drug-fueled “freak off” performances involving numerous victims.
“Combs would make her ‘perform a show’ for him and would ply her with alcohol and substances until she passed out,” her lawyers write. “Throughout the four years, defendant Combs would consistently pressure Jane Doe adding other men and women into the bedroom despite Jane Doe being clear that she did not want others involved.”
The accuser says Combs and others used “coercive and harassing language” to force her to agree to his demands, including making “threatening jokes” to her that caused her to “fear for her safety if she did not comply.” She says he and others even tracked her location and monitored her conversations.
At one point in 2022, the accuser says she became pregnant shortly after a sexual encounter with Combs. After she shared the news with Combs, her lawyers say one of his associates “harassed Jane Doe by repeatedly calling her and telling Jane Doe to have an abortion.” She says she later suffered a miscarriage.
Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But over the past year, he has faced a flood of civil abuse lawsuits, starting with a high-profile case filed late last year by his former longtime girlfriend Cassie Ventura. That case quickly settled, but it was later corroborated by a widely shared video of Combs assaulting her at a hotel, and it was followed by numerous other cases with similar allegations.
Then last week, federal prosecutors unveiled a sweeping indictment, accusing Combs of operating a criminal enterprise centered on a “pervasive pattern of abuse toward women.”
“For decades, Sean Combs … abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,” reads the indictment, which was obtained by Billboard. “To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”
Even after the criminal charges, new civil cases have continued to be filed. Earlier this week, a woman named Thalia Graves filed a case claiming that Combs and another man another man “viciously raped” her New York City studio in 2001 – and that they filmed the encounter.
Combs is currently behind bars after a federal judge refused to grant him bail, ruling that he would pose a flight risk and might seek to intimidate witnesses and victims if released. The criminal case is pending, with a trial likely still months away.
Canadian musician K’naan has been charged with sexual assault. A charge sheet was filed this morning (Sept. 26) in Quebec City for the musician and director, born Keinan Abdi Warsame, for a count of sexual assault dating back to 2010, The Canadian Press reports. The arrest warrant alleges that the assault took place between July 16 and 17 […]
Facing a federal criminal indictment, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has lawyered up by hiring a prominent litigator with extensive music industry experience, including representing Jay-Z and Megan Thee Stallion.
According to Bloomberg Law, Adams will be defended by Alex Spiro of the firm Quinn Emanuel – an attorney who’s risen to fame in recent years repping Elon Musk and other celebrity clients. Most recently, he won a manslaughter trial against Alec Baldwin over a shooting on the Rust movie set.
The case against Adams, unsealed on Thursday morning, features five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals who were “seeking to gain influence over him.” The mayor has denied the allegations.
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Spiro, one of Billboard’s Top Music Lawyers, is best known in the music industry for representing Jay-Z and his Roc Nation companies in a range of legal matters.
He handled the rapper’s years-long case over a cologne endorsement deal that went bad, eventually beating a demand for $67 million in damages and actually winning the superstar $7 million in unpaid royalties. Spiro also helped Jay-Z, Meek Mill and other stars pen an open letter in support of legislation that would ban prosecutors from using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases.
He’s currently working on complicated litigation over the looming auction of Damon Dash’s stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records, filing a motion as recently as this week over the rights to the rapper’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt.
Another prominent music client for Spiro is Megan Thee Stallion. He repped her for years in contentious litigation against her former record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, in which she claimed she had been duped into signing an “unconscionable” record deal as a young artist.
Spiro is known as an uncompromising litigator who will aggressively defend his clients’ interests, including outside the courtroom. Amid the Megan Thee Stallion case, he told Billboard in a 2022 interview that her record deal amounted to “indentured servitude” for the superstar: “We’re going to very aggressively take depositions, seek accounting for all the money they sucked out of this, and end it once and for all,” Spiro said at the time.
He also represented Megan in her role as a victim and witness the trial of Tory Lanez, who was convicted in 2022 of shooting the star in the foot during a 2020 argument. When defense attorneys opened that trial by arguing that the case was really about “jealousy,” Spiro didn’t mince words in an interview with ABC News: “It’s obviously absurd and an attempt at distraction. [Tory Lanez] shot her and that’s what the case is about.”
In a widely circulated statement on the Adams indictment on Thursday, Spiro assumed that same aggressive posture for his new client: “Federal agents appeared this morning at Gracie Mansion in an effort to create a spectacle (again) and take Mayor Adams phone (again),” Spiro said, as reported by Bloomberg. “He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court.“
Other music industry clients for Spiro have included 21 Savage, who he repped following his 2019 detainment by U.S. immigration authorities; Bobby Shmurda, who he defended in his 2016 murder conspiracy case; and a memorabilia auction house called Gotta Have Rock and Roll, who he represented in a recent dispute with the Michael Jackson estate.
With Sean “Diddy” Combs sitting in jail on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, he faces an uncertain path ahead in the immediate future — with unresolved issues over his detainment and how quickly he’ll face trial.
Combs, who was arrested and charged last week, stands accused of sweeping criminal wrongdoing, including physical abuse, forced labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery. If convicted on all the charges, he potentially faces a sentence of life in prison.
After Judge Andrew L. Carter denied him bail on the grounds that Combs posed a flight risk and might intimidate witnesses, the music mogul’s lead attorney Marc Agnifilo suggested he would appeal that ruling to a federal appeals court. But he has not yet filed that appeal, and such a challenge faces long odds.
Until then, Combs will likely remain at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — a federal correctional facility that has long been criticized for danger and dysfunction. In July, one of New York’s U.S. Congressmen called for an investigation, citing “chronic understaffing, perpetual solitary confinement and widespread violence.” Last month, a federal judge criticized “dangerous, barbaric conditions” at the facility.
In court filings, Agnifilo has called the MDC “horrific” and “not fit for pre-trial detention,” and he suggested at last week’s bail hearing that he would seek to have Combs transferred elsewhere. But Judge Carter told him that decisions on pre-trial jail placement were not within his purview, and in a court filing on Monday, Agnifilo declined to formally ask the judge for a change in jails.
How long will the embattled mogul be waiting at MDC? That depends on when his trial takes place, which is a harder thing to predict than you might think.
Anyone accused of a crime in the U.S. has a constitutional right to a speedy trial, which in federal cases means a jury trial must start within 70 days. Defendants often waive that right to give their attorneys more time to prepare a defense, since prosecutors usually have a head start. But Agnifilo declined to do so last week, saying he was “going to do everything I can to move his case as quickly as possible.”
“I’m going to try and minimize the amount of time he spends in very, very difficult and, I believe, inhumane housing conditions,” Agnifilo said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The demand for a speedy trial suggests that Diddy’s legal team believes there is more advantage to be gained from forcing prosecutors to quickly put their case before a jury, rather than spending more time preparing themselves or attacking the charges with pre-trial motions. The move could allow the government less time to find additional witnesses, and less time to sift through huge amounts of digital records and other evidence. “They’re going to have to accommodate me and him and give us a quick trial, and I’m going to be pushing for that,” Agnifilo said.
But prosecutors can, and very likely will, seek to slow down that timetable.
Under speedy trial rules, the judge can “exclude” certain time from the 70-day timer for a wide variety of reasons. Already, Judge Carter has said in court orders that he will exclude several weeks of time — starting with the Sept. 18 bail hearing and running to the next hearing next month — “in the interest of justice.” The next court date is a status conference currently scheduled for Oct. 9.
Another cause for delay would be if prosecutors filed so-called superseding indictments — an updated version of the case against Diddy. Such a filing could simply add new charges against Diddy based on newly-discovered evidence or testimony, or it could add new defendants to the case — not an unlikely outcome in a case that repeatedly references unnamed co-conspirators in Diddy’s alleged criminal enterprise.
At a press conference announcing the charges, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams suggested that could be exactly what prosecutors are planning. “I can’t take anything off the table,” Williams said. “Anything is possible. Our investigation is very active and ongoing.”