Legal
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Dr. Dre is facing a $10 million lawsuit accusing him of a “malicious campaign of harassment” against a psychiatrist who says he served as a marriage counselor and mediator for the rapper and his ex-wife before and during their divorce.
In a case filed Wednesday (Oct. 9) in Los Angeles court, Dr. Charles J. Sophy claimed Dre (Andre Young) had subjected him to an “ongoing barrage of threats” after he had “worked diligently” to help him resolve his disputes with then-wife Nicole Young.
“Rather than treating the mediation process as an opportunity for healing, [Dre] decided to take his frustrations about the mediation out on Dr. Sophy — frustrations that manifested themselves in the form of a nearly year-long sustained campaign of late-night texts, threats of intimidation and violence, and homophobic rhetoric,” writes the doctor’s lawyer, Christopher Frost of the firm Frost LLP.
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The lawsuit seeks a restraining order against further harassment, as well as monetary damages that the accuser’s attorneys say should total at least $10 million. A representative for Dr. Dre did not immediately return a request for comment.
Nicole Young filed for divorce from Dr. Dre in 2020 after 24 years of marriage, citing allegations of abusive behavior that Dre vehemently denied. After another 18 months of legal wrangling, the couple finalized their divorce in December 2021 with a $100 million settlement.
According to Sophy’s lawsuit, the pair engaged him in 2018 for a “joint psychotherapist-patient relationship” in which he provided therapy and marriage counseling. After the divorce case began, he says he continued to work with the couple, along with their attorneys, to mediate the terms of the dissolution.
In February 2023, Sophy claims that after months of no contact, Dre began harassing him via text message. According to an alleged screenshot included in the complaint, in the first such message, Dre told Sophy that he had been told something “disturbing” by an unnamed person, followed by a threat: “You’re going to have to pay for that.”
Over the two months following that first text, Sophy says Dre repeatedly sent him threatening texts, accusing the doctor of “ethical breaches” and threatening to report him to medical regulators. In one, he allegedly told Sophy, “you f—ed with the wrong one”; in another, Dre allegedly said he was “not playing, trust me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Dre allegedly wrote in an April 2023 text, “until you explain to me why you tried to talk [an unnamed person] into saying negative things about me to the media.” Sophy says there is “no truth behind these baseless and far-fetched accusations” and that he tried to ignore the threats, but that he eventually began to fear for his safety.
“Young, a prominent and powerful figure in the music industry with a well-documented history of violence and abuse, carried out a series of unlawful acts deliberately intended to threaten, intimidate, terrorize, and ultimately ruin Dr. Sophy personally and professionally,” the lawsuit reads.
The threats extended beyond text messages, according to the lawsuit. In one alleged incident, Sophy claims that fake FBI agents, hired by Dre, arrived at his gated community and told a security guard that they needed to “talk” with the doctor at his home.
“This incident, which occurred immediately after the initial texts were sent in February, was not a coincidence,” Sophy’s lawyers write. “It was a calculated, unlawful attempt … to threaten his physical safety and send the unmistakable message that Young can reach Dr. Sophy even in the sanctity of his home.”
The incident caused Sophy to “fear for his life” and “resort to extreme security measures,” including hiring private security and wearing a bulletproof vest. His lawyers say the “egregiousness” of Dre’s conduct eventually “compelled Dr. Sophy to seek redress and protection” in the courts.
“Dr. Sophy does not relish suing a former patient,” the doctor’s lawyers write. “Nobody should have to live in constant fear. But Dr. Sophy does — ironically, for no other reason than he tried to help Young to resolve his own family’s conflict.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Dre of harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, as well as violation of a California law prohibiting the use of force or threat of violence to interfere with someone’s civil rights. The lawsuit also claims that some of the threats were based on Sophy’s sexual orientation, meaning they violated a California hate crime statute.
Barry White’s estate is suing over allegations that a prominent sample at the heart of Future and Metro Boomin’s chart-topping “Like That” infringes the copyright to a 1973 song by the legendary singer — but they aren’t accusing the stars of any wrongdoing.
In a complaint filed last week in Manhattan federal court, White’s estate claimed that a 1986 hip-hop song called “Everlasting Bass” by the duo Rodney-O (Rodney Oliver) & Joe Cooley stole key elements from White’s 1973 song “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby.”
Attorneys for the White estate say they waited nearly four decades to sue over the song because it was “released prior to the internet and was not widely distributed,” leaving the estate “unaware of the song when it was first released.”
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White’s heirs are certainly aware of “Everlasting” now, and it’s not hard to guess why: The song was heavily sampled in “Like That,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 earlier this year — so prominently that Future and Metro Boomin credited Rodney-O & Joe Cooley as co-writers.
By using an infringing sample, the lawsuit claims that “Like That” also infringes White’s copyrights: “‘Like That’ copies substantial elements of ‘I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Babe’ … including but not limited to the iconic, immediately recognizable bass line,” the estate wrote in its Thursday (Oct. 3) complaint.But crucially, the White estate isn’t accusing Future, Metro Boomin or co-creator Kendrick Lamar of any legal wrongdoing. The lawsuit pins the blame solely on Rodney-O & Joe Cooley, saying they agreed to defend the stars against such accusations when they cleared the sample.
The duo did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations.
Released in March as the third single off Future and Metro’s collaborative album We Don’t Trust You, “Like That” reigned at No. 1 for three weeks and spent another 28 weeks on the chart. At the time of its debut, most of the focus was on the lyrics — since the track was one of the early salvos in the diss war between Kendrick and Drake.
But the underlying music featured a sample from “Everlasting Bass,” a classic early hip-hop track that’s also been sampled by Three 6 Mafia, Lil Wayne and E-40. In an April interview with Vibe, Rodney-O said he loved what Future and Metro did with his song.
“It is crazy because the song was big when it came out and for it to be even bigger now all these years later, it’s crazy,” he said. “I heard the song, I knew it was good, but when it comes out and the world hears it how you hear it and react to it the way you reacted to it, that’s confirmation.”
As for White’s song, “Gonna Love You” is one of the legendary singer’s top commercial hits, peaking at No. 3 on the Hot 100 in June 1973 and ultimately spending 18 weeks on the chart.
Attorneys for Garth Brooks publicly disclosed the name of a woman who sued the country star for sexual assault last week in new court filings, drawing a sharp rebuke from the woman’s lawyers.
The reveal came via an updated version of a lawsuit Brooks himself filed last month, seeking to block an unnamed “Jane Roe” from publicizing her accusations. After she made good on those threats last week, Brooks refiled the case on Tuesday with her real name listed.
“Defendant’s allegations are not true,” the country star wrote in the amended lawsuit, leveling the same claims about “attempted extortion” and defamation.
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The move quickly sparked outrage from the accuser’s attorney, who later on Tuesday vowed to immediately move to reseal her name and seek legal penalties against Brooks. They also asked the media not to disclose the name
“Garth Brooks just revealed his true self,” Douglas H. Wigdor wrote. “Out of spite and to punish, he publicly named a rape victim. With no legal justification, Brooks outed her because he thinks the laws don’t apply to him. On behalf of our client, we will be moving for maximum sanctions against him immediately.”
Using the name Jane Roe, the accuser filed her case against Brooks last week in Los Angeles, accusing him of sexually assaulting her while she worked for him as a hairstylist and makeup artist. The case, which included an alleged incident of rape, claimed the singer took advantage of her financial troubles to subject her to “a side of Brooks that he conceals from the public.”
“This side of Brooks believes he is entitled to sexual gratification when he wants it, and using a female employee to get it is fair game,” Roe’s attorneys wrote in their complaint.
Brooks vehemently denied the allegations, saying in a statement that he had been threatened that the woman’s “lies” would be released to the public unless he wrote “a check for many millions of dollars.
“It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face,” Brooks wrote. “Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money. In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of—ugly acts no human should ever do to another.”
Brooks also confirmed he had been behind a mysterious lawsuit filed last month, obtained by Billboard, in which an anonymous “celebrity” plaintiff sued in Mississippi federal court over an unnamed accuser’s sexual abuse allegations. Calling the accusations false and an “ongoing attempted extortion,” the earlier case asked a judge to stop her from further publicizing them.
It was in the Mississippi case that Brooks revealed the accuser’s name on Tuesday. Billboard has chosen not to report the woman’s name.
A rep for Brooks declined to comment for this story.
Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs filed their opening salvo in an appeal of a judge’s ruling denying him bail, arguing the “sensationalism” of the case led a judge to rule based on “purely speculative” concerns about witness intimation.
In an opening brief filed late Tuesday, the rapper’s lawyers urge the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit to grant him bail – their third attempt to secure his release from a Brooklyn jail while he awaits trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
Combs’ attorneys argue that a lower judge had relied on “exaggerated rhetoric” and “speculation” when it ruled that Combs posed a flight risk and might threaten witnesses.
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“The sensationalism surrounding his arrest has distorted the bail analysis,” writes Alexandra A.E. Shapiro and Jason A. Driscoll. “Mr. Combs is presumed innocent … and presented a bail package that would plainly stop him from posing a danger to anyone or contacting any witnesses.”
Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But last 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, Judge Andrew L. Carter denied the rapper bail. Combs’ legal team offered to pay a $50 million bond and submit to strict monitoring to allow him to reside under house arrest at his Miami mansion.
But Carter (who has since been replaced by another judge) ruled instead that until trial Combs must remain at the Metropolitan Detention Center — a federal correctional facility long criticized for dysfunction and dangerous conditions. He was swayed by arguments from prosecutors that, if released, Combs would likely use his considerable wealth and power to obstruct the government’s case by pressuring witnesses.
In Tuesday’s brief, Combs’ attorneys argue that there was little hard evidence to support that conclusion. They say the government’s warnings had been based on “untested allegations” of contact with witnesses involved in the civil lawsuits against him, as well as his public denial of some of those claims.
“If denying accusations by civil plaintiffs could justify pre-trial detention, the liberty protections of the Bail Reform Act and the Constitution—not to mention the First Amendment—would be meaningless,” his lawyers write.
Read the entire brief here:
Weeks after Nelly’s former St. Lunatics groupmates sued him for allegedly cutting them out of royalties for his chart-topping breakout album Country Grammar, three of the ex-bandmates now say they never wanted to be part of the lawsuit and must be removed immediately.
In a letter sent last month, Nelly’s attorney warned the lawyer who filed the case last month that Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan) and City Spud (Lavell Webb) had recently retained his services and had “informed me that they did not authorize you to include them as plaintiffs.”
“They are hereby demanding you remove their names forthwith,” N. Scott Rosenblum wrote in the Sept. 24 letter, which was obtained by Billboard. “Failure to do so will cause them to explore any and all legal remedies available to them.”
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The move is a major twist just weeks after Harper, Kyjuan and Webb joined fellow St. Lunatics member Ali (Ali Jones) in filing the lawsuit against Nelly (Cornell Haynes). But it also makes sense after Nelly’s performance on Sunday (Oct. 6) at the American Music Awards, where all three men joined him on stage and appeared to be on good terms.
The withdrawal of Harper, Kyjuan and Webb means that the case is now essentially a dispute between Nelly and Ali alone. Ali’s attorney who filed the case, Gail M. Walton, did not immediately return a request for comment.
A group of high school friends from St. Louis, the St. Lunatics rose to prominence in the late 1990s with “Gimme What U Got”, and their debut album Free City — released a year after Country Grammar — was a hit of its own, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
In their Sept. 18 complaint, the bandmates claimed that Nelly had repeatedly “manipulated” them into falsely thinking they’d be paid for their work on the 2000 album, which spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200. But they said he never made good on the promises.
“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
During and after the Country Grammar recording session, the lawsuit claimed, Nelly “privately and publicly acknowledged that plaintiffs were the lyric writers” and “promised to ensure that plaintiffs received writing and publishing credit.” But decades later, in 2020, the lawsuit claimed that the St. Lunatics “discovered that defendant Haynes had been lying to them the entire time.”
“Despite repeatedly promising plaintiffs that they would receive full recognition and credit… it eventually became clear that defendant Haynes had no intention of providing the plaintiffs with any such credit or recognition,” the lawsuit read.
Limp Bizkit and frontman Fred Durst are suing Universal Music Group (UMG) over allegations that the label owes the band more than $200 million, with Durst’s lawyers writing that he had “not seen a dime in royalties” over the decades — and that hundreds of other artists may have been treated similarly.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Oct. 8) in Los Angeles federal court, attorneys for Durst and the 1990s rap rock band accused UMG of implementing a “systemic” and “fraudulent” policy that was “deliberately designed” to conceal royalties from artists and “keep those profits for itself.”
“UMG’s creation of such a system, while holding itself out as a company that prides itself on investing in and protecting its artists, makes plaintiffs’ discovery of UMG’s scheme all the more appalling and unsettling,” Durst’s lawyers write, adding that “possibly hundreds of other artists” had also “unfairlyhad their royalties wrongfully withheld for years.”
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In a stunning claim, Durst alleges that as recently as August, Limp Bizkit had “never received any royalties from UMG,” despite the band’s huge success during its turn-of-the-century peak. The lawsuit said the band’s albums had all sold millions of copies, and that Limp Bizkit continues to have “millions of streaming users per month on Spotify alone.”
“Despite this tremendous ‘come back,’ the band had still not been paid a single cent by UMG in any royalties until taking action against UMG, leading one to ask how on earth that could possibly be true,” Durst’s lawyers write.
A spokesman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
Durst claims that the current dispute dates to April when he retained new representatives who were “shocked” when he informed them he had “not received any money for any Limp Bizkit exploitations — ever.” He claims UMG had previously told him that he was not being paid because the band remained unrecouped — meaning its royalties still had not surpassed the amount the group had been paid in upfront advances.
“Durst explained that he had been informed by UMG that he had not received any royalty statements because UMG told him over the years that it was not required to provide them since his account was still so far from recoupment,” his lawyers write. “Durst’s representatives, suspicious that UMG was wrongfully claiming Plaintiffs’ accounts were unrecouped, suggested investigating further.”
When Durst’s reps contacted UMG, they say they learned that Limp Bizkit’s accounts actually held more than $1 million in royalties but that the label had “failed to alert” the band about the money. That prompted more suspicion about “UMG’s accounting and payment practices” and an investigation into Limp Bizkit’s records.
They didn’t like what they found. According to the lawsuit, UMG had allegedly failed to issue royalty statements at all during significant periods of the band’s history, including “during the height of Limp Bizkit’s fame.”
“UMG’s failure to issue royalty statements in particular from 1997-2004 — the height of the band’s fame and during periods in which they made record-breaking sales — with respect to its most popular albums suggests that UMG was intentionally concealing the true amount of sales, and therefore royalties, due and owing to Limp Bizkit in order to unfairly keep those profits for itself.”
The suggestion that the band’s albums are still unrecouped is also “highly suspect,” Durst’s lawyers write, citing the band’s huge commercial success during its early years: “Given that Limp Bizkit’s first three albums had already sold several million copies by the early 2000s, the recording funds and costs should have been quickly recouped, and UMG should have started paying royalties on those albums right away — not over twenty years later,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit also points to potential “fraudulent accounting practices” that Durst’s attorneys claim were used by UMG to improperly keep the band in the red and avoid paying royalties.
“But where did this additional $199,676.00 charged to the account come from?” his lawyers write, referring to one such alleged inconsistency. “It seems to have come out of thin air to overdraft Limp Bizkit’s due and payable account in order to defraud Limp Bizkit and show an unrecouped account.”
When those issues were raised with UMG, the lawsuit says the label argued that Limp Bizkit had been paid $43 million in recoupable advances over the years, which explained why the royalties had not started flowing into the accounts until recently. Durst’s attorneys say the label eventually released $1.03 million to the band and $2.3 million to Durst’s Flawless Records, but that they’re owed far more than that.
“Given the vast amounts of money collected by UMG in relation to sales of Limp Bizkit’s and Flawless Records’ albums over the years … UMG is liable to plaintiffs for tens of millions of dollars in copyright infringement, if not more,” the lawsuit reads. “Indeed, Plaintiffs allege that the amounts owed to them by UMG following the rescission of these agreements will easily surpass $200 million.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit seeks not only allegedly unpaid royalties, but also a ruling voiding the band’s contract with the label, the return of the band’s copyrights to their recordings and copyright infringement damages over those rights.
You know the story: A superstar musician, dogged by rumors of abuse, is finally served with a sweeping federal criminal case – one that accuses him of running a criminal enterprise centered on his own sexual desires.
But are we talking about Sean “Diddy” Combs or about R. Kelly?
In many ways, the charges unveiled last month against Combs mirror those brought in 2019 against Kelly, a chart-topping R&B singer who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2022 after a jury convicted him of decades of abuse. There are key differences – most notably, Combs is not accused of victimizing minors – but the themes and charges echo those in the earlier case.
So to understand more, we turned to the best experts possible: Nadia Shihata and Maria Cruz Melendez, two of the lead prosecutors who tried the case against Kelly. Now in private practice, Shihata and Cruz Melendez discussed the Combs case with Billboard in separate interviews – about how a case like this is built, who else might face charges, and what the fight ahead will look like.
“Every case is different, but there are certainly parallels,” Shihata says.
What are the charges against Diddy?
Like with Kelly, prosecutors have built their case against Combs under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – the federal “RICO” statute you’ve probably heard mentioned in mob movies or “Breaking Bad.” He’s facing other charges, too, like alleged violations of two different federal sex trafficking laws, but the core narrative is that Combs built a sprawling criminal enterprise – only one aimed not at illegal gambling or drug trafficking, but at facilitating his own sexual abuse.
“While most people associate racketeering with the mafia, the statute’s reach is not limited to what many may think of as traditional crime syndicates,” says Cruz Melendez, now in private practice at the top law firm Skadden.
Enacted in the 1970s, RICO allows prosecutors to target an entire illicit organization, sweeping up many seemingly unrelated crimes committed by multiple people over an extended period of time and charging them as a single criminal conspiracy. It was designed to help prosecutors target organized crime, where bosses often insulate themselves from the actual, individual crimes.
Unsurprisingly, the law has been used repeatedly over the years to target mobsters, including Gambino family members like John Gotti. It’s also been brought to bear against corrupt judges like those behind the “kids for cash” scandal, as well as white supremacist groups, drug cartels, terrorist groups and financial fraudsters.
But in the years since the start of the #MeToo movement, federal prosecutors in New York have begun turning RICO toward another target: powerful men who allegedly create such criminal enterprises around mass-scale sexual abuse.
In 2019, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Keith Raniere, the leader of a cult in upstate New York called Nxivm, of violating RICO by turning vulnerable women into sexual “slaves.” Weeks later, the same office filed their indictment against Kelly, alleging the star and his co-conspirators had worked together to “recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with Kelly.”
That type of RICO case is novel but not altogether surprising, according to Shihata, who says its simply took an increased recognition of “how powerful men at the height of their success often commit and conceal these crimes.”
“They don’t do it alone,” says Shihata, who now runs her own firm Shihata & Geddes LLP. “It’s often with the help of an entourage of employees, sycophants, and yes-men willing to do their bidding and look the other way.”
In cases like those against Kelly and Combs, RICO provides powerful advantages for the government versus more traditional means of prosecuting sexual abuse. It allows prosecutors to cite years-old conduct that would otherwise be barred under statutes of limitations, and lets them tell a more comprehensive story to jurors — one that’s less susceptible to a ‘he said, she said’ defense narrative about individual incidents.
“It’s like the difference between watching a full TV series versus just one scene of one episode,” Shihata says.
How will prosecutors make their case?
To prove a RICO case, prosecutors needs to show that such a criminal enterprise existed and Combs participated in it by engaging in at least two of the so-called predicate acts they list in their indictment – the many individual crimes that make up the overarching pattern of illegal conduct.
Of course, those alleged predicates include the core claims of abusive sexual behavior, like the elaborate “freak off” sex parties that are repeatedly detailed in the indictment. But they also include everything else that enabled that conduct and prevented it from being uncovered, including allegations of arson, kidnapping and bribery, as well as obstruction of justice by pressuring witnesses to remain silent.
To support those claims, prosecutors say they’ve already interviewed more than 50 witnesses who have provided “detailed, credible, and corroborated information” against Combs, including “many of whom saw or experienced the defendant’s abuse.” And the feds say they expect the witness list to “continue to grow” now that the case is public.
The government will back up that testimony with digital evidence, which it says it has already pulled from over 120 cellphones, laptops and other electronic devices, as well as with physical evidence — like the infamous thousand bottles of baby oil that made headlines last month. And then there’s the 2016 video of Combs assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, which prosecutors specifically cite in court filings.
That same approach is what worked during the Kelly trial, when jurors heard testimony from 45 witnesses over 20 days, including eight of his former employees and 11 of his alleged victims, backed up by plenty of evidence, including letters that prosecutors alleged Kelly had forced his victims to write.
Having been at the center of that prosecution, Shihata says she expects Diddy’s prosecutors to focus on telling “the story of everything that happened leading up to the sexual activity,” including threats, isolation, financial dependence, blackmail and other actions that allegedly forced women to have sex when they didn’t want to.
“These are the tools of coercive control,” Shihata says. “In the R. Kelly case, we called it the ‘Predator’s Playbook’.”
How will Combs defend himself?
As in any American criminal case, the burden will be on the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Combs actually committed the many things he’s been accused of. His lawyers don’t need to present their own sweeping narrative or prove his innocence; they just need to poke enough holes in the case against him that jurors aren’t certain he’s guilty.
One key way they might try to do that is to argue that his sexual behavior, while certainly weird and unseemly, was ultimately still consensual. At a bail hearing last month, Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo hinted at that argument, telling the judge that the star and then-girlfriend Cassie had brought sex workers into their relationship because “that was the way these two adults chose to be intimate.”
“One of the central issues of the case will be whether the alleged victims engaged in some of the conduct at issue consensually with Combs and others,” says Cruz Melendez. “Counsel’s statements suggest that they intend to present their own witnesses who will counter victim narratives that they were forced or coerced.”
The issue of consent is actually a key point of distinction between the new case against Combs and the earlier case against Kelly. Since Kelly’s charges largely dealt with sex with minors – which is illegal under any circumstances – such a defense would not have succeeded.
With consent at play in the Combs case, Shihata says his defense attorneys will likely try to narrow the case down to specific incidents that undercut the prosecution’s broader narrative. “In all likelihood, the defense will try to focus the jury on snapshots in time,” she says, “arguing that on a particular day, a particular victim consented to sexual activity.”
Combs’ attorneys will also likely argue that the alleged misconduct simply doesn’t meet the definition of racketeering – and that prosecutors are abusing RICO to make their case. In appealing Kelly’s conviction, for instance, his attorneys have argued that the government is stretching the federal statute “to the point of absurdity” by using it in such cases, potentially turning things like college fraternities into illegal RICO conspiracies.
One crucial question ahead of any criminal trial is whether the defendant himself will testify in their own defense. It’s often a terrible idea – taking the stand can subject a defendant to withering cross-examination from prosecutors, and it can backfire badly if jurors don’t like what they see and hear. That’s probably why R. Kelly didn’t testify in either of his two federal criminal trials.
But according to Agnifilo, Combs himself currently plans to take the stand. In an interview with TMZ, the attorney said “I don’t know that I could keep him off the stand” and that he is “very eager to tell his story.”
“He has a story that I think only he can tell in the way he can tell it in real time,” the attorney said in the interview, seemingly referring to his relationship with Cassie. “And it’s a human story. It’s a story of love, it’s a story of hurt, it’s a story of heartbreak.”
Will others be charged?
By its very nature, a RICO case usually centers on allegations involving multiple people. And in their case against Combs, prosecutors repeatedly mention unnamed co-conspirators who allegedly helped the music mogul commit his crimes.
“The defendant arranged freak offs with the assistance of members and associates of the enterprise, including employees of his business,” prosecutors write in one such passage. “When the defendant faced the possibility that his violent and criminal conduct could become public, the defendant and other members and associates of the enterprise pressured witnesses and victims.”
But despite those repeated references, only Combs is actually charged with committing crimes. That’s another similarity with the Kelly case, where prosecutors detailed years of alleged help by members of his entourage, but only charged the man himself with RICO violations. (Two Kelly associates were charged in a separate case filed in Chicago over different criminal charges.)
For a case that paints a picture of vast group of wrongdoers, the lack of co-defendants might seem strange, but Cruz Melendez says it’s not that unusual: “Prosecuting a single individual for racketeering is certainly not unheard of, particularly where the defendant is the alleged leader or a top-ranking member of the charged enterprise,” she says.
And, crucially, the lack of co-defendants in the initial indictment doesn’t mean nobody else will be charged at some point in the future. At a press conference announcing the charges against Combs, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams warned that the investigation was “very active and ongoing” and that “can’t take anything off the table” as the case moves forward.
“It’s very possible that other members of the enterprise have already been charged under seal and pled guilty pursuant to cooperation agreements, and are helping prosecutors build their case,” Shihata says. “It’s also possible that additional people will be charged in the future as the investigation is ongoing and the government continues to gather information and evidence.”
When will the trial take place? And what happens next?
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. Though defendants often waive that right to give their attorneys more time to prepare a defense, Agnifilo has declined to do that so far – saying instead that he’s “going to do everything I can to move his case as quickly as possible.”
But that 70-day time limit has lots of exceptions that can still push a trial back, including pre-trial motions, appeals, or simply if the judge decides the case is too complex. The trial could also be delayed if prosecutors file charges against new defendants, or add additional charges against Combs.
Already, Judge Andrew L. Carter has “excluded” several weeks from the speedy trial clock – and both Cruz Melendez and Shihata say there’s little chance Combs’ trial happens in the next few months.
“I don’t expect a case like this to actually go to trial in 70 days or anywhere near that,” Shihata says. “Run-of-the-mill federal cases can take about a year to get to trial, assuming no superseding indictments are filed. But this case may well take longer, particularly given that there appears to be voluminous electronic discovery in the case.”
Until then, both sides will prepare for trial. The government will continue its investigation, potentially using what they find to add new witnesses, evidence, charges or defendants to the case. Shihata also expects the prosecutors to file a motion, like in the Kelly case, to allow jurors to remain anonymous and to let witnesses and victims to use pseudonyms when they testify.
Combs’ team, meanwhile, will continue seeking to have him released on bail while awaiting trial, a request that was twice rejected by lower judges. They’ve filed an appeal to a federal appeals court, where the question remains pending; the outcome of that appeal could play a key role in how fast his lawyers seek to take the case to trial.
In the meantime, Diddy’s attorneys will sift through the evidence prosecutors plan to use at trial, likely filing pre-trial motions asking the judge to dismiss aspects of the case and to exclude certain evidence and witnesses. They’ll also continue conducting their own investigation, seeking to find witnesses and evidence to use to rebut the government’s case.
Whether they can successfully do so – or whether Combs instead faces a similar fate as Kelly — will ultimately be decided by 12 jurors in a Manhattan federal courtroom.
“At the end of the day, the indictment is just the government’s allegations,” Cruz Melendez says. “The government will need to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from R. Kelly over his 2022 convictions on child pornography and enticement charges, leaving him with no further direct appeals from a verdict that saw him sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Kelly’s attorneys had urged the high court to take up the case, in which a federal jury in Chicago convicted him in September 2022, by arguing that the case should have been barred by the statute of limitations.
But in an order Monday, the justices declined to tackle the case. As is typical, the court did not explain its decision to reject Kelly’s case along with dozens of others. The Supreme Court receives thousands of petitions per year and only decides to hear a tiny fraction them.
Monday’s order dealt only one of Kelly’s two sets of sex abuse convictions. The other — a September 2021 guilty verdict on racketeering charges brought by prosecutors in New York that resulted in a 30-year prison sentence — is still pending on appeal before a lower appellate court.
In the current case, a different team of federal prosecutors from Chicago accused Kelly of violating child pornography laws, enticing minors for sex and obstructing justice by upending a 2008 criminal trial.
Though he was acquitted on certain counts, Kelly was convicted in September 2022 and later sentenced to 20 years in prison; the vast majority of that sentence will be served concurrently with the New York sentence. The conviction was affirmed by a lower appeals court earlier this year.
In asking the justices to consider overturning that ruling, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean cited the statute of limitations. She said that an updated federal law extending the time limit, passed in 2003, could not be applied retroactively to Kelly’s alleged crimes, which occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“Retroactive application of the 2003 amendment not only fly in the face of congressional intent,” Bonjean writes. “It violates notions of fundamental fairness.”
Barring an unusual outcome at some point in the future, Monday’s decision effectively finalized Kelly’s convictions and sentencing in the Chicago case. The separate convictions in the New York case could still be overturned, however, either by the lower appeals court or by the Supreme Court.
Kelly’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.
Janice Combs, mother to Sean “Diddy” Combs, has released a statement on behalf of the Combs family amid ongoing sex crime allegations against the music mogul.
Combs was indicted by federal prosecutors in mid-September on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and denied bail.
In a statement released Sunday (Oct. 6) through attorney Natlie G. Figgers, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Combs’ mother said Diddy is not guilty of the allegations against him: “My son is not the monster they have painted him to be, and he deserves the chance to tell his side.”
“It is heartbreaking to see my son judged not for the truth, but for a narrative created out of lies,” reads her statement, which comes five days after it was reported Diddy will face lawsuits from 120 additional accusers for alleged incidents dating as far back as 1991. “To bear witness [to] what seems to be like a public lynching of my son before he has had the opportunity to prove his innocence is a pain too unbearable to put into words. Like every human being, my son deserves to have his day in court, to finally share his side, and to prove his innocence.”
Indictment documents unsealed on Sept. 17 said, “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. To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”
Combs was denied bail. If convicted of the charges, he faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life behind bars.
On Sunday, his mother said, “I am not here to portray my son as perfect because he is not. He has made mistakes in his past, as we all have.”
She referenced the lawsuit Combs settled last year from singer and ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who accused him of rape and abuse. Combs had denied her allegations, but when video surfaced of him physically assaulting her in a hotel, issued an apology.
“My son may not have been entirely truthful about certain things, such as denying he has ever gotten violent with an ex-girlfriend when the hotel’s surveillance showed otherwise,” Janice Combs said in her statement. “Sometimes, the truth and a lie become so closely intertwined that it becomes terrifying to admit one part of the story, especially when that truth is outside the norm or is too complicated to be believed. This is why I believe my son’s civil legal team opted to settle the ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit instead of contesting it until the end, resulting in a ricochet effect as the federal government used this decision against my son by interpreting it as an admission of guilt.”
She said this does not make him guilty of the multiple “repulsive allegations and the grave charges leveled against him.”
“Many individuals who were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated had their freedom taken from them not because they were guilty of the crimes they were accused of, but because they didn’t fit the image of what this society considers to be a ‘good person.’ History has showed us how individuals can be wrongfully convicted due to their past actions or mistakes,” she said.
“It is truly agonizing to watch the world turn against my son so quickly and easily over lies and misconceptions, without ever hearing his side or affording him the opportunity to present his side,” she added.
“These lies thrown at him are motivated by those seeking a financial gain, and not justice,” reads the statement. “These individuals saw how quickly my son’s civil legal team settled his ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit, so they believe they can receive a quick payday by falsely accusing my son. False allegations of sexual assault thwart true victims of sexual violence from getting the justice they deserve. To make matters worse, the federal government is now using these lies to prosecute my son. This injustice has been unbearable for our family. The worst part of this ordeal is watching my beloved son be stripped of his dignity, not for what he did, but for what people choose to believe about him.”
RBD‘s five members — Maite Perroni, Christian Chávez and Christopher von Uckermann — announced on Friday (Oct. 4) that “the matter has concluded.”
Rosas and RBD parted ways in January after the Mexican band’s ultra-successful Soy Rebelde World Tour. In May, RBD revealed in a statement issued by its lawyers that there were “significant irregularities” revealed in a forensic accounting investigation led by Critin Cooperman — a services firm that acted as a business manager for the tour and had also conducted a financial audit.
In a statement shared on Friday (Oct. 4) — known to fans as World RBD Day — Perroni, Chávez and von Uckermann wrote: “As set forth in the final agreement, T6H, through its owner Guillermo Rosas, was claiming that Guillermo’s company was entitled to $10,072,811.00 in connection with Guillermo and his company’s management of RBD’s live performance tour in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Following our filing of a complaint against Guillermo and his company in both Federal Court and with the California Labor Commissioner, in addition to a thorough audit we commissioned, T6H agreed as part of the final settlement agreement to accept the sum of $4,723,591.00, an amount which is $5,349,220.00 less than what Guillermo was claiming to be owed.”
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Notably, RBD’s other two members, Anahí and Dulce María, did not sign on to the letter. An RBD representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on their absence.
In December, RBD wrapped its massive world tour, which as of Nov. 30 had grossed $197.1 million since launching in August. Rosas also worked with the band as a concert promoter from 2006 to 2008. Under a new business model designed for RBD’s comeback tour, the group’s first trek in 15 years, the five members and Rosas were deemed equal partners in a new joint venture, splitting all new revenue, including for music.
The statement continues: “This is why we made the decision to take action in this situation. We felt a responsibility to address the challenges that can arise in the industry, with our priority being the protection of artists rights. This is a reminder for young artists to have the courage to stand up for themselves and demand respect. We are very satisfied with the outcome of our action and will continue to advocate for justice and respect in the artistic world.”
Billboard reached out to Guillermo Rosas but had not heard back at press time.
Read Perroni, Chávez and von Uckermann’s statement below in Spanish, Portuguese and English: