A judge denied Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs bail for a third time on Wednesday, after prosecutors accused the music mogul of trying to tamper with witnesses and using fellow inmates’ resources to contact third parties in an attempt to sway a potential jury pool — all from behind bars.
The 55-year-old appeared in Manhattan federal court last Friday, hugging his lawyers and waving to his children, mother, and other family members who piled into the packed courtroom as they hoped for his release ahead of Thanksgiving.
In making the ruling, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian wrote that “the government has shown by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community.”
Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn since his arrest on Sept. 16. He pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution charges, which are largely built around Combs’ ex-partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s claims against Combs. If convicted, he faces 15 years to life in prison.
This is Combs’ third attempt at release after he was denied by two previous judges overseeing the case. He currently has an appeal pending in the Second Circuit, which will likely resume now that Judge Subramanian denied his request.
Combs’ high-powered defense team has been repeatedly trying to spring Combs from jail ahead of his May 2025 trial date, putting together a substantial $50 million bail package, which includes his Miami compound, some of his children’s passports, around-the-clock monitoring and routine drug testing as collateral and terms for his release. Combs also agreed to stay in New York, living in an Upper East side three-bedroom apartment, instead of his waterfront Miami mansion.
Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo compared Combs’ situation to Mike Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch who was arrested and charged with sex trafficking last month. The case is being tried in the Eastern District of New York and despite both men being accused of sex trafficking, the 80-year-old was released on a $10 million bond. Prosecutors say that beyond “superficial similarities,” Combs is charged with running a criminal enterprise “through violence, use of firearms, threats, coercion, and verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.”
Referencing the Jeffries case, Judge Subramanian noted that Combs is charged with “serious and violent crimes” and there are stark differences in their cases, such as the RICO charge against Combs.
Prosecutors have held firm that Combs should be held without bail, calling his team’s claims of new material misleading. They were adamant that Combs was a danger to the community, alleging that he has an extensive history of physical violence towards romantic partners, including once attempting to beat down a woman’s door with a hammer. Combs’ employees also “described the defendant threatening to kill them, throwing objects at them, and being struck, punched, and shoved by the defendant, and seeing him do the same to others,” according to court documents.
The government’s overall argument boiled down to the idea that the court couldn’t “trust” Combs, claiming that even while detained he wasn’t following rules. They claim he had been consistently violating Bureau of Prisons rules by using fellow inmates’ prison numbers to contact outside parties.
“To obtain or maintain access to other inmates’ PAC numbers, the defendant directs others to pay the inmates, including through payment processing apps and BOP commissary account deposits,” prosecutors alleged in court documents. They also claim Combs had been looping people that were not on his approved call list into three-way calls and using his children and their social media accounts as part of an orchestrated publicity campaign.
Prosecutors were concerned that Combs could tamper with witnesses and victims, alleging that in the lead-up to his arrest, he had been in contact with people who testified in the grand jury. There were also accusations of Combs allegedly using intermediaries to find “dirt” on people.
In fighting against the accusation, Combs’ team made the first reference to a third potential victim in the government’s case. Previously, prosecutors said they obtained text messages between Combs and an unnamed woman who, days after Ventura filed her lawsuit, allegedly texted Combs that the 35-page suit was like reading her own “sexual trauma.” Combs’ team denies that this second woman is a victim. And on Thursday, attorney Teny Geragos noted in a redacted letter that there “was never any instruction whatsoever that Mr. Combs, or counsel, would ‘blackmail’ Victim-3.”
Last week, Combs appeared in court twice, after his defense team requested an emergency hearing last Tuesday over SDNY prosecutors obtaining Combs’ personal notebooks. Combs’ team claimed the documents had been clearly labeled as legal notes and contained privileged attorney-client material.
In their opposition brief to the mogul’s release on bail, prosecutors included excerpts taken from Combs’ notebook labeled, “Things to Do,” which had been photographed during a pre-planned search of the MDC facility in late October. Prosecutors claimed these excerpts contained evidence of Combs’ alleged ongoing witness tampering. One of the jotted-down missives allegedly included instructions for a third party to find “dirt” on two potential victims. Another note related to a possible payment to a witness.
Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo accused the MDC search of being a “pretext” for prosecutors to unfairly target Combs. He claimed that Combs had clearly marked “legal” on top of the notes that prosecutors had in their possession — only to later admit that he wasn’t clear when Combs had written the label on the pads. Still, in a win for Combs, Judge Subramanian ordered prosecutors to get rid of all of the notes in their possession, and ruled that the government could not use the material as part of their detention argument until a full review had been conducted.
In mid-September, SDNY unveiled their 14-page indictment against Combs. The case is largely built around the experiences of Combs’ ex-partner Ventura. The R&B singer sued Combs for sex trafficking and sexual abuse in November 2023, claiming that throughout their decade-long relationship, Combs forced her to engage in sexual acts with male sex workers. Ventura alleged that she was threatened with physical violence, professional retribution, potential leaks of the footage, and was kept compliant through excessive drug use. (Combs and Ventura came to a private settlement a day after she filed her lawsuit.)
Prosecutors have repeatedly reminded Combs’ defense and the court that their investigation into Combs was ongoing, referring to “covert” investigation methods and secret grand jury proceedings — indicating that a superseding indictment remains a possibility.
The embattled music executive is also facing a growing pile of civil lawsuits. More than 30 men and women have sued Combs in New York and California, claiming they were assaulted by Combs from the Nineties and as recently as 2022. The claims come from former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, working models, aspiring artists, businessmen, security guards, and people who say they were teens at the time of their alleged encounters.
Combs has denied all claims of sex abuse through his reps. “As his legal team has said before, Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process,” his media team previously said in a statement to Rolling Stone.
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