Online Reporter
Diddy’s bold new strategy has been revealed a week before his sex trafficking trial is set to begin.
The 55-year-old disgraced rap mogul — who was recently dealt a massive blow by the judge in the case — will have a defence built around his mental capacity to commit the crimes as his representatives are arguing that he was not of clear mind during the alleged crimes according to court documents.
According to court documents obtained by DailyMail.com, Diddy wants to have a doctor and Columbia professor Dr. Elie Aoun testify on his behalf that he had a ‘mental condition bearing on the issue of guilt.’
The details of his alleged condition had been redacted in the documents but there are a few clues of what it could be but federal prosecutors do not believe in its relevance.
According to the docs, prosecutors have stated that legal precedent requires the defense to give proper notice before offering any ‘evidence of the effects of drugs and alcohol on a defendant’s memory or cognitive function.’
Another clue would be that prosecutors are describing the doctor’s potential testimony as evidence of the ‘defendant’s inability to control behaviour.’
The federal indictment has included accusations that Diddy had drugged his victims into compliance during the alleged ‘freak offs’, however, now it is being called into question whether Diddy was also impaired during those acts.
However, prosecutors have argued that the doctor’s opinion on whether Diddy was ‘lucid’ is invalid as they point out that the medical professionals had never actually personally examined the rapper and testimony would be based on his experience with other people.
The docs also reveal that the prosecutors also wanted to block a testimony of a forensic video expert regarding the video of Diddy beating up ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
On Monday, TMZ reported that Judge Arun Subramanian ruled prosecutors can’t argue forced labor pertaining to one of Diddy’s employees at next week’s criminal trial.
But prosecutors will be allowed to let in sex-trafficking evidence against the three-time Grammy winner, who was trying to exclude evidence related to his alleged ‘freak offs.’
This comes days after it was revealed that the jury will be able to view the video in question, the judge in the case has ruled in a hearing today.
The damning evidence is a big blow for Diddy, even as his lawyers have claimed that the security tape of him violently assaulting Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway was ‘edited’ and ‘manipulated’.
It was also revealed today that Diddy plans to argue he was a ‘swinger’ and did nothing wrong during his sex parties, his lawyer said.
Marc Agnifilo said that the disgraced hip hop mogul will claim that he was part of a ‘lifestyle’, a reference to the term swingers use to describe having group sex.
While Diddy thought his behavior — which prosecutors have called drug-fuelled and abusive ‘Freak Offs’ — was ‘appropriate’ others may not have done so, Agnifilo said.
The comments came after Judge Arun Subramanian ruled that the jury will get to see the damning video.
Subramanian told Manhattan’s federal court that the footage was admissible because prosecutors planned to provide two witnesses who will say it accurately depicts events.
The video shows Diddy beating Ventura at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles in 2016 and was one of the key factors in his downfall.
It was aired by CNN in May 2024 and days later the disgraced hip hop mogul apologized publicly, posting on Instagram that he took ‘full responsibility’.
Diddy was arrested four months later and his lawyers have repeatedly attacked the video’s credibility, at one point demanding a hearing to ascertain whether it can be used during the trial.
Diddy, 55, whose real name is Sean Combs, is due to go on trial on May 5th, for sex trafficking.
He denies the allegations.
During the hearing, Agnifilo said that he wanted to argue that Diddy thought ‘this was part of a lifestyle’.
He said that the ‘defendant’s intent (is) that there’s a lifestyle, call it swingers, call it whatever you will, that he was in what he might have thought was appropriate’.
Judge Subramanian ruled that Diddy will be able to draw parallels with his own activities and other people but cannot mention specific examples.
The video of Diddy attacking Ventura shows him in a white towel of the hotel and repeatedly hitting her even though they stand in the corridor.
At one point he violently shoves her and then drags her across the floor — and throws a glass vase at her. In the court filings, Diddy’s lawyers have said that the CNN footage is ‘wholly inaccurate, having been altered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited to be out of sequence’.
The video cannot be authenticated because CNN only has a copy of the footage and not the original which it deleted, they claimed.
Diddy’s lawyers hired Connor McCourt, a forensic video analyst, who claimed in an affidavit that after performing an analysis of the CNN footage it had been ‘significantly sped up’.
There was also a ‘significant amount of distortion’ in the clip. — Daily Mail.
