Judge Greg Mathis Hypothetically Sentences Sean 'Diddy' Combs Based On Trial So Far
The television veteran is first sure to acknowledge that the prosecution has yet to prove without a doubt the sex trafficking and racketeering charges. However, he does believe they have proven Combs guilty of the third charge, which is transportation to engage in prostitution.
'Yes, that is a federal crime. A very low-level federal crime, which he should be guilty of and sentenced to less than one year. On the other hand, you got some state crimes and the statute of limitations has expired, and that's why they aren't charging him in state court.'
Judge Mathis then hypothesized that the state charges were valid, and offered his thoughts on how Diddy would be sentenced under those circumstances.
'Let me say what I think has been proven,' Mathis says in the clip. 'The things I've heard, the testimony, the video I've observed, I'm convinced that he was involved in at least two cases of assault and battery against women.' He later adds that he believes Diddy was involved in Kid Cudi's car being set ablaze, to which Cudi testified in court.
'To that extent, I'd have to give him a couple or a few years,' Mathis determined. And on the multiple assaults and batteries against women, I'd have to give him a few more on that. If you want to sum it up, If it were a state crime, Judge Mathis has observed the evidence and the testimony and the transcripts. What would I give him? Five to ten.'
'Which is not letting him off on anything,' Mathis' son, Amir, added. 'That's a tough sentence, In my opinion.' Check out the clip below.
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Associated Press
39 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Sean 'Diddy' Combs gets standing ovation from inmates after court victory, his lawyer says
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean 'Diddy' Combs got a standing ovation from fellow inmates when the music mogul returned to jail after winning acquittals on potential life-in-prison charges, providing what his lawyer says might have been the best thing he could do for Black incarcerated men in America. 'They all said: 'We never get to see anyone who beats the government,'' attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a weekend interview days after a jury acquitted Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. Combs, 55, remains jailed after his Wednesday conviction on prostitution-related charges and could still face several years in prison at an upcoming sentencing after being credited for 10 months already served. After federal agents raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami in March 2024, the lawyer said he told Combs to expect arrest on sex trafficking charges. 'I said: 'Maybe it's your fate in life to be the guy who wins,'' he recalled during a telephone interview briefly interrupted by a jailhouse call from Combs. 'They need to see that someone can win. I think he took that to heart.' Blunt trial strategy works The verdict came after a veteran team of eight defense lawyers led by Agnifilo executed a trial strategy that resonated with jurors. Combs passed lawyers notes during effective cross examinations of nearly three dozen witnesses over two months, including Combs' ex-employees. The lawyers told jurors Combs was a jealous domestic abuser with a drug problem who participated in the swinger lifestyle through threesomes involving Combs, his girlfriends and another man. 'You may think to yourself, wow, he is a really bad boyfriend,' Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors in her May opening statement. But that, she said, 'is simply not sex trafficking.' Agnifilo said the blunt talk was a 'no brainer.' 'The violence was so clear and up front and we knew the government was going to try to confuse the jury into thinking it was part of a sex trafficking effort. So we had to tell the jury what it was so they wouldn't think it was something it wasn't,' he said. Combs and his lawyers seemed deflated Tuesday when jurors said they were deadlocked on the racketeering count but reached a verdict on sex trafficking and lesser prostitution-related charges. A judge ordered them back to deliberate Wednesday. 'No one knows what to think,' Agnifilo said. Then he slept on it. Morning surprise awakes lawyer 'I wake up at three in the morning and I text Teny and say: 'We have to get a bail application together,' he recalled. 'It's going to be a good verdict for us but I think he went down on the prostitution counts so let's try to get him out.' He said he 'kind of whipped everybody into feeling better' after concluding jurors would have convicted him of racketeering if they had convicted him of sex trafficking because trafficking was an alleged component of racketeering. Agnifilo met with Combs before court and Combs entered the courtroom rejuvenated. Smiling, the onetime Catholic schoolboy prayed with family. In less than an hour, the jury matched Agnifilo's prediction. The seemingly chastened Combs mouthed 'thank you' to jurors and smiled as family and supporters applauded. After he was escorted from the room, spectators cheered the defense team, a few chanting: 'Dream Team! Dream Team!' Several lawyers, including Geragos, cried. 'This was a major victory for the defense and a major loss for the prosecution,' said Mitchell Epner, a lawyer who worked with Agnifilo as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey over two decades ago. He credited 'a dream team of defense lawyers' against prosecutors who almost always win. Agnifilo showcased what would become his trial strategy — belittling the charges and mocking the investigation that led to them — last September in arguing unsuccessfully for bail. The case against Combs was what happens when the 'federal government comes into our bedrooms,' he said. Lawyers gently questioned most witnesses During an eight-week trial, Combs' lawyers picked apart the prosecution case with mostly gentle but firm cross-examinations. Combs never testified and his lawyers called no witnesses. Sarah Krissoff, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, said Combs' defense team 'had a narrative from the beginning and they did all of it without putting on any witnesses. That's masterful.' Ironically, Agnifilo expanded the use of racketeering laws as a federal prosecutor on an organized crime task force in New Jersey two decades ago, using them often to indict street gangs in violence-torn cities. 'I knew the weak points in the statute,' he said. 'The statute is very mechanical. If you know how the car works, you know where the fail points are.' He said prosecutors had 'dozens of fail points.' 'They didn't have a conspiracy, they just didn't,' he said. 'They basically had Combs' personal life and tried to build racketeering around personal assistants.' Some personal assistants, even after viewing videos of Combs beating his longtime girlfriend, Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, had glowing things to say about Combs on cross examination. Once freed, Combs likely to re-enter domestic abusers program For Combs, Agnifilo sees a long road ahead once he is freed as he works on personal demons, likely re-entering a program for domestic batterers that he had just started before his arrest. 'He's doing OK,' said Agnifilo, who speaks with him four or five times daily. He said Combs genuinely desires improvement and 'realizes he has flaws like everyone else that he never worked on.' 'He burns hot in all matters. I think what he has come to see is that he has these flaws and there's no amount of fame and no amount of fortune' that can erase them,' he said. 'You can't cover them up.' For Agnifilo, a final surprise awaited him after Combs' bail was rejected when a man collapsed into violent seizures at the elevators outside the courtroom. 'I'm like: 'What the hell?'' recalled the lawyer schooled in treating seizures. Agnifilo straddled him, pulling him onto his side and using a foot to prevent him from rolling backward while a law partner, Jacob Kaplan, put a backpack under the man's head and Agnifilo's daughter took his pulse. 'We made sure he didn't choke on vomit. It was crazy. I was worried about him,' he said. The man was eventually taken away conscious by rescue workers, leaving Agnifilo to ponder a tumultuous day. 'It was like I was getting punked by God,' he said.
Fox News
2 hours ago
- Fox News
'Diddy's' Legal Troubles Not Over
A former escort is launching a lawsuit against disgraced music mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs, who was recently acquitted of rackateering and sex trafficking charges, an adult film star was found dead and one actor is in hot water for actions on social media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
How the Sean Combs Verdict May Have ‘Chilling Effect' on Cases for Abuse Victims
Follow all of our Sean Combs trial coverage When a jury of eight men and four women cleared Sean Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges on Wednesday – the most severe charges leveled against him by federal prosecutors – reaction was decidedly mixed. More from Rolling Stone Sean Combs Alternate Juror Speaks Out Beating RICO Charges Doesn't Make Diddy a Hero Charlize Theron on Why She Won't Reveal Name of Director She Alleges Sexually Harassed Her Combs' supporters cheered the news as a total vindication. While he was convicted of two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and conceded during the trial that was physically violent in his personal relationships, he was acquitted on the top counts and avoided the worst-case scenario of a possible life sentence. The national women's advocacy group UltraViolet called the verdict a 'stain on the criminal justice system,' and 'an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.' Legal experts say the verdict was also a big loss for the team of prosecutors who tried the case for the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. Yes, the prosecutors managed to convict Combs of two counts under the Mann Act – securing some sort of prison sentence for the rich and powerful defendant. But that was the 'low-hanging fruit' in the government's sprawling case, Alyse Adamson, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, tells Rolling Stone. 'This is a huge, huge blow,' Adamson says, referring to prosecutors and the complicated case they put on with 34 witnesses over nearly two months of trial. 'This is a huge win for Combs.' For other prosecutors, this could make them think twice about using RICO in a 'novel' way, she says. 'Obviously, they were using the RICO to try to bring charges against Combs that they otherwise couldn't bring because the statute of limitations had already run,' she explains. 'The problem,' according to Adamson, is that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act enacted in 1970 is understood as something used to go after mob bosses, and 'this Combs 'enterprise' wasn't really a clearly defined and structured organization' that you see in a typical RICO case. 'I think they had evidence that somebody had been doing bad things for a long time, and the prosecutors wanted to bring a righteous prosecution to try to catch him, and I think they just were a little over their skis,' Adamson says. Brad Bailey, another former federal prosecutor who now works as a defense attorney in Boston, says the verdict 'certainly suggests an overreach on the part of the Southern District.' 'They've expended a great deal of resources. Six prosecutors on the case is an inordinately high number to commit to any one case. They also have committed a great deal of law enforcement resources in terms of the investigating agents. There was a big splash with the high-profile searches with guns drawn at his residences … so this is an embarrassment in terms of what could have been an overreach,' Bailey says. 'On the other hand, you never know what type of factor notoriety and fame place on these cases, and that's always the wild card – the unknown X factor.' Bailey noted that the jury signaled more than once to the judge that they were having trouble reaching consensus with the clock ticking. When they were selected, the judge told them he expected they would be finished with the trial by the Fourth of July holiday this week. 'My guess is that this is a jury that was tired and wanted to go home and there was contentiousness in there,' Bailey says, 'and they just decided that this was the proper reflection of the evidence as presented.' 'I'm as pro-prosecution as they come. But you have to respect the jury verdict. The jurors rejected these allegations. This was a failed prosecution,' Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor now working as a victims' rights attorney in Los Angeles, tells Rolling Stone. Rahmani says the outcome of Combs' very high-profile trial will likely have a chilling effect on the willingness of other victims and prosecutors to move forward with other cases. 'There's no question,' he says. 'Imagine going and testifying before 12 strangers and telling them that you were urinated on in your mouth … that you were forced to have sex on your period or while you had UTIs, and the jurors don't believe you? You're talking about the most graphic, explicit, personal details of your sex life, and they think you're a liar. 'I've had maybe over 100 conversations in my office when I'm talking to a victim, and I explained what a civil or criminal trial entails and that you're going to have to testify publicly and you're going to be cross-examined and you have to tell your story and relive your trauma in a very public way,' he adds. 'Eight out of 10 say they can't do it. After this, it's probably going to be nine out of 10.' Adamson agrees. 'It is already extremely difficult to have victims testify. That is a traumatizing experience, no matter the outcome,' she says. 'So this is definitely not going to make it any easier to convince witnesses and victims to come forward, for sure.' Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, released a statement after the Combs verdict was delivered, saying he wanted to 'recognize the important work' of the SDNY's work seeking to combat human trafficking. He did not mention Combs by name. 'Sex crimes deeply scar victims, and the disturbing reality is that sex crimes are all too present in many aspects of our society. Victims endure gut-wrenching physical and mental abuse, leading to lasting trauma. New Yorkers and all Americans want this scourge stopped and perpetrators brought to justice,' Clayton said. 'Prosecuting sex crimes requires brave victims to come forward and tell their harrowing stories. We and our law enforcement partners recognize the hardships victims endure and have prioritized a victim-centered approach to investigating and prosecuting these cases.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
