Plead Different: Sean “Diddy” Combs Decries “Untenable” Laptop Restrictions Behind Bars
Fighting to stay out of prison for the rest of his life on sex trafficking charges and more, Sean “Diddy” Combs now wants more screen time.
Facing one of the prosecutors who helped put Jeffrey Epstein’s right-hand woman Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars and recently denied his $50 million bail request for the third time, the “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” performer complained Wednesday to a federal judge that Uncle Sam isn’t letting him have access to a laptop in his cell.
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“We write on behalf of Mr. Combs to request that the Court direct the MDC to provide Mr. Combs with the laptop prepared for him by the government, and allow him to use that laptop on his unit, consistent with the way other inmates on his unit are permitted to use their laptops,” declares a letter (read it here) Wednesday from defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo to Judge Arun Subramanian about his client’s ostensive ability to look at documents digitally in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre.
“Two months after he was charged and detained, on November 25, 2024, the government provided the MDC with a laptop that Mr. Combs can use to review discovery, take notes related to his case, and otherwise assist in his defense,” added Agnifilo, who has successfully represented the high profile likes of now-ex IMF head and one-time leading French presidential contender Dominique Strauss-Kahn in his rape trial. “In the nine days since then, Mr. Combs has still not been provided with the laptop despite numerous inquiries by defense counsel.”
Looking at Combs facing life in prison if found guilty in the criminal case in a trial set to start May 5, Combs is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. The past mogul, who entered a not-guilty plea after his arrest September 16 and has been incarcerated in the MDC for almost three months, is also battling dozens of civil suits that are focused on celebrity-attended, drug-fueled and videotaped “freak offs.”
Raising the stakes or threat level depending on your POV, Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for FBI Director, has said that if confirmed to the top cop job he would possibly release the names of the famous and infamous who attended Combs’ debauched gatherings over the decades. Of note, is the fact that Trump and Combs socialized together a lot over the years, as did the former and future POTUS with convicted sex offender Epstein, who mysteriously died in the MDC in 2019 by apparent suicide.
With incumbent Damian Williams set to be replaced by Trump’s former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District had no comment tonight on the latest letter from Combs’ defense to Judge Subramanian when contacted by Deadline. However, Agnifilo’s three-page correspondence does state “the government has indicated that it intends to file a response.”
Part of that coming response will have to be the feds and Bureau of Prisons’ offer that Combs can use the laptop either in the “unit’s video-teleconference room during select times when legal staff is available and when that room is not otherwise being used during other inmates’ legal calls; or …he will only be provided with the laptop in the legal visiting room between the hours of 8-3:30pm.”
“These restrictions are untenable and from what we understand, not required of any other inmate on Mr. Combs’ unit,” the Bad Boy Records founder’s lawyers say in Wednesday’s letter. “They significantly limit the time available for Mr. Combs to use the laptop and force Mr. Combs to choose between using the laptop and meeting with his attorneys (who often meet with Mr. Combs over video-teleconference). There is also no justification for these restrictions.”
Out of all this, what the defense wants is the court to order MDC officials to let Combs use the laptop where he wants and when he wants. Additionally, in the latest foot stamp by the defense team in a foot stamp heavy case, Combs’ Agnifilo and Teny Geragos-led team want the same officials to stop providing prosecutors with “visitation forms” of attorney meetings with their client in the facility because they could be “potentially privileged.”
Wednesday also saw prosecutors send their own letter to Judge Subramanian fulfilling his order that they put it on the record they had nothing to do with the leak of 2016 footage depicting Combs beating on then girlfriend Cassie Ventura at an LA hotel or any other material to the media. “They each affirmed that they have not disclosed information they learned during the course of the Investigation to any member of the press,” a declaration from Jane Kim, the SDNY’s Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division, says about the various Assistant United States Attorneys, Homeland Security Investigations officials and other law enforcement team members she spoke too.
In the declaration, as if to reinforce that she has no skin in the game, Kim bluntly states she is “not a member of the prosecution team responsible for the investigation.”
This new crisis comes just hours before the defense filed their latest attempt “to get a dismissal of the indictment” or at least a new hearing over complaints about the treatment Combs has received.
“The government exploited Mr. Combs’ detention by engaging in unfair and unconstitutional tactics that have interfered with his ability to work with his attorneys and make it impossible for his attorneys to provide effective assistance of counsel,” Alexandra Shapiro says of US Attorney Williams and his staffer in cahoots with BOP officials. “The evidence shows the government is using Mr. Combs’ detention to spy on him and invade his confidential communications with his counsel.”
No hearing has been agreed to yet, nor has a date been scheduled.
BTW: That new AUSA who was part of the team that put Ghislaine Maxwell in the clink and joined the Combs’ case on Monday? That’s Maurene Ryan Comey. Besides the Maxwell case, one of her other claims to fame is that she is the daughter of James Comey, the FBI director who was fired by Trump early in his first term. Let’s see if new U.S. Attorney Clayton keeps her on the case after January 20.
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