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Judge in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ case rejects claim that the government leaked Cassie video.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been dealt a legal setback as he prepares to go trial in his racketeering and sex crimes case next year.
On Monday, Judge Arun Subramanian issued a ruling obtained by USA TODAY that denied Combs’ October request for an evidentiary hearing to investigate their claim that the government leaked information from his case, including footage showing him assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016.
“Combs has not carried his burden to show that the government leaked (the video) to CNN. Combs argues that ‘the most likely source of the leak is the government,’ but he doesn’t point to any sound basis for this conclusion,” Subramanian wrote. He added that none of Combs’ arguments for the Department of Homeland Security being the source of the video broadcast by CNN were “convincing.”
He indicated that he sides with prosecutors, who denied having access to the footage prior to CNN publicizing it.
USA TODAY has reached out to Combs’ representative for comment.
In their October filing, the 55-year-old hip-hop mogul’s team said they believed that since March the government has been “strategically leaking confidential grand jury material and information, including the 2016 Intercontinental videotape, in order to prejudice the public and potential jurors against Mr. Combs.”
This has raised “public hostility against Mr. Combs in advance of trial,” they wrote.
In response to Combs’ lawyers having issue with unnamed sources quoted in news stories about the criminal investigation into Combs, the judge responded that the argument is irrelevant because the comments do not reveal “particular facts from the grand jury proceedings,” which are not made public.
In addition, he wrote that “only government attorneys or agents with whom grand jury information has been shared are subject to the secrecy requirement.”
Prosecutors hit back:Â Diddy’s claim that agents leaked Cassie video is ‘baseless’
Judge says Diddy’s case will not be a ‘trial by newspapers’
Subramanian concluded his ruling with a reminder that all parties are expected to abide by existing laws prohibiting lawyers, investigators and government agents from revealing grand jury proceedings and releasing non-public information that might interfere with a fair trial. “Action will be taken” if “specific information comes to light showingthat they leaked prohibited information,” he wrote.
“The Court is sensitive to Combs’s concern about the publication of stories claiming to disclose inside information about this case from unnamed ‘federal law enforcement source[s] who [are] involved in the investigation,'” the judge wrote. “The Court has already taken steps in this regard … and it is open to tailored applications for relief as this case continues.”
He added, “The Court reminds the public that whether the government can prove Combs’s guilt in this case will turn on the evidence presented at trial, not in a ‘trial by newspapers.'”
Three weeks prior, the same judge ruled against Combs’ release from jail on bond.
Combs, who is currently in jail and has a trial start date of May 5, 2025, has maintained his innocence amid more than two dozen mounting civil lawsuits over the past year that have accused him of rape, trafficking and sexual abuse from the 1990s to 2022. In September, he pleaded not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
