The Trial: After the Verdict

For years, summer in the life of Sean Diddy Combs meant preparing for one of his star-studded white parties, maybe at one of his multi-million dollar homes.

We started this series with a scene from one of those parties, his patriotic 4th of July bash in 2009.

Well, here we are, coming full circle to a summer in the life of Diddy that looks very different.

This 4th of July weekend, the music mogul awaited his fate on sentencing after a split verdict last week.

Combs beat the more serious charges, racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, but was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Combs' attorneys fought for his release on the day of the verdict, but their request was denied.

Judge Submanian has ordered Combs to remain in custody while he awaits sentencing, which is scheduled for October 3rd.

This afternoon, the defense will press for an expedited sentencing hearing so Combs can leave the infamous Metropolitan Detention Center sooner.

Much like Sean Combs' verdict, reactions to it have been split.

Lots of people are wondering: did the jury make the right call?

And lots of people have weighed in.

Sean Combs' family, other celebrities, and you, our listeners.

This is Bad Rap, The Case Against Diddy.

I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and practicing attorney.

This episode, after the verdict.

The federal case against Sean Combs was more than just court filings, motions, and objections.

It was the trial of a music mogul in the court of public opinion.

So the verdict wasn't just a legal verdict.

To many people, it was a deeper reckoning about Diddy's legacy.

Last Wednesday, the day we got the verdict, the streets outside the southern district of New York Courthouse in Chinatown were packed.

Law enforcement had to install barricades to try to manage the crowds.

On that hot day in Manhattan, there were critics, supporters, influencers, live streamers, and onlookers.

The energy was buzzing as people waited for the jury to give its verdict.

When news of the verdict arrived, there was a shift in the energy.

There was celebration.

And there were complicated feelings.

My gut feeling was that he was really guilty and that I thought that he was really going to be punished on all counts.

And so I'm a little bit shocked at his clear on most of the parts.

I didn't want them to find him guilty on the Rico because then I would have put him in prison for the rest of his life.

I still feel like he should get some time.

He did a lot of things that just wasn't cool.

Diddy is guilty morally.

As far as the legalities,

I think the charges were boosted up, trumped up, and legacy is ruined.

And you, listeners of this podcast, had reactions to the verdict, too.

Personally, I am shocked at the decision by the jury because I truly believe these women were victims.

It just is so upsetting that this was going on.

And he was, meanwhile, getting all the glory and all the praise and all the popularity, including from me.

I am gobsmacked by this verdict.

Like, if there's no doubt this man is that brutal and manipulative and powerful, then doesn't it stand to reason when you hear testimony from the people he used and all the drugs that their consent was not set in stone?

It wasn't super surprising that he didn't get convicted of the most serious racketeering charge, but I'm disappointed and deflated and it's disheartening to see yet another powerful person somehow beating the system.

My guest today has been tracking all the reactions to the verdict, both inside and outside the courthouse.

Tanya Simpson is a coordinating producer for ABC's investigative unit.

She's been inside the courtroom every single day of Diddy's trial.

She joined us on the podcast in the first few weeks of the trial, and we loved having her so much that we brought her back to help wrap things up and make sense of the verdict.

My first question to Tanya was, what was the scene inside the courtroom when the verdict was read?

It was extremely tense in the courtroom when the jury came in.

No one was talking.

No one was moving.

It was really silent.

All eyes were on the foreman as he stood up to read the verdict.

The moment that he said not guilty on count one, the Rico count, count,

Diddy pumped his fist and looked over at his attorneys who were sitting at the defense table next to him.

And you could kind of feel that tension break just a little bit.

And then there was not guilty on count two.

And we got another fist pump.

When he heard guilty of the third count,

You could tell that he looked kind of surprised and there were some audible reactions from a couple of people who were in the gallery, almost like just a gasp, like people were surprised.

And then the judge went one by one to each juror to confirm that the verdict was actually their decision.

And as he was doing that, Diddy kind of made prayer hands and nodded his head yes and mouth thank you to each and every juror.

I was surprised that there wasn't more reaction from the family, but they were pretty quiet until

the jury was allowed to leave the courtroom.

And once the judge was off the bench, Diddy fell to the floor in front of the chair he was sitting in on his knees, looked like he was praying.

He turned around to his family and he said, I'm coming home, baby.

I'm coming home.

You know, his family was smiling.

Dana Tran, who's the mother of his youngest daughter, was in tears.

Her face was red.

Diddy's son, Justin, he was the most emotional to me from where I was sitting of all of the kids.

But once the judge was gone and once Diddy was actually taken out of the courtroom, that is when we got the biggest reaction from the family inside.

They started applauding.

They started cheering for his legal team.

Diddy's lawyers were high-fiving and hugging each other.

Tinny Garagos and Anna Esteval were in tears, tears streaming down both of their faces.

Mark Acnifilo turned to the family.

He came into the gallery and hugged all of Diddy's family members, his mom, all of his kids.

One of his family members referred to the legal team as the dream team.

So big reactions once the jury and the judge walked out of the room.

Now that was inside the courtroom.

What about outside of the courtroom and outside the courthouse?

What was the atmosphere like there?

Outside the courthouse was probably the biggest crowd that I've seen since this trial started.

When we came out,

it was

loud.

It wasn't super celebratory.

There was a buzz in the air.

People were running out of the court house with the news about the split verdict.

There were lots of people asking questions like, what does this mean?

Like, is he going to go home?

At this point, we had heard the ask from Diddy's attorney that he be released on bail.

So there was a lot of question and a lot of buzz outside the courtroom about that.

In between that time, where the verdict was read and people were brought back in for that bail hearing, I happened to be outside one of the main doors as Janice Combs, Diddy's mom, was trying to come back into the courthouse.

People saw her walking up to the door and immediately ran toward that entrance, phones up, recording, and they started shouting to her, you know, we love you, Janice.

Congratulations.

I love you, mom.

I love you, mom.

Mommy, that's what I'm talking about.

She actually stopped for a second, waved at the crowd.

The crowd started at that point chanting free puff, free puff.

And Janice was kind of bobbing her head and pumping her fist along with the crowd.

She gave everybody a big thumbs up.

Once Janice went inside the building, I turned around to kind of get out of the crowd.

And at that point, there was a big group of people who had kind of gathered because Janice was there.

There were some influencers, some members of the public.

And I heard someone say, bring out the oil.

And then I saw an influencer who has been in the courthouse for weeks now covering the trial, take off his shirt.

And people started squirting baby oil on him and rubbing him down with baby oil.

There were a lot of phones out, a lot of people were recording.

Someone started playing music.

And so at that point, it kind of did feel like more of a party atmosphere.

Another woman jumped into the middle of the crowd and said she wanted baby oil on her.

So people started pouring baby oil on her as well.

And you know, baby oil has become a joke kind of to a lot of people because of this trial.

Baby oil and astroglide have been brought up a lot.

But I do think it's important to remember that these things were being brought up in the context of alleged crimes being committed.

And, you know, there were these alleged victims here who testified about these hotel nights and these freak offs and being forced to use these items.

and in a very traumatizing way.

And this influencer who was at the center of this kind of baby oil party did end up posting on his social media after the fact.

He posted an apology.

He described what happened as a lighthearted moment that was part of a long-running joke with people who watch his content.

He also said that it was being misinterpreted as support for Diddy and that that was never his intention.

And he said that he wanted to apologize to survivors of abuse and to anyone who was impacted or who was disappointed with what he did.

Wow.

A baby oil post verdict is not what I would have guessed out of this case.

Was someone also giving out shirts?

Like a Frico is not a Rico?

What was that about?

Charlucci Finney, who describes himself as Diddy's godbrother, childhood friend, longtime supporter, was actually outside handing out t-shirts to anybody who would take them really.

And the t-shirts said, A Frico is not a Rico.

And so people were taking these shirts from him, putting them on, gathering for group pictures.

He would respond to questions that were asked for him, but he kept repeating, A Frico is not a Rico.

I've been saying that and the jury saw that.

That's why I have these shirts out here.

That's why the people are wearing these shirts because Africo is not a Rico.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, there was this interesting moment that happened the day of the verdict.

Christian Combs, Sean Combs' son, was caught on camera playing music, actually his own album, out of a car in New York.

He was singing along, dancing, talking about how happy he was for what he sees as a win for his dad.

It all actually happened right outside ABC News headquarters.

Yo, we love y'all.

We love everybody watching this.

So happy.

Damn, these pops coming home.

At one point, he was doing push-ups for this little crowd that had gathered.

What do you make of this moment?

You know, that was some of the biggest reaction that I saw on that video from Christian in court.

He was pretty quiet, pretty reserved, except for congratulating the lawyers.

And so I think that at that point, once they were away from the courthouse, the family felt like they could celebrate a little more.

During the trial, a lot of times the family would not react, would not respond when people would yell questions at them because they were not allowed to speak to anybody.

And so I think once the verdict was in, they felt relief and a little more open and willing and able to talk to people.

Now, all the celebration and support, is that representative of how the general public is feeling about the verdict?

What's the vibe, so to speak, with fans, with other celebrities, with people who've been following the trial?

I think the reaction has been very mixed so far.

There are a lot of people who are saying they're not really surprised by the verdict.

This is how they thought it would go, especially people who have been following the trial closely.

I know Ray J is somebody who has been very vocally supporting Diddy.

He posted a live stream of him playing Diddy's music.

And I've seen other celebrities who have the opposite reaction.

The singer, Kesha, posted in support of Cassie.

There's another celebrity, a comedian, Lunel, also posted in support of Cassie and other victims of domestic violence and assault.

That, you know, this should have gone another way.

And so I think that this trial and this outcome is going to spark debate for some time.

I would agree.

And for some time, absolutely.

Let's dig in some more on the verdict itself.

With the benefit hindsight, what do you think were the key pivotal moments in this trial for the jury?

You know, I think that there were some pretty big moments and some big wins for both sides.

I definitely think for the prosecution, Cassie was absolutely the star witness.

Her testimony was among the most powerful.

You had the video from the Intercontinental, which was played several times.

At one point, they were showing the video frame by frame.

You also had some really pretty graphic photos of some injuries that Cassie sustained when Diddy was violent with her on other occasions.

You had text messages from her saying, you know, I'm sending you this picture of my injury so you could remember what you did to to me, how you treated me.

You know, I'm someone's daughter.

I think some of the testimony from Cassie's friends was also helpful to the prosecution, corroborating a lot of what she said.

On the flip side, I think for the defense, they did a really good job of pointing out inconsistencies in the witness testimony.

Cassie included, Jane included, some other people who came up.

And another thing that the defense, defense, I think, did well that really struck the jury was they used text messages.

There were hundreds, if not thousands of text messages shown and entered into evidence in this trial.

And those text messages would directly contradict what witnesses were saying on the stand.

I think that's something that stuck with the jurors because it's something that the defense kept going back to on all of their cross-examinations.

But you were in the courtroom for most of this trial, too.

What do you think were the pivot points for the jury?

So I would agree with a lot of what you said.

If I was to list them out, I would say the direct examination of Cassie, hearing her story for the first time.

We have read the civil lawsuit by that point, but we did not know the details.

And those were powerful details coming from her.

Capricorn Clark's cross-examination, Jane's cross-examination, Mia's cross-examination, all for the same purposes.

The defense attorneys giving context as to those allegations, sometimes showing the inconsistencies or poking holes in what they were saying in terms of timeline or why they may be wrong in their assessment as to what's going on.

I think that created reasonable doubt throughout the racketeering conspiracy and some of the sex trafficking charges.

And then, of course, Mark Icnifolo's closing arguments, which stylistically were not my favorite in the first 30 to 45 minutes, but I think as he started to move along, I started to see the plan, see it come together and understand where he was going.

And seeing the reactions from the jurors as they literally hung on many of his words, it started to come together as this could work very well for the defense in getting an acquittal of some of the most serious charges against John Combs.

And another question for you, Brian.

I feel like a lot of people are confused that Diddy could be found guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution, but not guilty of sex trafficking, especially when some of these alleged victims were the same for both charges, Cassie and the witness who testified under the pseudonym Jane.

So how does that work?

So I would say the big difference between transportation and trafficking is the how, because both involve commercial sex acts, right?

And both involve the movement across state lines.

The question is, how did you get that person to do so?

With sex trafficking, especially with this specific subsection, you're saying that the person used force, fraud, coercion, or the threat of force to cause them to engage in commercial sex acts that involve crossing state lines.

For transportation to engage in prostitution, you're simply just got them to go across a state line to do commercial sex.

Now, there doesn't have to be a movement of cash.

You don't have to pay a person in order to do the commercial sex acts.

You can just have them go across state lines and it'd be a commercial sex act.

Usually there is money involved, but it's not mandatory.

But Sean Combs was convicted of basically paying either Cassie, Jane, or any of the 27 male escorts to travel across state lines for the purposes of commercial sex.

But he didn't use force, fraud, or coercion or the threat of force to do so.

That's what the jury is saying with this verdict.

And you just mentioned the 27 male escorts.

So he was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

So how do we get to just two counts?

So the way the counts were designed was that the jury could find Sean Combs guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution as it was associated with Cassie and the male escorts that were transported along with her or that engaged in sexual activities with her.

And then the other count was as it applied to Jane and the male escorts that were associated with her.

And so the jury could find that any one one of those within those two counts were transported for the purpose of prostitution and find Sean Combs guilty.

So it could have been because he transported the Punisher or because he transported Jane or because he transported Cassie or any of the other escorts that we saw either on the stand or through some of the evidence.

So what have you seen or heard from Cassie since the verdict?

So we haven't seen Cassie since the verdict, but she actually did submit a letter via her attorney asking the judge not to let Diddy out on bail.

She said that she absolutely feels that he is a danger to the community.

Her attorney also actually sat down with ABC News after the verdict and after the bail hearing.

And what he told us is that Cassie is at peace with the verdict.

Cassie is satisfied that she did her part.

I hope other survivors, people who are suffering in silence, are not deterred from coming forward because I know actually that Cassie doesn't regret anything that she did.

He also spoke about how she's moving ahead.

You know, she gave birth shortly after testifying.

He said she's spending time with her family and her husband and that she's looking forward to moving on.

And he hopes that people will look at what she did and feel like she really did make a difference in this case and that, you know, she's in a good place.

She'll never be able to completely put it behind her, but she's trying.

And she's happy that for the first time in Sean Combs' life, he's been held responsible for something.

What about other alleged victims or witnesses?

Have there been reactions or statements from anyone else?

Absolutely.

Another person who testified is connected to Cassie, one of her best friends, Deontay Nash, also submitted a letter to the judge asking the judge not to let Diddy out on bail.

In his letter, he said that if Diddy were to be released, it would undermine the integrity of the entire process and send a dangerous message.

His letter said that letting Diddy out on bail would basically send a message that money and influence can shield people from accountability.

He also said that Diddy is a danger to the community and that letting him out might put witnesses like himself at risk or in danger.

And, you know, this trial is over.

The federal trial is over, but

we might end up seeing Diddy in court again.

There are more than 60 pending civil lawsuits against him right now.

There were actually a few new civil lawsuits filed while the federal trial was underway.

Diddy vehemently denies the allegations in these lawsuits.

But do you think the verdict in this criminal case might have any bearing on the civil cases?

So sorry to give the legal answer of maybe or yes and no, but what I always remind people is two things.

The standard for proof in a criminal court beyond a reasonable doubt is much higher than that in a civil court preponderance of the evidence or more likely than not or 51%.

And so can you prove things easier in a civil case based on that standard than in a criminal case?

Yes.

The second point I always bring up with people is

we've seen situations where a person in a high-profile case was found not guilty of certain crimes or all crimes, but then found liable in the civil setting.

The biggest example would be O.J.

Simpson.

And so is there some bearing on the civil cases based on this?

Yes.

But is it dispositive in terms of what's going to happen?

No.

Each one of those will be treated uniquely and Sean Combs will settle some and fight others.

And yeah, we're going to be seeing Sean Combs' name in the headlines for quite some time as these civil lawsuits get resolved.

Okay, zooming out, like big picture question about Diddy's legacy.

When disturbing or upsetting allegations come out about pop culture icons, people start talking about should we continue to consume their music or their movies or their work?

Is that conversation happening around Diddy's music?

What are people saying?

I think you're going to find people who fall on both sides of the debate.

What I have heard some people saying, and this is, you know, anecdotal, is they're asking the question, does the good outweigh the bad?

I've heard some people talk about the schools that Diddy opened in New York, the fact that he was the face of the voter die campaign in the early 2000s.

He helped more black and brown people become politically active and aware.

You know, he

created one of the blueprints for rap and hip-hop music.

He was an undeniable influence on fashion and just culture.

And so I've heard a few people start to ask the question, Is that enough to forgive him for the things that he has been convicted of at this point.

And again, I think the conversation is definitely going to continue.

I think it'll be interesting if he does release new music to see how it does or what the reaction to it.

But in my opinion, I think we might still hear some of the classics at parties and cookouts over the summer.

Yeah, I thought about his work as well because he's not just an artist.

He's also a producer.

So would that extend to the people who he helped find as artists or produce their work?

So it'll be an interesting discussion.

This one's an interesting one to me because some people have asked me this as well, and I'm still trying to figure out the answer.

But what do you think will be your longest lasting memory from this trial?

Wow.

That's a really, really great question.

Other than having to wake up at a really early hour to get into the courtroom, I think just

hearing the debate, like watching so many people come to be in the room and be part of this trial who were not doing it because it was their job.

You know, I was there because it's my job.

But there were people who were showing up every day just because they felt like this was going to be part of history and they wanted a front row seat for that.

What about you?

That's an interesting question.

I'm still working on that one.

I think if I was to say my longest lasting memory on the spot right now,

it would probably be Cassie testifying.

It would probably be seeing her in person

describe the events of what happened and how you saw a combination of vulnerability,

fear,

but also strength.

I think watching her testify on direct examination was something that stuck out.

But Tanya, it has been a long trial.

I know it sounds crazy.

I'm going to to miss waking up that early and seeing you in line and being in court day in and day out.

But now I'm going to say goodbye and I'm going to enjoy sleeping for many, many days and not having to wake up for this trial.

So thank you so much for again blessing us by jumping on the podcast and thank you for everything you've done for this trial.

Thank you so, so much.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for the compliments and I'll definitely see you for the next trial.

See you then.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we take a closer look at that guilty verdict on the transportation to engage in prostitution charge.

Could any of the victims get compensation?

Also, how will Sean Combs' sentence be determined?

Answers to your questions in a moment.

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All right, so we're getting to probably one of my most favorite parts of the podcast, and that is listening to your questions.

We've heard from people from all over, both domestically and internationally, from Connecticut to Georgia to California, and like I said, across this world, from Nigeria, France, Denmark, and of course, my home and native land of Canada, very near and dear to me.

So, without further ado, let's get right into these questions.

This might be the last one we do in this series, but we'll see.

First caller, let's take a listen.

Hi, Brian.

This is Taylor calling from Portland, Oregon.

And I'm curious what you think about how juries and their knowledge around these charges impacts the verdict.

I recently served on a jury, and something that I felt in my own experience was just that when you're in a jury, it's very hard to sometimes make a decision because you don't necessarily have everyone on your jury understanding like what they're actually being asked to charge someone with.

And I feel like with something like Arico, it's very confusing.

And it just makes me wonder, is there even a possibility that the jury really didn't understand like what they were being asked to do?

Or do you think that's not even on the table for this?

Taylor from Portland, thanks for calling.

What I tell people is the jury system is an imperfect, perfectly flawed system.

And it's the best one we've got.

I have to have some hope as an officer of the court and someone who's done multiple jury trials

that people understand what they're doing.

In my own practice, I've always said I trust 12 people in the box any day over a single individual.

And I mean, no disrespect to the judges that I respect and love, but I have faith in this jury.

From the two months of watching them, I've seen them engaged.

I've seen them taking notes.

And I think, especially from that first note where they said that one of the jurors wasn't following the rules, I think they understood the gravity of this case.

And

if they didn't understand, I lay that at the feet of the prosecutors or the government.

It's their job to make sure that justice is served in the sense of understanding the charges so that the jury can do their job.

And I also maybe to the judge to some extent.

But Judge Supermanian is and was a phenomenal judge.

Very sharp, very keen.

So I trust what happened with this jury.

I think they understood what was going on and they just voted in the way that they felt made the most sense to them.

All right, let's take a listen to the next caller.

Hi, Brian.

Tina from Denmark here.

I was wondering if the judge will also rule to grant some kind of compensation to the victims, or will that have to be sold in a civil suit?

Thank you.

Bye.

Tina from Denmark, thank you very much for the question.

Just a quick recap for people as I explain this restitution concept.

Sean Combs was found not guilty of racketeering conspiracy, as well as not guilty for sex trafficking of both Cassie or Jane.

Now, if he was found guilty of those, I could tell you that there would be restitution, especially for that sex trafficking charge for anyone that was sex trafficked.

But Sean Combs is not found guilty of that.

When it comes to transportation to engage in prostitution, the two only counts that Sean Combs was found guilty of, there is no mandatory restitution in those charges.

Restitution being for any damages that the victims may have incurred during the transportation to engage in prostitution.

Now, the government, more likely than not, will make that argument.

Of course, the defense will push back on it to suggest and say, what damages, if any, did people face simply for the paying of their services to go across state lines?

That would be a very difficult argument for the government to make that they were harmed, especially because many of these individuals were paid outside of Cassie and Jane.

But to kind of tie this all together, yes, this might be left to just the civil lawsuits, that the criminal justice system might not have the proper remedies for them, but these individuals can sue civilly at a lower standard of proof, preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.

And that may be where they can find financial or civil remedies rather than through the criminal justice system.

But great question.

Thanks again.

Next question.

Hi, my name is Angel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Just very curious as to why KK was not called to testify.

Thank you.

Angel, thank you so much for this question.

You are not the only one asking.

Every time I step outside my house, people are asking this question.

So let's see if we can break this down.

First and foremost, Christina Coram, or KK, Sean Combs's former chief of staff, has not been criminally charged.

All we have to go by are some of the words that came up during this criminal case, as well as civil lawsuits.

to which Christina Coram has said in a statement to ABC News that she never condoned or aided in the sexual assault of anyone, and that she's confident that the allegations against her will be proven to be untrue.

But when it comes to answering the ultimate question as to where is KK, which people asked from the beginning of this trial, and how can a person be charged with racketeering conspiracy that requires at least two people to make an agreement, but there's only one person in the indictment, let me say this.

First, we don't know why.

We do not know why Christina Coram was or was not called to this case.

But instead of talking about KK, let's just talk about a theoretical co-conspirator.

There would be a number of reasons why that co-conspirator would not be called to the stand to testify.

One, the government believes they do not need them.

They believe that through other evidentiary reasons like text message on their phone, emails, communications through other witnesses, that they can can prove that there was an agreement, that there was a conspiracy, and that predicate acts occurred.

They can believe that they want to prosecute that person on their own, that they do not want to give them an immunity deal to protect them from the actions that they did in this alleged crime, and they want to prosecute one and then prosecute the other right after.

We've seen that in the Southern District of New York for other racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking cases.

And so we can guess, we can can hypothesize, but we're not going to really know why that individual was not there.

Hindsight being 2020,

maybe people in the Southern District of New York might think differently, but at least at the time, they felt that that person was not needed in the case.

And the reasons why will forever be a mystery to us until one of those prosecutors leave the office and write a book and we get to read about it.

Thanks for the question.

Here's a question I've been getting a lot.

What does this verdict mean for the Southern District of New York?

They've got a conviction rate of about 90 to 95 percent.

So what does it mean that they didn't secure a conviction for the top charges?

Is this a mark on these particular attorneys?

And does this case have wider implications for moving forward on future RICO cases that might be similar to Sean Combs's?

Let me dissect those one at a time.

For the Southern District of New York, I am not a prosecutor there.

I have never been a prosecutor, but I have spoken to prosecutors after cases like this.

And there is a moment of reflection.

There is a moment of thinking, as all attorneys and all professionals, did I personally do something wrong?

And I think that's aside from the legal.

These are a number of AUSAs, attorneys for the United States of America, who are phenomenal at their job.

And the fact that they came short is a reflection of something.

In terms of a conviction rate of 90 to 95, I'll give you a little dirty secret.

Most of those are based on plea deals.

Also, in terms of stats, this is a conviction in some sense.

They will statistically look at this as a conviction because it is not a full acquittal.

Sean Combs is still convicted of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, but there will definitely be an asterisk next to it in the minds of many of those who participated in this case.

In terms of going forward, yes.

Many prosecutors, many defense attorneys, look at convictions and acquittals as a way of gauging what the public is viewing, as a matter of gauging what a jury will do.

You're going to see, myself included, a number of defense attorneys in the Southern District of New York saying, let's go to trial.

I know what these juries are going to consider when they think of RICO.

I know what these juries are going to consider when they think of sexual assault.

And in turn, prosecutors are going to be like, maybe we should cut a deal.

Maybe we shouldn't prosecute this case as a RICO.

Maybe we should only prosecute it as sex trafficking.

And so there is going to be a re-evaluation at the indictment phase as to how should we interpret these cases, we being prosecutors.

And there's going to be a change of how these cases go to trial from the defense of,

I saw what happened with Diddy.

Maybe I can do the same.

Let's go on to the next caller.

Hi, it's Caitlin from Indianapolis.

I was surprised and a little disappointed by the not guilty verdict on the trafficking charges.

Do you believe this verdict will have any bearing on trafficking trials going forward, especially for well-known or famous individuals?

Thanks.

Thanks for the call, Caitlin.

And the short answer would be yes.

I don't want to use the word precedent setting because precedent has a very specific definition, at least in my mind.

That is oftentimes when case law is formed either by a decision, by a judge, or a ruling of some sense that creates a rule going forward.

This isn't really a rule.

This is more like a feeling, I would say.

But I think going forward, what we're going to see is a re-evaluation of the evidence.

I think that it's going to be a phrase, so to speak, within the Southern District of New York and maybe other districts that are similar in terms of geography and demographic to New York, where they're going to say, well, this sounds a little like Diddy.

A prosecutor is going to say, we saw how this ended up in the Diddy case.

And so how can either, one, we explain this in a different way.

Two, what other evidence do we have to refute what a defense attorney is going to argue in the same way that Brian Steele and Xavier Donaldson and Mark Ignifilo and Tenny Garrigos and the rest of the team argued.

How can we make this different than Diddy?

But in turn, the defense attorney is going to be doing the exact opposite of saying, how can we make this like Diddy?

How can we follow the same path as others have done as well?

And so I do think, yes, this case is going to have an extreme bearing on trafficking trials going forward of people trying to differentiate cases from Diddy and trying to analogize them to Diddy based on what side you're trying to argue.

Hey, Brian, this is Bella calling from Dallas, Texas.

My question is very simple.

I am just genuinely interested in what sentence you think Diddy will get.

Thanks.

Bella from Dallas, Texas, thank you for the call.

Yeah, I wish this was a simple question.

It actually has a lot of moving pieces.

So let me do this.

In the federal government, they have a sentencing guideline.

And the way that they determine how much prison time a person will serve will be based on a number of factors.

They look at the characteristics of the defendant, any substance abuse, any educational background, things of that nature.

But they also look at things like criminal record.

And we know that Sean Combs, for example, has no criminal record because he was never convicted of a crime.

Now, I know in one instance, it was an assault case.

Did he pled guilty to a lesser charge of what's called harassment?

That's a violation and not a crime.

He's been arrested.

He's been charged with crimes.

He's pled guilty to non-violent violations, which are not crimes.

And so from a base standpoint, he should not get a greater sentence.

However.

The judge, as well as the AUSA, will still use the facts of any allegations as to when he was arrested or charged in order to argue, for example, that Sean Combs is a violent individual and should have a greater amount of prison time than someone without that criminal history.

That's it for the questions for today.

Again, I want to thank you all for calling in and these amazing questions.

And I think at this point, you're all successfully graduated the first year of law school because these are some very in-depth questions.

and i think we we tried to touch on as much of this criminal case as possible so thank you for everything for listening and for and for asking questions

the date of diddy's sentencing is set for october 3rd but things could change if the defense gets an earlier court date for more on that and even more on diddy check out abc and abcnews.com.

Bad Rap, the case against Diddy, is a production of ABC Audio.

I'm Brian Buckmeyer.

If you appreciate this coverage, please share it and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Our podcast production team includes Vika Aronson, Nancy Rosenbaum, Camille Peterson, Audrey Maztek, Amira Williams, Sabrina Fang, Tracy Samuelson, and Sasha Aslanian.

Special thanks to Stephanie Maurice, Caitlin Morris, Liz Alessi, Katie Dendas, and the team at ABC News Live.

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Josh Cohan is ABC Audio's Director of Podcast Programming.

Laura Mayer is our executive producer.

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