The Trial: Countdown

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It's getting close.

The start of this trial against Sean Combs.

AKA Puff Daddy, aka P.

Diddy, aka Diddy.

Jury selection is right around the corner.

May 5th.

That will be a crucial time for both sides to select people who will ultimately decide Sean Combs' fate.

Diddy has been unwavering in denying all of these allegations, and he's entered a plea of not guilty.

And as we get closer and closer to this trial, I thought it'd be smart to take a step back and look at some of the issues that are likely to be argued in this case.

This is Bad Rap, the case against Diddy.

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

If you missed our first six episodes charting Diddy's rise and fall, please go back and listen to those.

As we wait for jury selection, I want to catch you up on a few things I'll be watching in the lead up to the trial.

Things that the government and the defense are arguing should be in bounds or should be out of bounds in terms of what the jury will or will not hear.

I'm going to talk to you about three issues that the judge, Judge Arun Subromanian, is deciding on or has decided on.

Anonymous witnesses, video of Diddy attacking Cassie at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles, and the admissibility of Cassie's memoir.

First, witness anonymity.

When it comes to witness anonymity, what you're talking about is two competing issues.

Because Sean Combs, love him or hate him, believe him to be guilty or not, does have the constitutional right, as we all do, to face his accuser.

But the accuser also has some protections as well and we've seen a lot of this in more recent cases especially high profile cases involving sexual assault and rape where an individual or an alleged victim having their name or their likeness out there in the public can be very damaging to them their health, their mental health, or their finances.

And so in these competing interests of the right to face your accuser and the privacy rights of an alleged victim, the judge will carve out some sort of compromise to afford both their rights as much as possible.

It's probably best to understand that there are a number of alleged victims here.

And the government has articulated them by saying there is victim one, two, three, all the way up until seven.

And there could be more.

We know that, according to them, there are victims that are alleging issues with forced labor.

There are victims alleging alleging sex trafficking and sexual assault and rape.

But then the question becomes, who are these victims?

Are we going to know who they are, what their names are?

And from our understanding of both this federal indictment as well as Cassie Ventura's lawsuit, there's a very strong assumption that victim one is Cassie Ventura.

Cassie Ventura is Diddy's ex-girlfriend of over 10 years.

She's expected, as I said, to testify using her own name, and both sides appear to be in agreeance with that.

Victim 2 is extremely different from Victim 1 in terms of the agreements that they've made.

The government and the defense seem to agree that Victim 2 will testify under an anonymous name or a pseudonym.

As it applies to Victim 3 and 4, the government's motion has been granted, meaning victims 3 and 4, as they are designated by the government, will be allowed to use a pseudonym when they testify.

There's some information that we do know about the alleged victims, though.

Some have been in romantic relationship with Combs in the past.

And as they are set to testify and ultimately do testify, we might learn more about them outside of their actual names.

The probably bigger issue when it comes to anonymity is not the what, but the how do you protect someone's anonymity while also providing the person the opportunity to face their accuser i've seen a number of things happen i've seen large black sheets put in front of the witness box and they testify behind those sheets where the public in the courtroom or the jurors cannot see who they are even the defense but They know who these people are, just that it's not made public.

I've also seen a situation where everyone in the courtroom, courtroom, or at least the people who are there as the public, are kicked out as that witness testifies so that only the government or prosecution, the defense, and the jury are aware of their identity.

What the judge will decide is yet to be known.

Victim anonymity, as much as it is protected by the court or it is attempted to be protected by the court, doesn't always work.

The courts are made of human beings who do good things, do bad things, and also make mistakes.

So is it possible that we might learn the name of some of these alleged victims throughout the course of the trial?

May they choose to actually release her name when they're done testifying or if Sean Combs is found guilty?

Sure.

Only time can tell.

Up next, the defense tried to keep out that explosive video of Diddy beating Cassie, tried to keep it out of the court.

But the judge said it's fair game.

More after the break.

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another big ruling from the judge was about the admissibility of that hotel surveillance video it shows combs kicking dragging and shoving cassie while they were still together the government wants the footage in diddy's legal team obviously wants that kept out at trial.

They made some allegations that CNN's version had been altered, sped up, was kind of chopped up and put out of order, and ultimately was deceptive to any jury.

CNN adamantly denied these allegations.

The judge in reviewing the arguments by both the defense and the prosecution made the decision that the evidence in that video is more probative,

meaning having the ability to prove a fact, than it is prejudicial against Sean Combs.

And in making that decision, the judge said, let the jury see the video.

And so in some way, shape, or form, that video will be played at trial.

This was a massive blow to Sean Combs' defense.

The reason why this is such a big hit is because of the same way that people reacted after they saw that video.

And if the jury sees that, along with the arguments supplied by the Southern District of New York, a prosecutor's office that has a conviction rate of 90 to 95%,

you better believe that's a tool that they're going to use to try to show that Sean Combs is guilty of the crimes he's being accused of.

Another big ruling from the judge was whether or not Cassie's unpublished memoir would be used against him.

Diddy's legal team subpoenaed saying, we legally believe we have a right to this information.

They did that for a memoir that was never published.

Not only that, but journals, diaries, and documents of her plans to publish it.

Remember, when Cassie's lawsuit came out, there was talk about a negotiation before that civil lawsuit came out, that Sean Combs' team said that Cassie reached out seeing if he would be open to settle before a lawsuit came forward.

There was a belief, or at least some talk, about whether or not Cassie was going to publish a memoir or a book to that effect.

This could be the same thing they're looking for.

Now, Cassie's attorneys fought the subpoena, meaning push to have this information not provided to them, them being Diddy's defensive team.

And they didn't want to turn over the drafts.

The judge ultimately ruled in the favor of Diddy's team.

And all of those drafts, according to the judge, must be disclosed to them.

Now,

you might ask,

why does Diddy's team care about these drafts?

What will they prove?

Diddy's team thinks that in some way, shape, or form, these memoirs will,

or at the very least can, discredit Cassie.

They're looking to show any kind of distinction or differences in the way that Cassie may talk about the alleged abuse on the stand or in the memoir.

Because any difference between the two might show an inconsistency that they would say Cassie's lying.

And that's a big point for them.

What does it all mean when you put it together?

These different rulings by the judge, some in favor of the defense, like Cassie's memoir being admissible, or at least the drafts, some like the video of Sean Combs at the Intercontinental Hotel showing Combs beating, hitting, dragging Cassie.

Does it mean that one side is winning over the other?

Maybe, maybe not.

It depends on how you view that.

But what it does mean is we start to see how the evidence and the arguments are going to play out in this case.

How both sides will have to overcome and utilize these pieces of evidence to try to prove or disprove a case.

As we head into jury selection, what I want to see is how, especially the defense, is going to use this opportunity to try to weave in the narrative of what they're trying to argue.

Who is it that we're going to see that comes up as a potential archetype for who they want to be on the jury?

What do I mean by that?

When it comes to cases of sexual assault of a man against a woman, there are theories that, for example, and I'm not saying this is always true, but this is a theory out there, that boy moms may be the best type of prospective juror if you're the defense.

Why is that?

People within a group feel more comfortable criticizing other people within their group.

So a woman criticizing a woman.

A man criticizing a man, a black man criticizing another black man, or a white woman criticizing another white woman.

People feel less comfortable, at least to some degree, criticizing people outside of their group.

But boy moms operate in a very unique space.

They could feel comfortable criticizing another woman, but they would still think about how a man might be in that situation because they're raising one.

And so, Are we going to see questions and answers and maneuvers by the defense where they try to go after a specific archetype of a person because they believe that's more beneficial to them.

That's what I'm looking for.

Because sometimes, if not all the time, it's not necessarily the facts that you're arguing.

Sometimes it's about the person who's willing to receive those facts and how they interpret it.

That's it for this episode of Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy.

I'm Brian Buckmeyer.

Thanks for listening.

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