This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren Zema coming to you from the home office in Austin, Texas. Hope everybody's doing good, LZ. We're going to dive into, gosh, one of the most bizarre stories, and I think what's going to turn out to be one of the most bizarre legal cases this country is seen in quite some time. I would put it up there with the OJ trial, that is, the United States of America versus Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy, AKAP, Diddy, Diddy,
pd Love. I've never heard the ak Well.
Yeah, all of his names are literally named in this indictment because he's used so many different stage names over the years.
To make sure they cover him. But obviously this is up there in the same pond for sure as the Jeffrey Epstein situation. That is something we're going to discuss today. We also have a very very good coming up that's that will break this down with us on the legal side.
And you know him, Yes, so, Jesse Weber of the Lawn Crime Network is joining us. Jesse I did a lot of spots with him on ET when we had ET Live over the years. He's a lawyer and a legal expert, and he's just going to give us some really good insight here because this case, you and I actually weren't together this weekend. You were on a guy's golf trip shocker, and I was home and my mom
and also the kids came to visit and so. But I think we were both separately when we had downtime reading about this on Twitter and in the news as much as possible. Because you just likened it to Epstein, I would like in it. I think this could be the next Harvey Weinstein type of case, which is, you know, because of the Hollywood side of it, and.
Yeah, maybe a better analogy.
Well I think both, but I mean.
But bigger because of the you know, the Harvey Weinstein of it all is just he was this kind of gross figure that people would think on stage, but he wasn't as front and center as Shawn Combs. Like this guy, this is the biggest name. That's why I guess I likened it more to the OJ thing because everyone knew OJ.
Yeah, you're right, I mean, P Diddy is a massively public figure. He's a rapper, he's an actor, he's an entrepreneur. He had a clothing line, Sean John. I mean, he's built a whole brand and company for decades. Everybody knows who p did he is, and so there's allegations in this indictment against him, and he's been arrested and he was denied bail. If you've missed it, it was it's been a huge news story.
Over the past pay twice I believe he is.
Now he is being charged with sex trafficking, with racketeering, with kidnapping after a grand jury indicted him. He's been charged with three counts racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or cohercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution. And one of the things I want to bring we wanted to bring a legal ex on to get into was you know what exactly those charges really mean. Something like sex trafficking by force is a little confusing to me,
you know, I just want to understand it better. But according to the indictment liszt now far back, this goes from two thousand and eight to present, members of the Combs Enterprise and I'm quoting TMZ summary of it here. Members of the Combs Enterprise allegedly engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution. Queer's an indictment to engagement in prostitution and narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery,
and obstruction of justice. So that's going way back. And one of the biggest questions here is these videotapes. Allegedly there are tapes that were found in Diddy's house, and it's not really clear what's on these tapes, but it seems like all the rumors are that he was secretly recording people when he had these huge parties. Now, I never interviewed Diddy, and I don't think you ever did a.
Yes, yes, you know. I was racking my brain.
It's hard.
Sometimes people ask me if you interviewed this person, and I say, listen to my knowledge, no, But I will say I've sometimes come across the footage of myself interviewing people, and I don't remember it. Because when you're on a red carpet, you might have interviewed at an award show red carpet one hundred people in a night.
There was a picture of me someone posted from years ago. There was a picture of me and Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Oh yeah, and you remember when Katie and Taylor.
Were when they were like working their feud out.
Yeah, and someone posted this picture of the three of us, not like, you know, at a party or anything. We were on the red carpet. I think at the American Music Awards. If you would put a gun to my head and you said, is there a picture that exists of you and Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, I would have said no way. So I don't know if I've ever seen him on a red carpet or maybe interviewed him possibly, But and that is one thing I also
want to mention before Jesse comes on. You see these pictures on X or whatever people will post a picture of like him and Steve Harvey or whatever, and it's like, you've got to be careful just because you see a picture of a celebrity in somebody else. To celebrities, especially means nothing. That is not a relationship. There is not necessarily a tie there, that's not an indictment. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people that met Harvey Weinstein that
probably ran into Epstein, but definitely with p Diddy. The guy was on every red carpet in the world. It doesn't mean that necessarily these people are guilty of something did something wrong, but that is where we are in social media, and that's where a lot of these rumors go. And we'll talk to Jesse about this. These rumors turn into fact so quickly these days, and then people it's judge, jury and executioner in a weekend, and nothing has been
brought as far as real evidence. And you have to be very careful in these situations and where to really draw that line between fact and fiction. And I'm just saying sometimes you see a picture and you're like, oh, whow they friends not necessarily.
But what is I think going to be a potentially huge thing here is these parties that did he had because the sort of center of this indictment is these quote freakoffs that he had where allegedly people were, you know, having sex in front of other people and allegedly, you know, people were being forced into.
Some of this.
And they found and this has definitely been a head like headline making discovery about one thousand bottles of baby oil and lubricant in his house when it was rated that was apparently part of this stock of freak off party supplies. So that gives you a thousand bottles, gives you a bit of an idea of the scope of these parties, how often they were happening, how big they were.
And sex toys that were taken out as well. Oh yeah it was gross.
Oh wait, that's coming back to mind, like hundreds of yes of Tilda.
Okay, well we just said dildos.
But so I will say over the weekend, you know, things are getting brought up on Twitter videos, old video interviews of a lot of people acknowledging these parties in Hollywood, like Ashton Kutcher is in it. I think it's a
Hot Ones interview saying who the Diddy parties? Yeah, whoa, There's a lot happened at those And there's also questions about so I mean a these big parties, they're an old I think did he did the Vogue seventy three questions video and they asked him, you're famous for your parties. Who's your number one party guest you always want to invite?
And he said, Leonardo DiCaprio, No, no hesitance. There's old photos that have surfaced from like he did He's famous white party in the Hampton's over Labor Day weekend and people are naked in them and and you know, Leonardo DiCaprio's there, and so it's like there are going to be I think questions of what's on these tapes, who's on these tapes, if he was secretly recording people, who's on these tapes?
What might come out?
But justin bieber of it all is very interesting, So I.
Want to get into that. But separately, I just want to tie up on the party thing. Who was at these parties, what happened at these parties? And also was there maybe a more celebrity slightly more public version of the party happening in one room and other things happening behind closed doors.
I don't know, So we'll see. But do I think there's the potential for big names to come out as part of this? Maybe?
And you know, I think that's the biggest thing. And that's what I want to ask Jesse about because the I think the biggest problem that everyday people have with the Epstein lack of trial and lack of public knowledge and declaration of what really happened is we don't know. No names came out and you heard former presidents being named, the head of the biggest computer company in the world
was being named. His wife very famously left Bill Gates right as all this stuff was coming out, and all the you know, presidents, royal family members, all these people were wrapped up in this Epstein situation. Crickets, the media dropped it, everyone's dropped it. This you know Jiselne Maxwell who apparently knew everything and ate it and embedded in this whole thing. And then Epstein was suicided and it's just gone away. So will I think people for this
to happen so quickly on the heels of Epstein. One of my questions that Jesse is will this just go away and be brushed under the rug? Because there are high profile people that are clearly in trouble here and will go down if this comes out. Lives will be ruined, big influential people. Will this be brushed under the rug? Just like the Epstein situation?
And there's definitely that element of why, how in hindsight a lot of things were going on even on a public level that we're just kind of okayed because of Hollywood. But really you look back in your life, like, wait, what and I say that to bring up what you just mentioned, the Justin Bieber thing. So I didn't really remember this, but what's coming out now. And there's old videos of Diddy and Bieber together, and there's old videos
of Usher talking about this on Howard Stern. Diddy apparently took some now very famous but at the time very young music stars in to live with him, Usher being one of them. Usher went to live with Ditty, And I'm quoting Usher here. He said this on Howard Stern an interview. I just saw for the first time a few days ago. He lived with Ditty for a year when he was thirteen years old, So I think did he even have legal guardianship of him at the time.
Why is a thirteen year old boy going to live with a man he doesn't know for a year in his home? And Usher hinted it, Yeah, I saw some stuff while I live there. Bieber a very similar thing. He was fifteen years old. I don't think it was for as long as Usher, but he was kind of given to Ditty at least for days at a time to understand the industry. For Diddy to teach him about the industry. There is a video of Diddy and Bieber together Bieber's fifteen, where Diddy says, have you ever heard
of forty eight hours? We're going to go have forty eight hours and justin here is going to see some things that a lot of fifteen year olds would want to see, but we're not going to be able to disclose what happens over the next forty eight hours. He's fifteen years old.
And at the time, it's funny that people just go, oh, these are these are rock stars, you know, these are the biggest everything's okay it and everything's just okay that they get to do. They can do whatever they want. And now in hindsight, we look back at these tapes and we're like, we all witnessed this, right, we all saw it go down when we weren't appalled then, and nobody same thing with you know, with you mentioned Harvey Weinstein.
It was the worst kept secret in Hollywood, and so many people, the biggest names in the industry knew and aid and abedded because they just kind of look the other way and they were being fitting from Weinstein and his movies and his parties and et cetera. No one wanted to be the person to kind of step out of line, and I think we're going to see it all over again on a very grand scale.
What definitely happens is this mass mentality of oh, everyone's doing it, so it's okay, right, it's Hollywood, like I mean, I don't know.
I don't really know Justin.
I've never met Justin Bieber's parents, but probably as they're breaking him into the music industry, people are saying, oh, well, no, did he takes people? And he took usher in and so that's normal, and so there it goes. I think Jesse's here, so we want to bring him in.
Kind of reminds me a little bit too of the Michael Jackson, you know, the mcaulay culkin stuff that came out.
And we definitely have had the veil pulled back on what Child's stars go through and it's not okay.
I think this is a good time to kind of to bring Jess into this again. He's an anchor and reporter for the Law on Crime Network. He's also hosted Crime and Justice and live trial coverage on CNN Chicago entertainment show A Little Thing called Entertainment Tonight, alongside the Beautiful Lauren Zima and basically every other entertainment show. Jesse, welcome. First of all, thank you for your time.
Oh my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to talk to you, guys. I'm a big fan of the podcast, Jesse. You're so good at what you do.
I think you and I first started working together when we had you on ET during the Johnny Depp amber Herd trial, and your podcast Law and Crime Sidebar became something I listened to every day during that trial. And now I know you've done already at this point, I think four or five episodes on all of the Diddy accusations since this came out a few days ago.
So first I just want to start with what.
Was your initial reaction when you read the indictment and heard the charges.
Well S, we did four to five episodes a day after the end because there's so much here. Now. Look, a lot of people would look at this and say, what's going on? What's a freak off? I don't what Diddy? Where'd that come from? I had been following this case since November of last year, when that first lawsuit was filed by Sean Comb's ex girlfriend, Cassandra Venturo So I had been following this. From the beginning, I knew he
was going to get indicted. A lot of people were saying it was going to happen at the end of the summer September. You know, wasn't surprised when you look at this and you say racketeering and sex trafficking. It's exactly what we expected. It's the same kind of playbook, the same allegations that were being asserted against him in all of these civil lawsuits. What I thought was remarkable was there wasn't more in it. I actually thought that
he might be charged with more crimes. I thought there were going to be things about minors, because that was an how that had been circling around Sean Combs. I actually thought the indictment would be a little bit metior, there'd be more there. But the way that they have basically structured it is very similar to the R. Kelly indictment. This kind of criminal enterprise, that he is the essentially a gang leader, that he's involved in all of these
crimes like kidnapping and forced labor and bribery. You forget for a minute that we're talking about Sean Combs, the guy that dominated the hip hop industry, for so long and essentially if you believe the prosecutors was running a criminal organization. I don't even want to say behind the scenes, because there's the question of did everybody see this well?
And that's that Lauren and I just made that exact point of this was all out in the open. It was so brazen. I mean, you look at these old interviews and at the time, we're like, oh, that's Diddy, you know, the biggest hip hop star and clothing mogul in the world, and they're just being silly, They're being Hollywood.
And now you look back and I think we our eyes have all been open to We mentioned the Epstein, we mentioned Harvey Weinstein, and as you just said, r Kelly, that's another great reference of I think we're now realizing, oh my gosh, we have been watching this play out literally for decades.
Jesse, can you give us we're seeing and what Chris and I are reading out here, charges like sex trafficking and racketeering in arson, Can you give us just the basic understanding of what these charges are against Diddy and the gravity of them. And also, since this indictment is citing back to two thousand and eight, how is it all just coming out now, And how did he hide if he's if he did these things, how is it all hidden until now?
Great question. I don't have the answer for that, and you know who else doesn't have the answer for that, the US attorney. That was the very first question the US attorney was asked in the press conference, why is this only coming out now? No good answer for that. I think there is a possibility that if you take the prosecutor's word for it, power influence buys you a
lot of leeway. You take one of the allegations that he beat up Cassandra Ventur in twenty sixteen, that tape was hidden obstensibly he allegedly bribed security officials to make sure that never saw the light of day. So the idea of a cover up, But I also I believe that it was because of all those civil lawsuits shedding a light on it, these people coming forward, prosecutors looking into it. That's why we have the charges right now. I mean, if you want to give credit to credit
due in terms of this happening, it's Cassandra Ventur. She started this, this lawsuit, her lawsuit in November of twenty twenty three. Is why we have charges against Sean Combs today and he's innocent, so proven guilty. But that's why we have the charges now. In terms of what the charges are, so there's three main charges. They're all felonies. First one racketeering conspiracy. So what you're basically saying is there has to be an agreement between Combs and others
to violate racketeering laws. What's that that there is a criminal enterprise, a criminal organization. The goal here was to basically sexually abuse women, to engage in sex trafficking, kidnapping, force labor. That they would use a variety of methods to do this, violence, threats, coercion, and as a result of this, there was a benefit to Combs, there was a benefit to others that were a part of this.
And if you can show this illegal agreement, if you can show this illegal criminal organization with all of these underlying crimes, that's racketeering conspiracy and it's a big charge. In fact, in the indictment, I think that takes up the majority of the indictment. They're trying to explain what it is and there's so many underlying crimes as part of this criminal organization. It's like the mafia. He's essentially the don in a way. The second charge is sex
trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion. That's with respect to one victim. We don't know exactly who that is. There are those who say Kube Cassandra Ventura. Sex trafficking is basically using fraud, coercion, force to have someone engage in sexual activity for a commercial purpose. For commercial sex, it's either they're paid for it, they're offered something of value,
they're transported over state lines. That's sex trafficking. The final one is trumportation for a prostitution transporting people across state lines for the purposes of illegal s ex wort, prostitution. And they're three main charges. Again, I was curious if there were going to be more, but there's a lot built into those. We don't know exactly who all the accusers are, we don't know who all the witnesses are,
we don't know all the evidence. But those are the three main charges that Sean Combs is currently facing.
There's an old Conan clip of Diddy that has surfaced where he says in the clip, well, yeah, you've got to lock women up sometimes for these parties, and I turned the ac down, so everybody gets hot and it encourages them to do things. And you're thinking, he's literally saying on Conan, how he curates this party, and he just said he locks people up and he says that, but you almost think, I mean, I don't know. I guess at the time we all think he's joking, and everybody looks the other way.
Well, look after these allegations and after the indictment, people will look at old videos and say, oh, that's proof, or that's going to be part of the case, or that we don't know for sure. I mean, he could have been talking about a random party. He could have been talking about what he's accused of doing here. I will tell you that that theme, that power, that influence, that is consistent in a lot of these cases. And not everybody's going to be charged with what Shawn Combs
is charged with. Not everybody gets charged with running a racketeering enterprise or sex trafficking. You have to have the ability to do that. You have to have allegedly a network of people around you. And so when you see somebody like an R. Kelly or what Shawn Combs is accused of doing here, it's that rare set of individuals who have that ability, the power, the money, the influence to not only allegedly engage in these crimes but cover
it up. That's a big theme of this as well, that the reason he never was caught was because he pushed everything under the run, and that is equally as disturbing. And by the way, one of the reasons why at the time of this broadcast time we're recording, he's currently locked up. He didn't get bail. Yeah, because he's accused of reaching out to the witnesses and trying to you know, color their testimony. It's unbelievable.
Yeah, the judge said, turn him down twice for bail, and part of that was, as you said, tampering, witness tampering, but also just she couldn't be sure that even with a fifty million dollar bond, that he would ever be back in the courtroom, whether it's a flight risk or for his own safety. Chances of him actually remaining alive and coming back to court probably slim and none. And chances of him ever making it alive like Epstein did might be slim and none.
And by the way, he offered a generous package, right, fifty million dollars secured by property. He said, that'll hire a third party security team to monitor in twenty four to seven, no phone, no internet, He'll give the visitor logs who comes to the house. Judge said that's insufficient because they were like and there were two judges that actually denied this. A lot of this conduct happened behind
the scenes and the allegations. He might not have a phone, but he could get somebody who has a phone, and he has this network of people that might be able to do it for him. So him on the outside would be a danger to not only the alleged victims in this case of the witnesses, but the integrity of the case.
Jesse, do you think that more as you're talking about this network, what do you think potentially will come out in terms of other people being charged or other you know, what's going to still come out here as being explosive because you just said you thought.
The indictment was going to be metier than it was.
Why wasn't it metior And who else could get in trouble for all this?
Well, I think when you're dealing with the Southern District of New York or the prosecutors in this case. They have experience in this and they're only going to prosecute at this point what they have the goods for. There might be more down the line. But in one of their documents and one of the letters they filed with the court, they said they spoke with over fifty witnesses and victims. We don't know who those people are. They could be very well be the people who are allegedly
involved in this network. And I think when you charge a Sean Combs with three felony counts that could see him face obstensibly the rest of his life in prison, that's a wake up call to people. We better contact the government before they contact us. And I think they've already spoken with a number of people they feel very confident in this case. They didn't lay out even a fraction of the evidence. They have even an idea of
what the evidence they have. They've obviously been speaking with witnesses. They apparently have digital evidence, physical evidence. But this could become a time when more people come forward to build the case against Shawn Combs and maybe other people. Now, to be clear, just be tended a Shawn Combs party doesn't make you a criminal, doesn't make you legally liable. You would have had to be a part of this. You would have had to aid and abt these crimes
to somehow be a participant in these crimes. And also, I can't tell you one hundred percent maybe other than Cassandravntur, because a lot of her allegations are very similar to what we saw in the indictment. I don't know if the other people who filed lawsuits against Shawn Combs are the main cooperating witnesses in this case. Very well could be the situation. Maybe the government spoke with them, maybe
they corroborated certain claims. We don't know, but it's very possible in the weeks and months ahead, we could see an additional indictment. We could see other people charged. But right now they're alleging that Seawan Combs is at the top of that. And I've been asked, well, he's going to name names, right, He's going to give up all the details. Why would he do that. They're not going to off him a deal that doesn't include prison time
at a minimum of ten to fifteen years. So the idea that he's just now going to talk to get some sort of deal, I don't see it happening.
We were just talking before he came on one of the most disappointing things about the Epstein lack of trial, And obviously he died by suicide technically allegedly, but we all expected somebody was going to name names if it wasn't Epstein, it was Maxwell or somebody, and that there was going to be this. It was going to be this big explosive case of all the people who had been on his island, from the royals to the former presidents to the biggest celebrities or allegedly none of that
came out he died. Maxwell came and went, so is this going to be history repeating itself? Or are there finally are we going to learn from those mistakes? And will there be names being named? Or is this we think there's going to be celebrities being because that's really what everyone's talking about, is all the big celebrity names and involved in all this. Is that ever going to bear fruit or is this just going to go away as well?
Well? I certainly hope we have more transparency in this case than we did in the Epstein case. And I think as those documents came out, the number one thing that became clear is he was offered a deal that he shouldn't have been offered. And remember this was also happening in an earlier time. A lot of this alleged conduct that they're talking about from two thousand and nine to twenty twenty four. We're living in a day of digital media and a lot more is captured on cell phones,
a lot more on surveillance footage. Hey, we saw that video of Cassandra Vntera allegedly being beat up by Sean Combs. That piece of evidence right there is more than we ever saw in the Epstein case. So there's a possibility that we may see more. There's a possibility that there are people who are speaking with the government. We will
never know who those people are. There is a possibility that there are celebrities, high profile people that are on the government's radar that were never prosecuted, we're never interviewed. And there's and even stronger possibility that there are certain celebrities who will never say what they witnessed or try to distance themselves from Seawan Combs as much as possible. So as much as we would hope for full transparency, not only just for us, as a society to know
what was going on. But the victims, the alleged victims of these crimes, I can't tell you one hundred percent what will happen. We're still in the early stages of this. He was just indicted. But when you're in the hands of the Southern District of New York, these are very serious federal prosecutors and they wouldn't conduct raids like that in that fashion unless they felt confident in the case and know what the path is moving forward.
Justin I'm glad that you brought up that you'd been following it since November, because now I'm getting a little fuzzy, and can you refresh my memory? So I remember Cassandra Ventura, like you said, the singer known as Cassie. So she'd been in a long relationship with Diddy and then I it was kind of a bombshell. She sued him right for these allegations against him of abuse, and then it
was like he very quickly settled with her. But then that was what started this ball rolling, right, or refresh my memory on why they raided his house in the first place.
You're one hundred percent right. So it was November twenty twenty three, when Cassandra Ventura launches this bombshell lawsuit. I mean the idea of the freak offs. That's where I heard it for the first time. Unfortunately, I wish I never heard it, but that's where I heard it. And a lot of these allegations, including that she was beaten up at the Intercontinental Hotel in twenty sixteen, was part of that. I was reading through it, I did a breakdown on sidebar all of this. I said to myself,
I know, we'll see where this case goes. And then she ends up settling the next day. Not uncommon we see settlements, but the very next day. You know, Sean Combs clearly wanted to keep it quiet, didn't want to go through a litigation where all this evidence could come out. And from there nine or ten law suits resulted, everything from former people who said that they were assaulted by him in the nineties. You have a former producer who says that he was sexually assaulted and sex trafficked by
Sean Combs. And as this was going on, whenever you see these kinds of civil cases, you say, I wonder if the authorities are looking into this. Now a lot of these claims were old, so they were too old, they were pasted, they were too old for the statue limitations, you couldn't bring charges. But when we saw the raids at his properties in March, we didn't know exactly what
they were for. We didn't know then as it happened, we learned that they were part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation, and that was consistent with the allegations that were put forward in the civil suits. And then our next question was, well are these people cooperating with them?
What evidence was collected? We know his sons were handcuffed and detained outside of the la property, and they had been listed in these lawsuits as well as being participants that was going on, and so as we were trying to make sense of that, we knew that there was going to There was a report a grand jury was impaneled in New York. We knew charges were coming well, we just didn't know exactly what those charges would be, when they would come, who with the cooperating witnesses would be.
But what was remarkable is looks as attorney, I hate to say this, anybody can sue anybody for anything. That's the truth. It doesn't mean they're going to be successful. But anybody can see anything when federal prosecutors bring criminal charges seemingly done these allegations and use the term freak off that has been referenced in those lawsuits. How much more credibility does that give those those accusers. How much
more credibility does it give a Cassandra Vntura. And look, there's a number of reasons people settle lawsuits, right, you can't falter for settling a lawsuit. We don't know what the terms of that settlement were, but I think it does give a little bit of credence to what she was saying. And obviously it seems to me she's going to be a star witness for the prosecution and she'll be questioned by the defense. But the idea that federal prosecute worked, which by the way, this case probably wouldn't
have happened if it wasn't for those civil lawsuits. And one more thing, half those lawsuits wouldn't have been possible if there wasn't a change in the law. In New York. They made a law where you had a one year look back window to file civil claims that were otherwise too old. If they weren't didn't have the ability to do that. I don't know if this would have been on prosecutors radar. I don't know if any of these
accusers would have felt comfortable coming forward. And so those civil lawsuits, this is a case where you have to say, if it wasn't for those, we probably wouldn't have seen federal criminal charges.
So everybody's asking about these videotapes from these raids that you're mentioning, what is the process for the prosecutors after the raid happens. They get all this digital footage, obviously they go through it, and then are they potentially reaching out to people who might have been victims that they're seeing on these tapes? Are they putting together cases against maybe other potential criminals.
From these tapes? How does that go?
Because it makes me wonder, as Chris is saying, everybody's asking what names who's on these tapes? And how much will we hear about potentially famous people on these tapes.
So look, it's a few parts. Number One, they wouldn't have been able to get the search warrants to search those properties if they didn't have probable costs when you search a property to get additional evidence like videotapes, Does it corroborate what you've already been told? It corroborates, That definitely helps the case. There are other people on those tapes, and remember the allegation as Sean Combs had videotape people
without them knowing. It becomes a question do you let the victims know that they are essentially on these tapes and what it means if there are other people who are on those tapes that are facilitating this abuse, then they can come in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors and they have to sit down for an interview, and it becomes a question of how much you let them know
what's going on. I've seen a million interrogations where you kind of let the subject speak a little bit, and when they try to say, I don't know anything about it, we have some evidence against you. Sure you want to stick with this story? And I think all of this was happening behind the scenes for months, building a case, reaching out to witnesses, reaching out to alleged victims, corroborating
their stories. Again, what I took away from the past week the two letters from the prosecutors to the judges and the indictment was a confidence in the charges that they're moving forward with, and they wouldn't have brought this case unless they felt they had the goods. And they say that there is a wealth of evidence, a lot of evidence they have to prove these crimes legally.
I'm curious to piggyback on what Lauren's asking. So we know they have thousands and thousands of hours of videos to comb through, which I can't imagine how daunting and horrifying that is to go through. If someone is being videotaped unbeknownst to them against their will, yet they see a crime committed, someone's with underage or committing some crime, that is that is that going to be sticky because this isn't exactly part of a sting operation. You see
what I'm getting at. It's like, Okay, well they didn't know the other being videotaped against their will, yet you're watching someone make a you know, commit a crime. Is that something they can go after? They could just use it as leverage.
So there's another States across this country have a number of laws in place about whether or not someone could be recorded without their consent. There's also revenge porn laws and what you can also see is the federal prosecutors can't bring state charges. But what they can do, and what you saw during the course of this racketeering case is they listed a number of crimes that are illegal under California or New York law, like kidnapping, forced labor, bribery,
and they're building that into a larger racketeering case. Okay, so what they are basically saying is there's a criminal enterprise. We'll show you there's arson here, show you there's kidnapping. We're not charging Shawn Combs with that individually, but it's part of a larger case to say that he is operating this criminal enterprise that engaged in all of these different crimes. And they may tack on more because not to get too complicated, but for a racketeering case, you
really only need to prove two underlying crimes. Imagine if they can show the jury so much more, and it does become a question even if Shawn Combs they can prove is guilty of state crimes, and you have state prosecutors that want to bring those charges, do you the federal case is going to go first. One of the things with r. Kelly is I don't even remember how many jurisdictions he was charged in, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York. Federal prosecutors are building a case where essentially, you know,
he could go to prison. As I'm not emphasizing this light racketeering is twenty years in prison. One of the other charges fifteen years to life. If there might be enough there is it worth trying to prosecute him in a state case right now? But we'll see. But don't I think they're building more of those state charges into the federal case.
Like I think I think we realize he's dead to right, like he's toast.
Well, he's innocential, proven guilty of an opportunity he.
Has another analysts said, kind of what you did is like they don't press charges of this type without knowing they got this guy dead to write, So let's assume you know allegedly he's he's toast. It's this much like the Epstein thing. The bigger issues with these situations is they're bigger than one man. This isn't just about p Didty, It's not about Sean Combs not it wasn't just about Jeffrey Epstein. This goes so much bigger. You know even this week it's you know, doesn't have anything to do
with it, We don't know. But then Usher and pink erased all their Twitter history this weekend, and so I guarantee, I'm sure you know there are some very nervous celebrities and people in the music industry, in Hollywood business. This thing has to be bigger. It has longer tentacles than just Sean Combs. Correct Remember what have with Harvey Weinstein.
It was the darling of about and everybody starts to say I noticed something, he would talk, but they weren't a part of the actual abuse. They weren't there for when it happened. This feels a little bit different now. I want to be clear about something. If celebrities are taking some actions right now after the indictment, I don't know what to make of that. I'm not necessarily going to say they're a victim or a participant in what happened.
We shall wait and see. But what I can say is if he was engaging in this behavior for years and people were a part of this, I mean it's going to be really hard for those individuals who were closest to him or kept attending his events to make a public appearance and say no comment or say I don't have anything to say about this. It's going to be really tough. I'm not saying they'll be charged, but to be in a position where you said you didn't
see any of this going on, Now, what's the defense? Right? His defense is going to be kind of heard rumblings of it. It was consensual, Yeah, I engaged in freefs. Yeah there's a thousand bottles of baby oil. But it might be weird to you and me, but this is what I engage in. Everything was consensual. Okay. I think that's a tough road to go because I think this is not just about having sex parties. It's about using force, threats violence. That's what the key is. Transporting people across
state lines, using drugs. It's more nefarious than that. But I think the question is again going back to transparency. Will we ever get the full picture of who was involved, who was abused? Maybe maybe not. Look, I'm a lawyer, love the law. I think our justice system does a great many great things, but it's imperfect. It's imperfect in many ways, and that also means in terms of getting full transparency. Sometimes it's not about whether somebody did it.
It's not about what the truth is, it's about what you can prove. And so these are three charges, very specific charges in terms of getting answers as to everything Sean Combs did and was a part of. I don't know if this case will help solve all those answers.
I see we mentioned that I first saw your work with the Johnny Depp amber Heard trial, which was a televised trial that a lot of people watched. Will this because of I mean, some of the horrific allegations made here?
How public will this be?
How much access will people have considering the high level of public interest in this trial. But it's not, you know, a divorce case. It's a serious criminal case.
It won't be. It won't be. Unfortunately, there are no cameras allowed in federal courts, let alone New York. I think it's a travesty. I think cameras should be allowed in every courtroom, including the Supreme Court. Hey, listen, if you want a courtroom sketch, that's probably going to be the best we get, maybe some reporters explaining what's happening in the court. I covered the Harvey Weinstein trial. I was in that court a and I did my best
to be in writing back what was going on. But that visual medium, which I think is so important in terms of transparency of our legal system, but also important for people to see the witness testimony for themselves what to make of it. I will tell you there's one danger. One danger, and I think this is actually the importance of not to tell my organization, but the importance of
Long Crime and Cydebar. When Johnny Depp Amberhard happened televised, everybody saw, and I remember, why would Johnny Depp go to trial? Why would he want all of his dirty laundry air? And then as the case progressed, you saw his point of view, You saw the weaknesses of Amber Heard's case. You saw this, and I thought it was great. But what happens is, particularly on social media, people take clips and they actually splice it and they create misinformation.
I was in that courtroom almost every day for that six week trial, and I remember seeing people splicing clips together and making Amber Heard look worse than she was. And that is one of the dangers as well. But that is why it's also great to have certain organizations like we do here at Long Crime to give people the real facts and give people what's happening, and there has to be an accurate portrayal of what's happening in
that courtroom. So as much as I love I would welcome cameras in the Sean diddy Comb's trial, we're not going to get it, And you know, we lose that ability, We're not going to have that risk of people splicing information together. But I also will say that I think we lose something by not having a how many people can actually tell you what happened in the Gleainne Maxwell trial in Jeffrey Epstein transcripts people reading it. The visual medium is so important, particularly in a case like this.
Yeah, when I was covering Britney Spears's trial for ET, I mean that was when I first learned they don't even let you take out your cell phone in the courtroom.
They don't want you.
So you have you're furiously, like you said, writing down notes on an old school pen and pad and then bringing it out and reporting on it. And it is amazing how little the courtroom scenario has evolved with the evolution of technology. The fact that you just mentioned, you know, we're going to get courtroom sketches. It's wild that they
don't even let someone take a photograph. I mean, we're having someone do an oil painting of P Diddy to show him on you know it is hearing it's kind of antiquated.
Well, I also say, look, you're dealing with very sensitive subject matter. Imagine these witnesses testifying about what happened to them. You want to add that safeguard. I understand that it could be particularly difficult. Actually, remember I was in the Harvey Weinstein courtroom and there was a witness testifying and it was you could hear a pin drop. Nobody was
saying anything. We were listening to her account. It was right at the moment where she's describing and being abused, and she thought somebody in the back of the court had taken a picture and she stopped. She goes, if someone recording and someone take a picture, and we all look nobody was. But it kind of shed a light on how tough this is for her, and you know, dealing with a case about what we're dealing with this subject matter, you can also understand the sensitivity.
And those people deserve their moment in court. On that note, a lot of people as we've said, are wondering about the celebrit factor here, And you know, I see people on Twitter pointing out, Hey, Jennifer Lopez was with P Diddy for years and the kind of strangeness that's coming to light now, and I think we're all looking back differently of us or living with Ditty at age thirteen, or Justin Bieber being fifteen years old and being and spending a lot of time with Diddy who's much older
than him and way into being a you know, far and away a legal adult over a kid who couldn't even drive yet. What do you think is the potential I don't know how much the indictment indicates of you know, some of these famous people being called to be witnesses in the in this case.
Well, first I me just say, at the very least, it's disturbing. At the very most, it could be something criminal. We just don't know. Look, as I said, I thought it was surprising that there was nothing about underage girls or minors being a part of this. They were not mentioned all. Now could that change? Yes, is there a potential that you could have a witness this big celebrity who we might see just talk about the environment, what Combs was like, what the parties were like. It has
to be relevant to some aspect of the case. But one of the reasons we do not know who these witnesses are, and it's not surprising at the beginning of this case we don't is we'll probably won't learn it. Closer to a trial, They're going to probably have some very sense of information and these could be I mean, who attended Shawn Combs's part It wasn't my accountant, Okay, it wasn't him, It was the you know what I mean. It was So it was the people who high profile
celebrities that can document what happened. And I imagine that number could grow, and as more people come forward. By the way, and as the prosecution builds their case, Seawan Combs may want to take a deal, And what I mean by that is he's not not going to get prison time, but there is a difference between thirty years in prison and life in prison. So as the prosecutor's
case gets stronger, potentially and more people come forward. In the United States, attorney said that this is an ongoing investigation. Perhaps those celebrities are coming forward and giving their side of events about what happened. But if Justin Bieber is being subpoenaed or Jennifer Lopez, we don't know. At this point. We don't know if they've cooperated, but it would certainly be telling, and I think that it's I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to say they probably
have information. What that information is, how it fits into the overall criminal case, We're not sure. But people who were in Shawn Combe's orbit, there are the people you want to talk to.
But you said you don't think he will be naming names because there wouldn't be anything valuable to Diddy to do that.
Usually in a case like this, you would name names to strike a deal. But when he is accused of what he's accused of doing, not just being a participant, but being the leader. And let's remember what he's accused of doing. He's accused of sexually abusing multiple people and using violence and threats and drugs to do what he wants.
That he allegedly obstructed justice as a video of him allegedly beating Cassandra Ventura in that open environment a hotel hallway, I don't imagine that he's not going to get significant prison time. So even if he's he's fifty four years old, Let's say they say, you know, fifteen years in prison or ten years in prison, that's a big chunk of his life. He may say, listen, I think I can
fight this. You know. One of the questions I keep getting ask is why didn't Sean comes just leave the country he new charges were coming, he voluntarily came to New York. Why would he do that? Two reasons. One, I actually think he thought he could make bail. I think that he thought if I was as cooperative as possible. I gave my passport over to my lawyers. I told the prosecutors where I was going. I'm not a flight risk. I'll be at home arrest for one to two years,
and I think I could actually win this case. He won in the past. He's never gotten in trouble like this before. He might be able to say it was consensual. He might think he can have a chance to beat it. The other way is it's really really tough to try to leave the country. I can always see it on TV, But to go to a non extradition country to get a pilot to agree to you to take you there. If federal prosecutors got wind of him trying to leave,
they would have arrested him on the spot. But I think the point is he might believe that he can beat this case and he might want to risk it roll the dice as opposed to just taking a deal, because when you take a deal, you forfeit your rights to appeal. That's it. You take a deal, you're going away, unless under extreme circumstances something happened where that deal wasn't valid or was made under false pretenses. You accept a deal,
you're serving that time. And I don't think he wants to agree to that.
You mentioned some time. I think what people listening will want to know too is when is this all going to play out? You know, we would love for this to play out immediately, that's not how the legal system works. So what is the actual timeline? What is next?
So by law, Shawn Combs would have a right to a speedy trial, kind of put the fire to the prosecutor's heels. I don't imagine he's going to want to do that. If you want to actually properly defend this case, I think they're going to file a motion to basically say that this is a complex case. There's a lot to go through, and in federal cases like this, they might not see a trial for a year, year and
a half, maybe two years. There's a lot of material to go through, and unfortunately for Sean Combs, we now have learned that he is going to spend that time. And I think that is the important thing to remember is this has to stay in the public consciousness. This is in a very very important story. And although we don't have these hearings or the trial to be televised, what we've seen already through transcripts and reporters and filings is we're getting a good sense of what this case
is about. But in terms of a resolution, we're probably not going to see that, maybe till the end of twenty twenty five, maybe beginning of twenty twenty six, that's my guess right now, but.
We'll see wow, and he'll be in jail until then.
As of right now, I mean he is trying to appeal it to a higher court. But here's the difference, a little bit of law for you. So when we had the first judge magistrate judge decided the issue of bail denied it. It was appealed to a district court judge who doesn't have to listen to the magistrate judge. This district court judge can review it, anew can review it. From the beginning with fresh set eyes was not convinced either. The next court that they're appealing it to actually has
to give deference to this lower court judge. So unless they can say this was completely improper, this is going to be upheld. And I mean, if you hear the arguments for why the judge denied bail, they make sense. You might not agree with it, but they make sense. The idea of him being in danger of flight risk reaching out to witnesses allegedly that I don't see a situation where he gets much relief.
Well, Jesse, we're going to let you go, but I want to ask you, because we've brought up Epstein, Weinstein, R. Kelly, knowing what you know about those cases and now about these allegations against P Diddy, where does he fall in terms of the scope of the alleged criminal network he was run and how bad all these charges are. Where does he rank against what are now these very nefarious and notoriously horrifying, but celebrity and fame filled cases that we've seen in the public eye.
So there's a lot of similarities. It's the terms of power, influence, fame, the ability to use these certain means and methods to get what you want. What you are dealing with is a consistent theme of people who use this for their own sexual gratification and desires, and it's pretty disgusting and sick.
I mean, every allegation is a little bit different. But if you're talking about what Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for, and you're talking about what R. Kelly was convicted for, and what you're talking about Sean Colmes is being accused of, there is this common similarity. But in terms of running a network, if you believe the allegations put forward by prosecutors, it's very similar to Epstein and it's very similar to R. Kelly. There have been comparisons. We did comparisons on sidebar where
do it rank? Where does how do you match up the R. Kelly case versus the Jeffrey Epstein case. We actually interviewed the former prosecutor who put R. Kelly away and there are very consistent similarities. And he was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. That's what Colmbs is being FA is charged with, and these are charges that actually make sense for this conduct. It's deplorable if you take this as true. Again, he's innocent until proven guilty. But
these are really really sick allegations. And as I said before, not everybody would be charged with this. Not everyone have the ability and the means to do stuff like this, And it's just it's really frightening to think about who someone who gave a public perception. I mean, these were people who were beloved, not Epstein, but these were people who beloved R. Kelly, Harvey Weinstein, the darlings of Hollywood music,
hip hop entertainment. To see what was allegedly happening behind the scenes air quotes is just even to this day, it's kind of unimaginable think about.
Yeah, all right, well, Jesse, thank you so much for being with us. And again you guys check out Lawn Crime Sidebar Jesse's podcast. This is our one episode on the p Diddy situation, but I think he's got at least five or six ups, so there's so much more in depth.
And Jesse, I know you spoke with several experts.
There is there any one episode do you think people should start with on sidebar if they're really interested in this.
Well, I think when we break down the indictment like day one, almost in real time, I think I filmed that literally twenty minutes after I got it. Wow, that was interesting. And then there was an episode where I interviewed the former prosecutor who put R. Kelly away and comparing that case with this case. I think it's pretty informative. So I hope everybody can check it out. And thank you both so much for having me on. Such a pleasure talking to you both.
Thank you for your expertise. It was good to meet you, and we will probably be talking to you again about this.
Yes, thank you Jesse. And you can also check him out on the Lawn Crime Network. Jesse, so good to see you again.
Good see you both.
Thank you, our thanks to Jesse, who's also a contributor now on News Nations so you can see him everywhere. And I see why by the way the way he can simplify and cut this up into bite size little nuggets for simpletons like myself, it helps because these are big broad terms. Like you said, you hear racketeering, you hear these kidnapping, and I know, we know what kidnapping is, but you're like, how is this applicable to Sean Colmbs
and what's going on? So it's nice to have somebody really break this apart and kind of spoon feed us what's really happening and when will it happen.
Well, I think he really put into perspective how nefarious the soul is. I mean, not that it wasn't lost on me, but like you said, sometimes the legal jargon, we think of kidnapping and you think of a TV show and somebody getting thrown in a trunk, and there were a lot of horrible allegations thrown out, but seemingly part of this alleged bigger network of you know, and like you said, the influence of power and money and
what that can do. And I'm glad that Jesse brought up cass He called her Cassandra Ventura, but she's known as the singer Cassie who had dated Culms from a very young age and her bravery and coming forward. You know, when you think about the influence he had over people's careers from a very young age, that was incredibly powerful, and he was incredibly powerful.
He was a king maker and a lot of these people are they can make your career.
He had that show, Remember the show on him was at MTV or vh one making the band. He literally had a reality show where he made you know that female pop group's career and I know that I'm Aubrey. Oda is someone who'd spoken out against him many times over the years, but he was also an incredible person of influence doing the voter Die campaign, his clothing line, appearing in movies, everything that he did made him seem
to be someone you would idolize. And this is really pulled back the veil and we will see where it goes from here. So thank you again to Jesse. Go check out his podcast if you're interested.
In more, and we'll see where this goes.
And we will do it again next time because we have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.