Prosecutors are strongly pushing back Be combs‘ claims that they leaked the explosive video that shows his brutal beating of his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in a hotel hallway in March 2016. In a lengthy reprimand filed Wednesday night, prosecutors said their copy of the surveillance video is still the one they downloaded from CNN broadcast broke the news last May. In more than 39 pages of arguments, they said Combs’ recent three motions seeking to exclude the video from his upcoming trial, gain early access to the prosecution’s list of victims’ names and obtain a gag order on witnesses and their lawyers should be denied. .

Combs, 54, was arrested in his federal indictment on September 16 and He’s sitting in a federal jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial on charges of extortion and sex trafficking. The former billionaire founder of Bad Boy Entertainment has pleaded not guilty. His trial in midtown Manhattan is scheduled for May 5, 2025.

“All three of the defendant’s motions should be denied in their entirety,” prosecutors wrote, saying that Combs’ request for an evidentiary hearing and the “suppression” of Ventura’s video at trial “should be denied.” They said the video was not protected material when CNN obtained it, and they voluntarily admitted that their own attempts to obtain the video had failed. They said that as of Wednesday they had still “not obtained the Intercontinental video broadcast by CNN from any source other than the public broadcast.”

“As the defendant is fully aware, the video was not in the government’s possession at the time of CNN’s publication, and the government never, at any time, obtained the video through a grand jury process,” prosecutors said. Southern District of New York. York wrote.

“The defendant refuses to acknowledge that multiple individuals other than government agents—
“including some of (Combs’) own employees, may have had access to the Intercontinental video,” they continued. “Indeed, the government continues to investigate who had access to and may have obtained the video, including, for example, hotel employees, the security team hired by the hotel, and members of the defendant’s staff, who, as discussed in registry, attempted to obtain the surveillance video after the March 2016 incident.”

Regarding Combs’ demand for victims’ names through something called a “particulars of particulars” — that is, a written breakdown of the claims in a lawsuit — prosecutors said it’s too early. “Here, all discovery will occur by December 31, 2024, more than four months before trial, and the government’s ongoing productions have intentionally prioritized elements such as search warrant affidavits, which contextualize the charges in the indictment, as well as other materials requested by the defendant.” They said that if Combs later claims he does not have enough time to prepare for trial, “the appropriate remedy” is to ask for a delay of the May trial date he specifically requested. “Due to the defendant’s history, the government has serious concerns about the safety of the victims and the possibility of witness tampering if the defendant were provided a list of the victims’ names,” they said.

They said Combs’ third motion seeking a gag order on witnesses should also be denied as “extraordinarily broad relief.” They described it as “nothing more than another attempt to force the government to prematurely reveal its witness list.”

Combs’ group did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the government’s filing. When your lawyers filed his motion demanding the names of the victims Earlier this month, they said prosecutors were “unfairly” forcing Combs to “play a guessing game” as he prepared his defense. They said Combs’ 14-page indictment lacked “particularity” to the point that they could not determine who the other unnamed alleged victims were, at least beyond the main victim. widely understood as Ventura.

“The government is unfairly forcing (Combs) to play a guessing game,” defense attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos wrote. “Without clarity from the government, Mr. Combs has no way of knowing what allegations the government is relying on for purposes of impeachment.” The attorneys said Combs’ position “was made even more challenging by the avalanche of unfounded allegations that desperate plaintiffs are bringing to him – largely anonymously – in civil lawsuits designed to demand compensation from Mr. Combs and others.” .

A pretrial hearing in the criminal case is set for Dec. 18. his accusationCombs is accused of having “abused, threatened and coerced” multiple unidentified victims “to satisfy his sexual desires.” Prosecutors alleged that Combs engaged in a “pervasive and persistent pattern of abuse,” but were notably vague about dates and details about people other than Ventura, who was not specifically named.

talking to rolling stone Last month, Elizabeth Geddes, a former federal prosecutor who presented closing arguments in the government’s successful prosecution of R. Kelly in Brooklyn, described Combs’ racketeering indictment as following a “Glecier format,” that is, a basic style that bears the name of a famous case. , United States v. Glecier. He said that this format has the advantage of providing more protection to witnesses. “By proceeding that way, they don’t have to list each of the different acts of organized crime that they plan to prove at trial. They can simply list broad categories of crimes (without) alleging particular cases or particular victims,” Geddes said.

Outside of the criminal case, Combs also faces more than two dozen lawsuits filed by plaintiffs ranging from sexual harassment to rape. The avalanche of civil lawsuits began when Ventura filed his graphic complaint for sex trafficking last November. Combs settled with Ventura for an undisclosed sum within 24 hours, but his 35-page complaint, now the heart of the music mogul’s criminal case, opened the floodgates. Combs’ houses were raided in march and may, CNN obtained and released the harrowing hotel surveillance video showing Combs throwing, kicking, stomping and dragging Ventura in the hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles. After first denying Ventura’s claims against him, Combs issued a video apology related to the incident, admitting that his “behavior in that video is inexcusable.”