Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, knew after the Homeland Security raids in March that the music mogul would eventually be formally charged.
“I knew that day by looking at the search warrants, I mean … I’ve been doing this for a while. This is not my first or 100th rodeo. [I knew] that this was going to come as a matter of time,” Agnifilo said during a Tuesday, September 17, appearance on CNN’s The Source With Kaitlan Collins. “What I realized in early September is that it was coming soon and so it was time for Mr. Combs to come to New York, which he did.”
Diddy, 54, traveled to New York earlier this month, “as soon as we realized that this indictment was going to be coming down in a matter of weeks,” Agnifilo explained. The attorney “called the prosecutors” and said the rapper “wants to surrender.”
Agnifilo claimed during Tuesday’s interview that the prosecution “didn’t want him to surrender.”
“If he surrenders, they don’t get to tell the judge that he’s a flight risk and he’s a danger,” Agnifilo alleged. “Because who as a danger and a flight risk would fly to New York and surrender?”
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Agnifilo also alleged that his client is not guilty. “He’s innocent. I believe he’s innocent. I believe he’s innocent of the charges,” he said. “He is going to go to trial. And I believe he’s going to win.”
Diddy was arrested on Monday, September 16, in New York following a grand jury indictment. On Tuesday, he entered a not guilty plea for charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution. Diddy was subsequently denied bail and will remain in federal custody pending the outcome of his trial.
Agnifilo told Collins on Tuesday that his “defense is very well-established,” noting that he has interviewed “different men” who were involved in Diddy’s “intimate situation.”
“There’s not the slightest inkling — according to the interviews that I’ve done — of anything that’s coercive, nonconsensual,” Agnifilo claimed. “Nobody was too drunk; nobody was too high.”
A 14-page indictment outlining the allegations says otherwise, claiming that Diddy “abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him.” The indictment, which was unsealed Tuesday, detailed “Freak Offs” hosted by the musician and members of Combs Enterprise where female victims would allegedly be lured into hotel rooms and forced to “engage in extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers.”
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The attorney also brought up the 2016 hotel security footage that allegedly showed Diddy assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie, whom he dated on and off from 2007 to 2018.
“The prosecutors are seizing on something that happened eight years ago. This video that we’ve all seen, it’s a bad video for Mr. Combs and he said so himself when he gave his apology,” Agnifilo said. “This is eight years ago, and the prosecutors are talking about him bribing a hotel security worker. There was no criminal investigation.”
He said the past situation was “a matter of personal embarrassment” between Diddy and Cassie, claiming the pair had a “mutually” toxic relationship.
“This whole notion that Mr. Combs is forcing drugs on someone is just nonsensical and it’s going to prove to not be true,” Agnifilo continued, noting that the video would “100 percent” be seen in court.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
