Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
Stephen A. discusses Sean Combs’s legal team accusing the federal government of leaking the Cassie Ventura assault tape.
We're getting started with the latest on showing Diddy Combs, who's currently sitting in a federal jail awaiting trial on sex traffic and conspiracy and racketeering charges. At a hearing on Thursday, his trial date was tentatively set from May fifth, two thy twenty five. In addition, prosecutor said Combs may be facing additional criminal charges down a row. So damn they still building a Mortva case. Still build a Marva case. According to new legal documents obtained by TMZ, who Else, Comb's attorneys are accusing the FEDS of misconduct, alleging they orchestrated the leak of the Cassie Venturer tape to Cenn. The take from twenty sixteen, if you remember, showed Diddy throwing Cassie to the floor, kicking her twice while she was trying to get on an elevator at a Los Angeles hotel. In the legal documents, Diddy's attorneys are specifically blaming the Department of Homeland Security, not the US Attorney's office. They also contend that the Department of Homeland Security is likely the source of the leak for a few reasons, namely, the DHS agent's Department of Homeland Security, for those of you who don't know, were often quoted in news stories about the raids on Ditti's homes in Los Angeles and Miami.
Okay, y'all, okay, y'all.
First things first, according to the prosecution, they didn't have a copy of the tape and tell they ain't get a copy of the tape until they saw it on CNN. Prior to that, they had no knowledge of it. Could they be lying, sure, does it really really make a difference? Now, one could easily argue no, because the tape did show him beating up Cassie Ventura. We do have a video tape of P Diddy saying it was really fun good.
That's what Those are his words, not ours.
He was on video admitting that he was messed up, that he did what he did, that it was undeniably inexplicable, unex inexcusable, and that he was wrong.
We see it right there. That was the video.
He already said he admitted it, so we can't. I mean, nothing changes that. Once you on video, you on video. I will remind y'all that when Ray Rice got into his situation with his then fiance in Atlantic.
City back a decade ago.
He never played another game in his NFL career because video matters. Video matters, and so to me, my initial reaction was, why bring up if you are the defense, why even bring up the tape again talking about how it was leaked by the government to try to buffer your case, try to buffer your argument. To me, initially, initially it made no sense. I just thought it was dumb. I just thought it was dumb. I'm looking at his attorney's like, what the hell are you thinking. You're just reminding everybody of how egregious his actions were.
That's what I was thinking.
But then I said, ah, ah, the court of public opinion is one thing they trying to get this brother off. Their next move is to say that if you can prove that the prosecution leaked the tape to the public, then you could get the tape removed as evidence to be presented by the prosecution, and the defense wins because you don't have to worry about twelve jurors seeing that damn tate while they're trying to judge whether or not to confiscate this man's freedom for.
The rest of his natural life.
So it's two modes of thinking on one hand, all right, they leaked.
The videos that was very egregious.
See public you understand I'm saying, trying to take the black man even further, trying to take him down is what they're trying to do, Trying to make him look bad, trying to convict him in the court of public opinion. We've got to give p did he some reprieve? We got to give him some support because there are still ladies and gentlemen, even with the video of him and Cassie Ventora, his ex girlfriend, in that hotel lobby by the elevator, Even with that, y'all do know, there's still millions of people who support Pee Diddy, Right, you do know there are people that are saying he's being railroaded.
Right.
You do know that there are people that are leading or leaning on conspiracy theories because of this case where he was suing Diagio, which owned Shirak, and they supposed to owe him money. And then you got people speculating about private investigators being hired to take them down because they were pissed off that he them after all of this money they helped them make. Blah blah blah blah blah, all of that stuff, while in low likelihood unprovable, is conceivable to the mind, especially to a mind of people who support somebody that's being prosecuted by our government who happens to be a black man.
You are gonna have people that look at that. Now, keep in mind, there were people outside the courthouse supporting r. Kelly. You remember that they were women.
So if that's the reality, right, and you have people outside the courthouse, grown ass women with daughters supporting him.
Is it not conceivable.
That there's gonna be a bunch of people that's supporting did he?
Yes? It is, Yes, it is. Now.
I understand they're talking about and I know my researchers looking at me and they talking about underaged people were diddy. I know they were sex workers, but I'm talking about the actual charges against them, sex trafficking, racketeering, etc. There's nothing about underage folks. That There have been civil cases that people have hinted might be coming down the pike that could involve underage people or people who were under age at the time, but we haven't seen that yet in this particular case against So you got people out there that's supporting. Back to all of this, today court date May fifth, twenty twenty five. Twin daughters Jesse James and Delilah Starr held hands as they walked into the Lower Manhattan Courthouse just before the two pm hearing. The bad Boy Records found that entered the courtroom through a side door wearing ten jail clothes. He flashed a smile and waved to his son King Combs, who was sitting in the second row of the courtroom gallery. Is good that his children are there, no doubt about it, giving them all the support that he needs, Okay, And of course his mother, Jani's Comb showed up walking into the federal courthouse as well, so as family's there in full support of him. I was just taken aback by them making noise about the video being leaked, because I was like, how the hell is that gonna help him? But in the end, when you really think about it, it does kind of help him in the court of public opinion, because whenever a black man is being prosecuted and we think that the government has done something salacious or unethical in their pursuit of him, we go side with him at least to a degree in terms of pointing out the kind of links they will go through to take them down. We're also hearing that they're coming with additional charges down the pike. This is just the start, it ain't the finish line. But by doing this, their belief is that that's going to help him in the court of public opinion.
I don't know if they're wrong.
They might be right about that, but they especially win if they get that tape removed and it's not allowed to be seen by the twelve jurors that's going to be assigned to decide whether or not he's going to jail for twenty twenty five years, the forty years the rest of his life, or whether he's gonna be made to be a free man. He still ain't been let out on bail, if I remember correctly, a judge was removed from a case and a different judge came about. Still ain't removed from jail. They still haven't granted him bail. But this revealing of the tape and the accusations that it was leaked by the government to assist the prosecution, were they are to the prosecution.
The government, it does make sense. It might not be that bad of a strategy.
And if you can get that tape removed. Hm, hmmm, they don't have to see what he did to his ex girl.
HM. It's interesting. I'm just saying, I'm just saying.
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