Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs makes a fresh bid for bail in case
NEW YORK | Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs asked a judge Wednesday to let him await his sex trafficking trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, rather than a grim federal jail in Brooklyn.
Combs’ lawyers offered a $50 million bail package — using his mansion as collateral — in exchange for releasing him to home detention with GPS monitoring and strict limitations on who could visit him. A hearing on the request was set for Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate judge in Manhattan ordered Combs held without bail.
The hip-hop mogul was arrested Monday after an indictment accused him of using his “power and prestige” to induce female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs” that Combs arranged, participated in and often recorded. The events would sometimes last days, the indictment said.
The indictment alleges he coerced and abused women for years, with the help of a network of associates and employees, while using blackmail and violent acts including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings to keep victims from speaking out.
The magistrate judge initially ruled that Combs was too dangerous to be freed. But Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, submitted a letter to Judge Andrew L. Carter on Wednesday asking again for bail under conditions that would allow him to leave the Metropolitan Detention Center, the lockup on the Brooklyn waterfront where he was taken after his arraignment.
The jail, which has around 1,200 inmates, is the subject of frequent complaints from lawyers and some judges that it is overcrowded, violent and neglected.
Combs’ Florida house is on Star Island, a man-made dollop of land in Biscayne Bay, reachable only by a causeway or boat. It is among the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combs’ request echoes that of a long line of wealthy defendants who have offered to pay multimillion-dollar bails in exchange for home detention in luxurious surroundings.
If he were to be granted bail, Combs would have to stay in that house while awaiting trial, his lawyers offered. Visits would be restricted to family, property caretakers and friends who are not considered co-conspirators.
“I am feeling confident. We’re going to go get Mr. Combs out of jail,” Agnifilo said on his way into court Wednesday. He said Combs is “doing great, he’s focused and he’s ready for his hearing.”
Prosecutors said Wednesday that Combs’ new bail proposal “fails to adequately protect the community against his dangerousness and ability to interfere with witnesses.”
Combs was expected to reenter his not guilty plea in his initial appearance before Carter.
Many of the accusations in the indictment parallel allegations contained in a November lawsuit filed by Combs’ former longtime girlfriend and protege, the R&B singer Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. The suit was settled the following day, but its allegations have followed Combs since.
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.
Without naming Ventura but clearly referring to her, Agnifilo argued at Tuesday’s arraignment that the entire criminal case is an outgrowth of one long-term, troubled-but-consensual relationship that faltered amid infidelity. The “Freak Offs,” he contended, were an expansion of that relationship, and not coercive.
Prosecutors portrayed the scope as larger. They said they had interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses.
Like many aging hip-hop figures, Bad Boy Records founder Combs had established a gentler public image. The father of seven children was a respected international businessman, whose annual “White Party” in the Hamptons was once a must-have invitation for the jet-setting elite.
But prosecutors said he used the same companies, people and methods he used to build his business and cultural power to facilitate his crimes. They said they would prove it with financial and travel records, electronic communications and videos of the “Freak Offs.”
In March, authorities raided Combs’ luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami, seizing narcotics, videos and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to prosecutors. They said agents also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.
A conviction on every charge in the indictment would require a mandatory 15 years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
NEW YORK | Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
A new indictment charged the jailed ex-movie mogul with committing a criminal sex act, accusing him of forcing oral sex on a woman at some point between April 29, 2006, and May 6 of that year.
Weinstein has long maintained that he never engaged in any sexual activity that wasn’t consensual.
No details about the accuser involved in the new charge were released.
“Thanks to this survivor who bravely came forward, Harvey Weinstein now stands indicted for an additional alleged violent sexual assault,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. The Democrat added that the investigation continues.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren’t part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it’s not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state’s highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and criminal sex act charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial.
It has been tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12, though it’s likely to be delayed.
“Obviously, Mr. Weinstein wants to go to trial as soon as humanly possible,” defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge’s term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors want to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein’s lawyers say it should be a separate case. Judge Curtis Farber said Wednesday he’d rule early next month on that issue.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
The 72-year-old Weinstein, who came to court in a wheelchair, has been at a Manhattan hospital following emergency surgery Sept. 9 to drain fluid around his heart and lungs.
A judge agreed last week to let Weinstein remain indefinitely in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital instead of being transferred back to the infirmary ward at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex.
Once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, Weinstein co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company and produced films such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “The Crying Game.”
Jean Smart, Ariana Grande among hosts for ‘SNL’ season 50
NEW YORK | Fresh off her Emmys win, Jean Smart will kick off the landmark 50th season of “Saturday Night Live.”
NBC on Thursday announced the lineup of hosts for the season, which premieres Sept. 28. Joining Smart on the first show will be Jelly Roll as the musical act. He was also at the Emmys, singing during the ceremony’s in memoriam segment.
It will be Smart’s first time hosting “SNL.”
Comedian Nate Bargatze will host on Oct. 5, with Coldplay as the musical guest.
Ariana Grande will host Oct. 12, with musical guest Stevie Nicks.
“Beetlejuice” star Michael Keaton will host on Oct. 19, the last show before Halloween, and Billie Eilish will be that night’s musical guest.
The host on Nov. 2 will be “SNL” alum John Mulaney, with breakout sensation Chappell Roan as the music guest.
—From AP reports
