Revealed: Sean 'Diddy' Combs' Lawyers' Tactic to Try and BLOCK Witnesses From Taking Stand During Rapper's Trafficking and Prostitution Trial
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' team are doing all they can to block witness in the jailed rapper's upcoming trial.
April 9 2025, Published 8:30 p.m. ET
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' lawyers are attempting to block witnesses from testifying in the music mogul's upcoming sex trafficking, racketeering, and prostitution trial, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The Bad Boy record founder's attorneys filed a 35-page motion on Wednesday, April 9, claiming prosecutors were "polluting" their clients trial before it even began – and further requested the judge to prevent "prior bad act" witnesses and a clinical psychologist from taking the stand.
Combs' sex trafficking, racketeering and prostitution trial is set to begin in May.
Attorney Alexandra A.E. Shapiro, who is on Combs' legal team, wrote in the motion that forensic and clinical psychologist Dawn Hughes relies on "generalizations" about abuse and response to abuse, instead of individual assessments.
Hughes has experience as a prosecutorial witness testifying on coercive control and sexual abuse in high-profile cases, including disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly's trials, as well as NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere, who Combs' lawyer Marc Agnifilo also represented.
The motion claimed Hughes "testimony is advocacy masquerading as expertise."
Combs lawyers argued allowing witnesses outside of alleged victims would be 'character abuse.'
In addition to Hughes, Combs' lawyers also argued allowing witness testimony from outside of the four alleged victims identified in the indictment would be one of the "worst abuses of the character evidence rule in the history of American law."
Prosecutors have stated they will not release the full list of witnesses they plan to call on until April 18, two weeks before Combs' trial is set to begin.
The motion stated: "The allegations implicate dozens of unidentified witnesses and alleged co-conspirators around the world — and some of the key witnesses to the supposed incidents are dead.
"Collectively, these new allegations require many months if not years to investigate, and if admitted, would require a series of mini-trials certain to double the length of a trial the government originally said would last 'three weeks.'"
Combs' ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura will testify at the trial.
The defense lawyer's motion continued: "The Court should require the government to try the case it charged and prove that case to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
"The government should not be permitted to pollute the trial with decades of dirt and invite a conviction based on propensity evidence with no proper purpose by painting Mr. Combs as a bad guy who must have committed the charged crimes."
Last week, prosecutors added two more charges against Combs, who now faces one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
As RadarOnline.com reported, Combs' ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura plans to testify at his trial.
Ventura, 38, was previously identified as "Victim-1" in the indictment, but her identity has been revealed as prosecutors announced she has chosen to forgo testifying anonymously.
Prosecutors stated in a motion filed on Friday, April 4, "Victim-2, Victim-3, and Victim-4 have asked that their identities not be revealed to the press or the public."
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Ventura's decision to testify under her real name comes a year after shocking hotel security footage was released, in which Combs, 55, was seen violently attacking his ex-girlfriend.
The singer first met Combs in 2009 when she was 19-years-old. He signed her to his record label and the two had an on-again, off-again relationship from 2007 to 2018.
