Diddy suffers another setback in court to put a gag on one of his alleged victims.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Diddy is currently under heavy security in jail at the Metropolitan Detention Center, MDC, in Brooklyn, following his indictment in September this year for racketeering, kidnapping, and sex trafficking. The rap mogul’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, had requested a gag order on his alleged victims, citing his “constitutional rights to a fair trial, free from the influence of prejudicial statements in the press.”
Agnifilo argued that the prospective witnesses in question and their legal representatives “have made numerous inflammatory extrajudicial statements aimed at assassinating Mr. Combs’s character in the press.”
READ: 50 Cent Bashes Starz and Cut Ties With Network Over Diddy Interview Series
However, the presiding judge in that case, Judge Arun Subramanian, has now denied Diddy’s legal team’s request for a gag order, meaning the alleged victims and their attorneys can continue disseminating information about the case in the public forum. In his ruling, the judge stated that a gag order poses a threat to the victim’s freedom of speech, Billboard reported.
“The court has an affirmative constitutional duty to ensure that Combs receives a fair trial,” Judge Subramanian wrote. “But this essential … requirement must be balanced with the protections the First Amendment affords to those claiming to be Combs’s victims.”
The judge added, “The unprecedented relief that Combs seeks on this motion is unwarranted.”
Aside from his federal case in New York, Diddy is also facing more than a dozen lawsuits from alleged victims, and that list keeps on growing. At least one victim alleges that they were a minor at the time of the alleged incident. There are also alleged male victims who claimed that they were sexually exploited by the rap mogul in the past.
During his court hearing on Friday, Diddy’s attorney again filed a motion seeking bond for his release pending his trial in his federal case. His attorneys proposed a $50 million security package in exchange for his release on house arrest with other strict conditions. The lawyers argued that there were two recent high-profile defendants, one of whom is former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries, who is accused of sex trafficking dozens of young men but was able to negotiate a $10 million bond for his release from jail.
The judge has yet to rule on the new bond motion. Diddy is set to go on trial starting May 2025. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
