Federal prosecutors said in a new court statement that they did not give CNN the video of Sean “Diddy” Combs beating up his ex-girlfriend because they did not have it at the time.
“[T]he defendant argues baselessly that a video depicting the defendant’s assault of a victim at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles on March 5, 2016 was provided to a media outlet by Government agents,” the filing stated.
The people in charge of the case told the judge that Combs’ request for an evidentiary hearing was nothing more than an attempt to get rid of “damning” proof against him.
“The Leak Motion, which is based on nothing but speculation, tries to hide very strong evidence—a video of Combs severely beating a victim in March 2016 that was released by a news source in May 2024—by saying that it was grand jury material that was leaked to CNN by government agents.
“However, the defendant is well aware that the government did not have the video when CNN published it, and the government has never obtained the video through the grand jury process,” the filing said.
Combs’ lawyers have said that the alleged leaks make it harder for him to get a fair hearing.
Prosecutors also asked the judge to turn down Combs’s request to make them release the names of the people who were accusing him.
“[T]he defendant’s request for victim names should be denied on the basis that it is tantamount to a request for early disclosure of the Government’s witness list, something he is clearly not entitled to at this extremely early stage of the proceedings,” lawyers said.
“Moreover, early disclosure of witnesses is especially unwarranted here, where there are serious concerns of witness safety and obstruction.”
Combs was accused by prosecutors of trying to “co-opt this criminal proceeding to defend against civil litigation” that had been filed by anonymous accusers.
In at least one of those civil cases, the judge just turned down the plaintiff’s request to use a fake name because there is a “presumption of openness in judicial proceedings.”
