XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, mn.politics, alt.politics.republicans   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: tim-walz-is-a-bitch@minnesota.guv   
      
   https://www.twincities.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Sexual-Mis   
   onduct-Diddy_31863.jpg?w=865   
      
   NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs was headed to jail Tuesday to await   
   trial in his federal sex trafficking case, after a magistrate ordered him to   
   be held without bail in a case that accuses him of presiding over a sordid   
   empire of sexual crimes.   
      
   The music mogul pleaded not guilty Tuesday to racketeering conspiracy and sex   
   trafficking. He’s accused of inducing female victims and male sex workers   
   into drugged-up, sometimes dayslong sexual performances dubbed “Freak   
   Offs.”   
      
   The indictment against him also alleges he coerced and abused women for years   
   while using blackmail and shocking acts of violence to keep his victims in   
   line. It refers obliquely to an attack on his former girlfriend, the R&B   
   singer Cassie, that was    
   captured on video.   
      
   Prosecutors wanted him jailed. His attorneys proposed that he be released on a   
   $50 million bond to home detention with electronic monitoring. U.S. Magistrate   
   Judge Robyn Tarnofsky sided with the government.   
      
   Combs, 54, took a long swig from a water bottle, then was led out of court   
   without handcuffs. As he walked out, he turned toward family members in the   
   audience.   
      
   “Mr. Combs is a fighter. He’s going to fight this to the end. He’s   
   innocent,” his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said after court. As a start, he said   
   he would appeal the bail decision.   
      
   The Bad Boy Records founder is accused of striking, punching and dragging   
   women, throwing objects and kicking them — and getting his personal   
   assistants, security and household staff to help him hide it all.   
      
   “Not guilty,” Combs told a court, standing to speak after listening to the   
   allegations with his uncuffed hands folded in his lap.   
      
   Federal prosecutors called him dangerous.   
      
   “Mr. Combs physically and sexually abused victims for decades. He used the   
   vast resources of his company to facilitate his abuse and cover up his crimes.   
   Simply put, he is a serial abuser and a serial obstructor,” Assistant U.S.   
   Attorney Emily    
   Johnson told a court. She also said he had “extensive and exhaustive history   
   of obstruction of justice,” including alleged bribery and witness   
   intimidation.   
      
   Agnifilo acknowledged Combs was “not a perfect person,” saying he’d used   
   drugs and had been in “toxic relationships” but was getting treatment and   
   therapy.   
      
   “The evidence in this case is extremely problematic,” the attorney told   
   the court.   
      
   He maintained that the case stemmed from one long-term, consensual   
   relationship that faltered amid infidelity. He didn’t name the woman, but   
   the details matched those of Combs’ decade-long involvement with Cassie,   
   whose legal name is Casandra Ventura.   
      
   The “Freak Offs,” Agnifilo contended, were an expansion of that   
   relationship, and not coercive.   
      
   “Is it sex trafficking? Not if everybody wants to be there,” Agnifilo   
   said, arguing that authorities were intruding on his client’s private life.   
      
   Prosecutors, however, said in court papers that they had interviewed more than   
   50 victims and witnesses and expect the number to grow. They said they would   
   use financial, travel and billing records, electronic data and communications   
   and videos of the “   
   Freak Offs” to prove their case.   
      
   Combs nodded his head at times as his lawyer spoke and occasionally leaned   
   over to converse with them when they were not. The impresario watched other   
   parts of the proceeding expressionlessly, looking straight ahead.   
      
   Combs was arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal   
   authorities conducting a sex trafficking investigation raided his luxurious   
   homes in Los Angeles and Miami.   
      
   A conviction on every charge in the indictment would require a mandatory 15   
   years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence.   
      
   The indictment describes Combs as the head of a criminal enterprise that   
   engaged or attempted to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate   
   transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson,   
   bribery and obstruction of    
   justice.   
      
      
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