How Diddy's Legal Team Will Likely Argue Against His Charges in Court

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal team is gearing up to defend the musician in court after he was arrested on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

One day after his September 16 arrest in New York City, a 14-page indictment accused Diddy, 54, of using drugs and coercion to force women into engaging in sexual activities with sex workers, which he allegedly recorded. Many of those incidents occurred at parties dubbed “Freak Offs,” which were held at his properties across the U.S. (The arrest came after Diddy was hit with several sexual assault and abuse lawsuits from multiple people.)

Supplies from those “Freak Offs” were obtained by Homeland Security during raids on his Miami and Los Angeles homes, per the indictment, as well as multiple firearms. The indictment also accused Diddy of arson, bribing staff members to keep quiet about footage of him assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie at a hotel in 2016 and alleged that members of his company Combs Enterprise participated in his crimes.

Diddy pleaded not guilty but was denied bail and ordered to remain in jail until his trial, a date for which has not been set. One of his lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, called Diddy “innocent” in an interview with CNN after the arrest, adding, “He is going to go to trial. And I believe he’s going to win.” (Agnifilo is also working with lawyer Teny Geragos on the case.)

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A letter Agnifilo filed to the court following Diddy’s bail denial on September 18 offers some insight into how the music mogul’s team plans to fight against his charges. One claim Agnifilo makes is that the women who participated in Diddy’s alleged sexual acts did so consensually and for their own reasons.

Citing a woman who “was in a 10-year relationship” with Diddy, Agnifilo alleged that the woman “extorted Combs and profited millions of dollars” off of him. “We have countless written communications that tend to negate any lack of consent and any coercion. The evidence shows a long-term loving relationship that became strained by mutual infidelity and jealousy,” he wrote in legal docs obtained by Us Weekly. “The evidence of this, and this alone, is overwhelming. There was no sex trafficking, there was no sex crime of any sort, and we will conclusively prove that at a trial.”

Diddy notably dated Cassie, 38, on and off for over a decade before splitting in 2018. Cassie’s bombshell sexual assault lawsuit against Diddy subsequently sparked others to file their own lawsuits against him. (She settled the lawsuit one day after it was filed in November 2023, and Diddy denied her allegations.)

Included in Agnifilo’s letter to the court was a September 17 court transcript in which he seemingly brought up Cassie’s accusations that Diddy forced her into having sex with male prostitutes on camera. “It seems like what their theory is, is that as part of the way that these two adults wanted to be intimate together is that on occasion, a third person, a male would come into their situation and have sexual contact with the woman,” he stated.

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Noting that he and Geragos interviewed “half a dozen of these males,” Agnifilo said none of the men felt as though the interactions were nonconsensual. “Does everybody have experience with being intimate this way? No. Is it sex trafficking? No, not if everybody wants to be there,” he argued in the transcript.

Agnifilo went on to claim that the firearms found during Diddy’s home raids belonged to his security personnel. “These aren’t his guns, you know. He has nothing to do with how guns are kept in his house,” he said in court. “And my suggestion to the Court is, if the government really thought that these were his guns, they would have charged him with them, and they didn’t. He is not charged with firearms.”

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He continued: “How [the security company does] it, whether they did it right, whether they did it wrong, whether they should have an AR-15 with no serial number, you know what, not for us to say. Not his gun.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.