← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Diddy’s Trial Is Spiraling: Feds in Full Panic After Key Witness VANISHES
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Ashley Banfield
Foreign hey, everybody, Ashley Banfield here and this is drop dead serious with today's update on P. Diddy. The government's sex trafficking case against Sean Combs hasn't even started and already it is veering off the rails. One of the prosecution's star witnesses, gone. Like, gone. Literally no trace of her. She's ghosted the court. And at first reports suggested that even that witness's lawyer couldn't be reached. But I'll have news about that in just a hot minute. All may not be lost, though, because the feds just added another witness to their case, witness number five. And with opening statements just days away, the case that was already explosive just detonated. So let's get into it. If you thought jury selection was already a circus, just you wait for Monday, everyone. That's when things are supposed to finally wrap up with jury selection. And I know, I know the jury was supposed to be picked by today, Friday, May 9th. But this last minute shuffle, that was all the judge's idea. This is a weird case. It really is. And the judge ran, really wants to make sure that no other potential jurors use the weekend to, you know, get second thoughts, come up with a reason to drop off the jury pool. So since court wrapped up on Wednesday, and remember they had the day off yesterday, two more people were struck for cause and that brought the pool down to just 43 people from the original 45. So, yeah, nobody can afford anybody else to drop off before the peremptory strikes begin on Monday. And to the cause strikes, one woman, she was struck. She's a white attorney from Rockland county who used to be an intern for a domestic violence prosecutor in Kings County. And she made it pretty clear that she did not want to be part of this trial. So out she goes. The other woman was dismissed because she's currently suing the city of New York. And she just so happened to omit that from her jury questionnaire. So, you know, that's not good. So out she went, too. So 43 potential jurors will be back in the building 8:30am Monday. And get this, the judge says they're going to start striking names using the peremptory challenges by 9:00am and somehow, somehow they're going to run through all 43 people by 9:30am I have no earthly idea how they'll do that, but I will keep an open mind. In any case, the judge says opening statements are scheduled for 9:30am so pop your popcorn or your breakfast sandwiches or whatever you've got going because you never want to miss openings, okay? Openings are the bomb. It's like the movie version of what ends up being a lot more slow moving later on. You get the whole story all in one moment, right? You get the whole narrative from either side. Then they got to bring in the witnesses to prove what they said. So don't miss openings. Twelve jurors will be seated along with six alternates. And here we go again with a super weird thing that in all my decades of covering the law and courts, I have never seen. They picked three backup jurors. You heard me, 12 jurors, six alternates, that's normal. And three backup jurors. I mean, Diddy's had backup singers before, right? But backup jurors, this is a real new one for me. And frankly, I'm going to be honest, I don't know why the backup jurors aren't just alternate jurors. Why not just pick three more alternates? Because how are the backups treated any differently? Are they considered the same as the alternates? Do they sit close by? Are they all together? You know, alternates don't go in to deliberate, so the backups won't either. It's when someone drops off, if they're already in deliberation that the alternate comes in and they start deliberations from scratch. I mean, it is a nasty process, right? Takes forever. But I will say this. I am really, really glad that they have nine extra jurors, six alternates, three backups. Because something tells me they may need a lot of them, if not all of them. I have seen cases go down to the very end and run out, and it's a mistrial. And I can't imagine any other case that's more controversial, that will have more challenges, that more crazy shenanigans are going to happen that may affect a jury pool than the P. Diddy case. So, yeah, I fully expect whoever gets alternate be prepared to be on panel that whatever time, maybe during the evidentiary phase, maybe during deliberations. In the meantime, the government has a brand new batch of evidence that's all ready to go. Two cell phone videos that were taken inside the Hotel Intercontinental and three video clips from cnn, apparently all cleaned up, clarified by the government expert. But don't think for a minute that Diddy's lawyers aren't going to cross examine the heck out of those CNN clips. Right? Because there's a huge controversy that CNN got rid of the original tapes and then this whole report that the prosecutors found different sources for these tapes. But if they're using CNN tapes at all. This whole cleaned up by the government. Well, if I'm the defense, and I don't care that you cleaned it up, you're on the other side. I didn't get to clean it up. So, yeah, I think they're going to be heavily contested when it comes to showing those in court. I'd be prepared for some fireworks over that. So after opening statements, we're actually going to hear from the first witness for the prosecution. And on deck is a male escort, though the defense has agreed not to question him on any past allegations. But may I just stop here? Are we ever opening with a bang? Right. We're going to open a trial with a male escort. So sexy talk right off the bat, right? Day one's going to be really big. So you can expect this, this update to be particularly saucy and probably a lot longer because we also have as witness number two, an unnamed individual. And the defense has agreed only to cross examine the individual on limited topics, which means, I think, sensitive, sexy stuff again. And then, boom, the star witness that's likely to happen Wednesday, Cassie Ventura. You know, Cassie Ventura, she is the woman depicted in that horrible, horrible beating tape, the hotel hallway beating tape, where Diddy even copped to it on social media and apologized for his, you know, lack of judgment behavior, whatever it was he did before. He took the social media post down. But he fully admitted it was him and that he was behaving like a monster. Right? So here's the deal with Cassie Ventura. She is now very, very pregnant. TMZ got pictures of Cassie in New York looking like she might have this baby at any moment. So just stop down and think about this. Put yourself inside the courtroom. Right? Yeah. Diddy's, you know, dressed all nice in his sweater and all. But in walks Cassie pregnant, you know, like a Stepford wife, right? And she gets up on the stand, and I'm telling you, the belly is not going to be concealed. The jury will see a very pregnant, married Cassie on the stand, and that will speak volumes. You know, it's one thing if you're freaky and you do your thang, but it's another thing if you're a mom and you're pregnant and having a baby and you're married, it just depicts a whole other person. So her credibility factor, like it or lump it, right or wrong, it goes up a whole bunch of notches. It really does. Say what you will, she's not a single mom who's having her 10th baby by her 10th baby daddy. Which again, right or wrong, jurors look down on and your credibility sinks. She's a married mom having a child, so this is going to be really interesting. And when you go to cross examine a married mom about to give birth, you kind of gotta, like, tread lightly. So this will be interesting to see what Diddy's defense team is going to do with a pregnant Cassie. And I don't know if she's going to make it through the whole trial. I'm not kidding. This trial is many weeks long, and from the pictures, I think she's about to give birth. So it'll be really interesting. Maybe a big reason why she's up first. Right. She's expected to testify, but there's already a deal in place about her. The defense will not touch certain medical exam information of hers in their questioning. So I'll let you noodle that for a while. Which parts of her medical exams, like the medical exam, did she go to the hospital and get treated for? Whatever happened in the hotel hallway? Let me remind you, Diddy is not charged with domestic violence or assaulting her. Diddy's not charged with that. I think we could all agree that if he was charged with beating up Cassie, this would be kind of open and shut, right? But for AI or some other argument. But that's not what this is about. This is about sex trafficking and profiting and, you know, making women travel across state lines and men to, you know, make money for a sexual enterprise, et cetera. So the beating video, you got to think about that. It may prove that he forced her into certain acts, and maybe this beating was part of the forcing. I don't know. I have no idea where the prosecution will go with this, but rest assured, Diddy's gonna have some pretty. No strenuous defense here. Let me now talk about the courtroom for a minute because the drama is getting real. Diddy walked in looking pretty confident. He was, like, waving at the gallery. He placed his hand over his heart and he nodded to his cousin, who again, was wearing that free, puffy sweatshirt that he's been asked to turn inside out every single day that he's come to court. Because you're not allowed to wear insignia like that, not in front of jurors. Diddy looked over at the press gallery, too, and he waved at them also. And he greeted his attorneys. And again, he was wearing a really simple outfit. Navy sweater with crisp white shirt, dark slacks, but no belt. No belt on pants that are just a little too big. And people in the courtroom have noticed that when he stands up and sits down, he kind of has to like hold on to his pants because they're oversized. Don't ask me why the lawyers did not get him pants that fit him so that he wouldn't have to do that because he's not allowed to wear a belt. He's not allowed to because he's an inmate and inmates aren't allowed to have belts for myriad reasons. He hugged his legal team and he fist bumped one of his attorneys, Brian Steele. And then he sat down next to one of his other attorneys, Tenny Garagos, who is the daughter of mega lawyer Mark Garagos. And by the way, Mark Garagos was not in court today because he had to fly across the country because he has to be at a Menendez hearing today. This is May 9th, so he couldn't be in New York and in LA on the very same day. That's a whole other story. But what was interesting was that Diddy did not sit down in his normal seat. He sat down next to Tenney. And say what you will about it, I'm just saying I like to, I like to put out all the observations, shall we say? And now let's talk about the biggest holy cow issue for the feds right now because they've been scrambling all week long to find one of their most important witnesses in the case of. No one has been able to figure out if she's even going to show up at all. She is referred to as victim number three in the indictment. And today, lead prosecutor Maureen Comey told Judge Aaron Subramanian that victim number three, quote, does not live locally and may not appear in court even if subpoenaed. What makes this even more surprising is that just one week ago, one week, prosecutors said victim number three had agreed to testify using her real name and not a pseudonym. But now she is completely mia. For a while, her lawyer was mia, too. But the prosecutors finally tracked that lawyer down. And the lawyer says that personal issues are behind the sudden lack of communication from her client. Victim number three, that woman was expected to offer testimony about what prosecutors described as a long term pattern of abuse, including claims that she was, quote, sexually exploited, end quote, by Sean Combs for years. In fact, in April, when the government filed a third superseding indictment, adding more charges, they were related directly to this now missing witness. And now it's unclear whether she will testify at all. But I will say this. Yes, the prosecutors had to answer the court today. The judge said, I want to know by Friday whether victim number three is going to show up. The defense lawyers demanded it and the prosecution did, did what they were told. They answered, we can't find her. She's saying no. But that does not mean that she can't show up. At some point, maybe she'll get some courage, maybe something will change, maybe she will see how the trial is going and get some moral courage or something. But you can't keep her out of the case, right? She has the entire duration of the trial to show up. That Perry Mason moment, you know, coming through the back doors of the courtroom. So, you know, keep your suspended disbelief on ice because she still might show. Who knows? They just had to make an answer by today as to what the status was. But prosecutors are insisting that even without victim number three, their case remains strong, reminding the judge that there are many acts of racketeering apart from victim three. And prosecutors have now added a victim number five to the case. So stay tuned for that too. That is it for this episode of Draw Dead Serious. If you are following the trial or just trying to keep up, make sure to hit follow on this podcast and leave a review. Let us know what you think. I love hearing from you. And if you're watching on YouTube, please jump into the comments and say what you think. Tell me what you think about the podcast, about the case, about the other commenters. Have a conversation. I love our community and that we can all talk together and I'll be back with more soon. Promise. Just remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious. Don't.