Sean 'Diddy' Combs: Attorney hopeful rapper will be 'sentenced behind bars' following trial verdict

GB News

US Attorney Lisa Bloom has branded the verdict in the trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs as "disappointing" after being found guilty of two out of five charges against him.Following the sex-trafficking trial in New York, the US rapper was acquitted of racketeering and sex-trafficking charges, but found guilty on two lesser charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00have reached verdicts after a long trial of Sean Diddy Coombs. He's been convicted on prostitution

00:06counts, but cleared on the more serious charges, and they carried a potential maximum sentence of

00:1320 years. Now, it's been reported that Mr. Coombs' mouth thank you across the room to the jury and

00:20made prayer gestures towards them. Let's now speak with the American attorney, Lisa Bloom. Lisa,

00:26welcome to the show. Extraordinary Scenes in New York, and we spoke with a defense attorney in

00:33America a short while ago. It's his conviction that Sean P. Diddy Coombs will most likely walk free.

00:40What's your take? Well, I don't know about that. The judge is going to decide in a couple of hours.

00:45The defense has asked that Sean Combs be released. You are correct. But the prosecution has said they

00:51want the top sentence against him, which would be 20 years, 10 years on each of the prostitution

00:57charges on which he has now been convicted. Listen, this was a split verdict, which means the jury found

01:03him guilty of two charges, and they acquitted him of the other three. The ones that he was acquitted of

01:09were the more serious charges. So I represent victims. I represent two Sean Combs accusers,

01:15one of whom, Don Richard, was brave enough to testify in this trial. And there's no question

01:20about it that this is a disappointing day for us. But our civil cases will go on, and we hope that

01:26the judge will sentence him to many years behind bars for the charges that he was convicted of.

01:32And Lisa Bloom, talking there about the clients that you represented that were directly involved

01:39in this case, there's inevitably going to be the notion that this is a very wealthy man,

01:45a very powerful man, who seems to have maybe bought his way out of this. Is there anything in that?

01:52Well, listen, I have been covering celebrity trials and suing billionaire bullies for decades.

01:58And there is no question that having money and power is a major advantage in our justice system.

02:04Sad to say that, but it's true. And I'll also tell you that I was in the Sean Combs courtroom during

02:09jury selection weeks ago, and there were a lot of jurors who really wanted to be on this jury.

02:16That is unusual. Usually people try to get out of jury duty, right? They have any excuse to the judge.

02:21I'm sick. I have to take care of my children. My job won't allow me to be gone. This was the opposite.

02:26People wanted to be on this jury. And, you know, until the jurors are interviewed,

02:30we really don't know what their reasoning is going to be. They saw a video of Sean Combs

02:35brutally beating his girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a hotel hallway. But that was not enough for

02:41them to come back with convictions on the top charges. So what do you think then has precipitated

02:47this verdict? He was guilty of the prostitution, but a big part of his defense was this was consensual.

02:56Those two accounts don't seem to marry up. Right. Well, listen, there is no way the government

03:03would have brought this case if it was just about the prostitution and crossing state lines

03:09with prostitutes is a federal crime. If they hadn't crossed the state lines, it wouldn't even

03:13be a federal crime. The government brought this case because of the racketeering and sex trafficking

03:18charges, the bigger charges that Sean Combs has now been acquitted of. This is a big loss for the

03:24prosecution today. And it's a big win for Sean Combs. There's no question about it in terms of

03:29the consent. Consent is typically not even a defense to sex trafficking. If somebody is forced

03:36into sexual behavior based on fraud, force or coercion, consent is really not a defense.

03:42But the defense really drove home to the jury text messages from Cassie, who you see here with

03:47Sean Combs and saying that she wanted to engage in the freak offs, that she loved him, that she

03:54enjoyed it. And I think that those text messages were probably very significant to the jury.

03:59And you've been involved, Lisa Bloom. You've represented clients, women whose sexual harassment

04:05claims precipitated the firing of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News. These women don't just fabricate this,

04:13they're not gold diggers. They want justice. And there's a feeling here that maybe that's not been

04:20the case here. Right. And if you think about this case, yes, and I've represented many women against

04:26many prominent men and billionaire bullies. But listen, Cassie, who testified nine months pregnant

04:33for four days, already got her money in her civil claims against Sean Combs. That was a couple of years

04:39ago. So she clearly does not have any economic motive to testify against him now. She didn't

04:44have to do this at all. But she did. And that was one of the defense arguments, as you say,

04:49that there was some economic motive. That one really didn't make any sense to me.

04:54And Lisa Bloom, there's inevitably going to be a huge backlash from the feminist community

04:59in the United States and across the world. That once again, this will discourage future women

05:06from speaking out to have the bravery to do that. What's what's your message to them?

05:11Listen, the Me Too movement and the feminist movement that I have been involved in all of my

05:16life is not about one case or one person. It is much bigger than that. Millions of women and men

05:23all over the world have shared their stories of sexual abuse, and they are continuing to do so.

05:28And that to me is a beautiful, breathtaking movement. It's a very empowering experience for people

05:34to stand up. I've been representing victims for 40 years. I'm going to continue to do it.

05:39And each case is decided on its own facts. And I hope that nobody is discouraged by the outcome in

05:45this one case. Yeah, we were joined a short while ago by Alan Hershovitz, who said that this will be a

05:52terrible day for the Me Too movement, a terrible day for the feminist movement, who would like to have

05:57taken down Sean P. Diddy Coombs. But he's an innocent man. And the notion was he was put before

06:05the courts as already guilty. Well, what is he innocent of? Federal racketeering and sex trafficking

06:13charges. His own attorneys admitted that he is a terrible human being, that he is a domestically

06:18violent boyfriend, right? And he has got multiple civil charges against him. And he violated federal

06:25law at least twice by transporting prostitutes against state lines. So this is no choir boy.

06:32This is not somebody that we're going to look up to as a role model. I think his career is over.

06:37You know, I think Alan Dershowitz overstated if he said that. Diddy is a reprehensible human being,

06:43and nobody would want to raise a son to be like this man who was caught on video, beating his

06:49girlfriend, dragging her by her hair, kicking her when she's down on the ground in a fetal position.

06:54Multiple witnesses, including my client, also testified to that abuse. The defense was simply,

07:00this is a domestic violence case. It's not a federal racketeering case. And the jury believed that.

07:05But this man is not innocent. And it's been described as a stinging defeat for the

07:12prosecutors. A terrible day for them. Do you think that's a fair point to take? They failed

07:21to put away the man you described there, the moral fiber of Sean Coombs you attacked there,

07:27yet they still failed to put him away? It's definitely a defeat for the prosecution.

07:32And they did an admirable job. I was in that courtroom for weeks. I followed the case very closely.

07:38I think the prosecutors worked very hard. But listen, this is what happens in a jury trial.

07:43I've been a trial attorney for many years. When you put the case in front of a jury,

07:47you never know what they are going to do. But the jury has spoken

07:51unanimously, and we all have to respect this verdict.

07:54So, let's see.

07:55So, let's see.

07:56So, let's see.

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07:58So, let's see.

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08:20So, let's see.

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