Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal team is accusing the feds of editing the now-infamous video of him beating up ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura ahead of the music mogul’s latest bail hearing Friday.
Lawyers for the embattled hip-hop star, 55, allege federal prosecutors have attempted to make the 2016 hotel surveillance footage appear more harrowing than it is, according to documents filed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday.
His attorneys claim the feds have mischaracterized critical facts in an effort to ensure Combs’ bail request is denied. The Harlem-born rapper has been behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since September, awaiting his trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
CNN published surveillance video in May of the brutal one-sided brawl, in which Diddy appears to grab, kick and drag Ventura in a hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles.
Combs’ legal team claims the government has a more complete version of that footage, but instead presented the court with an edited sequence of events in attempt to offer more “powerful evidence of danger and obstruction,” reported TMZ.
For weeks, Combs’ lawyers have denied the video in any way proves that Ventura, now 38, was the victim of sex trafficking. Instead, they’ve said it’s a “minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship.”
They allege the footage offers no evidence of a coerced “freak-off,” but rather depicts a “domestic dispute in which he ran down the hall of the hotel to recover his clothes and cellphone.” His attorneys also deny he dragged Ventura down the hallway or threw a vase at her, as it appears in the video.
The latest court filings come amid Diddy’s third attempt to be granted bail. He’s twice been denied, with judges ruling both times that he poses a danger to the public and a potential for witness tampering.
Late last week, prosecutors accused Combs of “relentless efforts” to contact prospective witnesses and potential victims while behind bars. They said they can infer from his behavior that Combs “goal is to blackmail victims and witnesses either into silence or providing testimony helpful to his defense.”
His legal team has denied those accusations, while claiming new evidence uncovered during the discovery process “undermines the primary bases” on which the feds initially sought for Diddy to be locked up.
In their latest motion for bail, they’ve said keeping Combs detained leaves him “unconstitutionally handicapped” in participating in his defense and preparing for trial.
His attorneys have proposed new conditions for his immediate release, including a $50 million bond agreement, round-the-clock home detention and strict limitations on his ability to contact anyone outside his legal team.