Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
- Sean "Diddy" Combs' defense is planning not to call witnesses in his sex-trafficking trial.Combs had wanted to testify in his own defense, but seems to have changed his mind.Prosecutors say they will rest their case on Tuesday.
As the US government's criminal case against Sean "Diddy" Combs winds down, the hip-hop mogul's defense attorneys have signaled that they will not call witnesses to testify on his behalf.
Combs had hoped to testify in his own defense at his sex-trafficking and racketeering trial, and had been quietly rehearsing for the testimony with his legal team for weeks, one person with knowledge of the plans told Business Insider.
"He's been adamant that he wants to do this," the person said, "They've been getting him ready."
But it now appears that the music and lifestyle entrepreneur has had a change of heart.
On Monday morning, during a scheduling discussion outside the jury's presence, lead Combs attorney Marc Agnifilo indicated to the judge in the Manhattan federal trial that the defense would not call any witnesses.
Lawyers who are not involved in the case previously told BI that Combs testifying could backfire and expose the onetime near-billionaire to potentially damaging cross-examination from the prosecution.
If Combs did take the stand, prosecutors may have been allowed to question him about his arrest record and the wave of sex abuse lawsuits against him.
As recently as last week, the defense had said it would call at least three witnesses. One was a forensic psychiatric expert, and two were employees of Combs Global, the millionaire defendant's company.
Combs will get one last chance to change his mind and take the stand, said attorney Michael Bachner, a former prosecutor who was on the defense team in 2001 when Combs was acquitted in Manhattan of state-level gun and bribery charges. Combs testified at that trial.
Before the defense rests on Tuesday or Wednesday, and with jurors out of the courtroom, the judge will tell Combs that it is his right to testify on his own behalf, and will ask Combs if he is waiving that right of his own free will.
"The last thing anyone needs if he's convicted is for him to come back and say that 'I wanted to testify and they didn't let me,' or 'I didn't understand my rights,'" said Bachner.
Bachner called not testifying the smarter move.
If he testified, Combs would risk being cross-examined on his prior conduct with other women accusers beyond those named in the indictment.
Prosecutors had hoped to tell jurors about three such unnamed women, only to be rebuffed after the defense complained that the conduct they would testify about was far worse than that described in the indictment.
"There could be a whole variety of land mines out there that the defense is probably aware of from the government, and that they want to try and avoid," Bachner said.
Another risk is that when defendants take the stand, the defense case can suddenly shift to the sole question: Do they believe him?
"If Diddy were to take the stand, all of the other witnesses the defense called become either secondary, or, in many ways, potentially irrelevant," Bachner said."If they don't believe Combs, then he's going to be convicted, regardless of what the others said."
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case on Tuesday after calling more than thirty witnesses to testify against Combs since mid-May. Those witnesses included Combs' sex-trafficking accusers and ex-girlfriends — R&B singer Cassie Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym "Jane."
Once the prosecution rests, defense attorneys are planning to read stipulations agreed upon by both parties into the record and then also rest.
Closing arguments will likely begin on Thursday, and Combs' eight-man, four-woman jury will get the case afterward.
If convicted on the top charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, Combs, 55, faces spending the rest of his life behind bars.
