The bespectacled hip-hop impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs, now the subject of a high-profile federal racketeering case and held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, is now at the center of a bizarre turn of events: he is said to be unable even to make a phone call to his legal team. His lawyers say this failure to communicate is disrupting all-important trial preparations, and a federal judge isn't finding it the least bit funny.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian issued a written order this week requiring the facility to investigate why Diddy's phone privileges have been curtailed. The curious part? The jail says Diddy is nowhere near reaching his 300-minute monthly quota. That is raising eyebrows and leading to speculation that the problem may not be a policy issue but rather a purely technical one, a glitch that is silencing him midway through his case.
Diddy's legal team, however, has no handle with the radio silence. In a strongly worded letter requesting a call with the court, lawyers Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos, Alexandra Shapiro, Jason Driscoll, and Anna Estevao argued that their client requires more time on the call than the standard allows. They have requested that his monthly limit be increased from 300 minutes to 500 minutes and that video conferencing hours be expanded until 9 p.m. daily, including weekends.
Why the urgency? Trial prep, they say, does not clock out at 5 p.m. And for a defendant facing charges this serious, time is a scarce resource, the most valuable commodity of the moment.
Diddy, who is being held without bail, is facing a federal avalanche of charges, including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force or coercion, and transporting people to engage in prostitution. If he is convicted on all the counts, he could face a minimum of 15 years in federal prison.
Prosecutors have objected to any release, citing the potential for witness tampering and flight. At those stakes, even a seemingly prosaic occurrence, such as a dropped call, becomes a primary concern in the courtroom.
For the judge to be probing defense claims shows just how seriously the court is taking the defense's claims. In a situation like this, where the result depends greatly on intricate legal dance steps, severing access with your lawyers, even mistakenly, can be a big deal.
Whether it's a tech issue, bureaucratic chaos, or something more scandalous, Diddy's next big beat could hinge on getting the phone line fixed.
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