Sean Combs accused of trying to contact witnesses from jail

New York: Prosecutors have accused music mogul Sean Combs of continuing efforts to obstruct the federal racketeering and sex trafficking case against him from a Brooklyn jail, by alleging in court papers that he had been trying to evade government monitoring by seeking to arrange three-way phone calls and buy the use of other inmates’ phone privileges.

The government’s account came a week before another hearing to decide whether Combs would be granted release on bail. Since September, he has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC) in Brooklyn, inside a unit where high-profile inmates are often assigned.

Seam Combs is accused of trying to evade government monitoring of his communications while in prison.Credit: AP

In the court filing, the government accused Combs of “relentless efforts” to contact potential witnesses, including by attempting to use three-way calls to contact associates whom prosecutors consider part of his “criminal enterprise”. Prosecutors also accused Combs of making unauthorised calls by using the telephone accounts of at least eight other inmates, instructing others to pay them – sometimes through their commissary accounts – to secure their co-operation.

“The defendant has demonstrated an uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding – employees, family members, and MDC inmates alike,” prosecutors wrote.

Details of recipients and substance of the phone calls were redacted in the court documents. The calls generated using other inmates’ privileges were not identified as being directed at witnesses, but prosecutors said they were evidence of Combs’ disregard for the jail’s regulations and were part of what they described as obstruction efforts.

Representatives for Combs, who is known as Diddy, did not immediately respond to the allegations about Combs’ communications. He has pleaded not guilty and vehemently denied the criminal charges, arguing that the drug-fuelled sexual encounters called “freak-offs” at the heart of his case were all consensual.

Combs’ lawyers have said that if granted bail, their client would be put under extremely restricted conditions with no access to a phone or internet, and would abide by limitations on whom he contacts. The proposed bail package includes a $US50 million ($77 million) bond and a team of private security personnel to monitor Combs at all hours to assure the court that he would not engage in obstruction efforts.

The judge who denied Combs bail in September, ruling that he posed a danger of witness tampering and a safety risk to others, has since recused himself because of a professional and social relationship with a new lawyer hired by Combs’ team. Combs renewed his efforts to secure release with the new judge on the case, arguing that the government’s allegations of witness tampering were not supported by evidence.

“The evidence makes clear that the government’s case is thin,” Combs’ lawyers wrote in a filing this month, later noting that if witnesses were contacted to support his defence, “that alone does not amount to obstruction or evidence any risk of obstruction”.

Prosecutors have focused on Kalenna Harper, a performer who was in the group Diddy – Dirty Money, along with Dawn Richard, who filed a lawsuit shortly before Combs’ arrest that accused him of groping and threatening her. The government has highlighted Combs’ repeated contact with Harper after the lawsuit was filed, arguing that she was pressured to post a statement on her Instagram account countering some of Richard’s claims. Combs’ lawyers have said that Harper volunteered that statement herself.

Referring to Harper as “Witness 2” in court papers, prosecutors said they recovered new evidence about those communications in a recent sweep of the Metropolitan Detention Centre, which was part of continuing efforts to address persistent complaints of inhumane conditions at the jail.

Prosecutors said that investigators found notes related to Harper in Combs’ cell. The contents of the notes were redacted, but prosecutors wrote that the “strong inference” was that Combs paid Harper after she posted her statement to Instagram. Harper did not return requests for comment.

Combs’ lawyers have already taken issue with the jail sweep, writing in court papers that Combs was removed from his unit as officers “ruffled through” his notes and seized his pens, leaving him unable to take notes on the tranches of discovery that are being transferred over to the defence by the government.

At MDC, Combs has been living in the same unit as Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul convicted of fraud, sleeping in a dormitory-style room with a group of other defendants and getting access to his family through monitored phone calls and an email system that requires payment.

Combs’ access to the outside world is likely to be further contested as the government argues he is using his resources and communications with his family to try to contact potential witnesses and pursue a “public relations” strategy to influence public perceptions of his case.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.