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The lawyers for disgraced rapper and producer Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs have cited a decision in one of President-elect Donald Trump’s recent legal cases in an attempt to argue that Combs can essentially say whatever he pleases.
The disgraced Bad Boys Records rapper and producer was arrested in September on federal charges and faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life in prison if found guilty. Diddy’s trial for his federal charges has been scheduled to begin in May 2025.
Since being arrested by Homeland Security agents in a New York City hotel on September 16, Diddy was denied bail and taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he’s been held since and spent his 55th birthday.
According to Business Insider, Combs’ lawyers cited a decision in the election interference case against Donald Trump in an eight-page filing earlier this week.
“Combs’ lawyers quote an appellate decision in Trump’s DC election interference case, which asserted that defendants enjoy broad free-speech rights under the First Amendment,.”
“‘Only a significant and imminent threat to the administration of criminal justice will support restricting Mr. Trump’s speech,’ the DC Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a decision from December that Combs’ lawyers now quote. Like Trump, Combs is a criminal defendant with the presumption of innocence, the rap mogul’s lawyers wrote Monday.
Combs lawyers are arguing that decision gives Trump, Diddy or any other federal criminal defendant “greater constitutional claim than other trial participants to criticize and speak out against the prosecution and the criminal trial process that seek to take away his liberty.”
In addition to the federal charges, Diddy also faces over 100 allegations of sexual abuse, including over 120 lawsuits being filed by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee, who previously represented and secured settlements for Deshaun Watson’s litany of accusers.