{"id":5351,"date":"2025-04-18T04:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T04:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/star-asks-judge-to-ban-cassie-assault-video-from-court\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T04:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T04:21:13","slug":"star-asks-judge-to-ban-cassie-assault-video-from-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/star-asks-judge-to-ban-cassie-assault-video-from-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Asks Judge to Ban Cassie Assault Video from Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span>ttorneys for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs<\/a> asked a federal judge Thursday (April 17) to exclude the infamous 2016 surveillance video of him assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura from his upcoming sex trafficking trial, arguing it would \u201cunfairly confuse and mislead the jury.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe headline-grabbing clip, showing Combs striking his then-girlfriend in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, has been \u201caltered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited to be out of sequence,\u201d making it unusable as evidence at his trial next month, his lawyers told the judge.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe admission of any of these inaccurate, unreliable video files would unfairly confuse and mislead the jury at Mr. Combs\u2019s expense,\u201d the star\u2019s lawyers wrote in the filing. \u201cTheir admission would be infinitely more prejudicial than probative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the lead up to the trial, Combs\u2019 lawyers have repeatedly targeted the Cassie tape \u2014 likely a core piece of evidence that the government will present to jurors. In one motion, they argued that federal authorities had improperly leaked it to the press to \u201ctaint the jury pool.\u201d Last month, they accused CNN of significantly altering the clip and then destroying the original before the network aired it last May.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Thursday\u2019s filing, Combs\u2019 lawyers finally did what court-watchers were expecting: formally asking the judge to ban the clip from the trial. They cited a report from a forensic video expert that said the clip had been distorted beyond repair, including edits by CNN that Combs\u2019 team says were intentionally made to make the video look worse.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe manipulation of the videos was specifically designed to inflame the passions of CNN\u2019s viewing audience, and that is what the government is hoping to leverage in this case,\u201d Combs\u2019 attorneys write. \u201cThe videos are sped up to make the violence look more violent. The sequence is reordered to leave the viewer with the impression that the woman has been dragged back to a hotel room. And the clips delete footage that provides important context making clear that the events were not as horrific as the government will suggest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation that aimed to \u201cfulfill his sexual desires.\u201d The case centers on elaborate \u201cfreak off\u201d parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.<\/p>\n

\n\tA trial is currently set for May 5, though Combs\u2019 lawyers are currently seeking to push the trial back by two months. If convicted on all of the charges, which include sex trafficking and racketeering, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Cassie video, which aired on CNN in May, showed him attacking her at the Intercontinental Hotel in March 2016. The clip drew far more public attention to the accusations against the star \u2014 who was then only facing a civil lawsuit \u2014 and prompted an apology from Combs shortly after it aired.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy behavior on that video is inexcusable,\u201d Combs said at the time. \u201cI take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I\u2019m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors and plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys have criticized Combs and his lawyers over their efforts to bar the video from his trial. In one filing, the government said Combs was attacking the clip in an effort to \u201csuppress a damning piece of evidence.\u201d And Douglas Wigdor<\/strong>, Cassie\u2019s attorney, called the star\u2019s arguments \u201cdisingenuous\u201d last month: \u201cI am confident that the video fairly and accurately represents what happened, will be admitted into evidence, and that Combs will be held accountable for his depravity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs asked a federal judge Thursday (April 17) to exclude the infamous 2016 surveillance video of him assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1051,302,524,3780,143,423,839,1556],"class_list":["post-5351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-asks","tag-assault","tag-ban","tag-cassie","tag-court","tag-judge","tag-star","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}