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One of many attorneys representing Sean “Diddy” Combs in his upcoming sex-trafficking case has requested he be allowed to go away the protection crew.
Anthony Ricco filed his request within the Southern District of New York federal courtroom.
In response to The Hollywood Reporter, Ricco wrote: “Though I’ve supplied Sean Combs with the excessive stage of authorized illustration anticipated by the courtroom, not at all can I proceed to successfully function counsel for Sean Combs, in line with the ABA Requirements for Legal Justice.”
Ricco additionally famous that his withdrawal mustn’t delay the trial, which is scheduled to start in Might. Combs will proceed to be represented by 5 different attorneys, together with Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos.
Final September, Combs was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Earlier this week, Combs’s lawyers attempted to have one of the charges against the embattled music mogul thrown out over claims that the law itself is racist.
In a filing seen by The Independent, his lawyers sought to have the prostitution charge dismissed on the basis that the law in question, the Mann Act of 1910, has historically been used to “target Black men.”
“No white person has ever been the target of a remotely similar prosecution,” claimed the filing.
The Mann Act was initially called the White-Slave Traffic Act and was passed at a time when there was a growing anxiety about young girls being lured into work in brothels.
The filing argued that the Act has a “long and troubling history as a statute with racist origins, used to target Black men and supposedly protect white women from them.”
Combs’s lawyers claimed that “the government has concocted a criminal case based primarily on allegations that Mr Combs and two of his longtime girlfriends sometimes brought a third party – a male escort – into their sexual relationship.”
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They went on to argue that “the usage of escorts, male or feminine, is widespread and certainly broadly accepted in American tradition at present” and that Combs had been “singled out as a result of he’s a strong black man, and he’s being prosecuted for conduct that recurrently goes unpunished.”
They known as for the cost to be dismissed on the grounds that it’s “a transparent case of selective prosecution.”
Over the previous 16 months, a minimum of 40 plaintiffs have sued Combs over allegations of sexual assault or different sexual misconduct.
Most just lately, a brand new lawsuit was filed in opposition to the embattled music mogul claiming that he allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted a young person when she was strolling house from a babysitting job.
In an announcement supplied to The Impartial on the time, Combs’s authorized crew vehemently denied the claims in opposition to him.
Final week, Combs filed a $100 million lawsuit in opposition to NBC over the documentary Diddy: The Making of a Unhealthy Boy. The documentary aired on Peacock final month, that includes interviews with Combs’s childhood pals, former bodyguard, former staff, alleged victims and singer Al B. Positive! (who was married to Combs’s late ex, Kim Porter).
Within the lawsuit, Combs’s attorneys argue that within the race to get the movie to air, NBC “maliciously and recklessly broadcast an outrageous set of recent lies and conspiracy theories.”
They additional state that claims that Combs carried out homicide and had intercourse with minors are false, and allege that NBC sought “solely to capitalize on the general public’s urge for food for scandal with none regard for the reality and on the expense of Mr Combs’s proper to a good trial.”
