Shocking Allegations Against Megastar Diddy - Will He Be Arrested After Raids？ With Jesse Weber ｜ Ep. 793
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
187.17084
Summary
Jesse Weber, host of the Law and Crime Network's Sidebar, joins The Megyn Kelly Show with Meghan to discuss the latest in Sean Combs' legal troubles, including a recent court case involving a woman who claims she was shot in the face by Diddy.
Transcript
00:00:00.580
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:12.140
Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and our Thursday morning special.
00:00:17.060
We've touched in the past on the story of Sean Combs, aka Diddy, and his mountain of legal troubles over the past month or two.
00:00:24.120
We saw the feds raiding his homes. No arrest of Diddy since then, but we are waiting to see whether there will be one.
00:00:32.640
And then yesterday, he shared a mysterious post online, a cryptic message on social media that reads as follows.
00:00:43.620
Time tells truth. His picture is captioned love and accompanied by various emojis, including a black heart.
00:00:53.240
So what does that mean? Time tells truth. And what kind of trouble is he in?
00:01:01.340
Somebody who I have come to trust and listen to on a lot of legal cases, but especially this one, he's been following this very closely,
00:01:08.260
is attorney and host of the Law and Crime Network's Sidebar, Jesse Weber.
00:01:16.540
Megan, thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on with you. I've been a big fan for a long time.
00:01:21.220
I don't think we've been on together, so it's a pleasure to be able to do it.
00:01:26.080
And I knocked my headphones out as I did it. That's how excited I was as I did it.
00:01:30.500
No worries. Thank you very much. I do enjoy Sidebar.
00:01:34.580
It's a good quick update on the legal cases of our day, and I find your questions and analysis always very sound.
00:01:42.060
In this case, there was like a two-week period where every day I went to Law and Crime, and it was like,
00:01:46.400
Diddy, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy. So I do think you've become a bit of an expert in what's happening with him.
00:01:51.740
You know what's interesting about that you say that? We were into this Diddy story before the rates,
00:01:57.960
and so we were following all of these lawsuits that were happening since early, late to 2023.
00:02:03.240
And I did literally a breakdown of one of the lawsuits. No sound, literally me on camera going
00:02:09.820
through the lawsuit. I said, Do you think there's going to be any interest in this? We put it.
00:02:13.380
I had like a million views in a week. People were so fascinated with trying to understand what exactly
00:02:20.100
is going on here, what's being alleged. So there's a fascination here,
00:02:23.980
and clearly people want answers as to what's going on.
00:02:26.260
All right. So I'm not going to say start at the beginning, because we don't need to go back to
00:02:30.620
birth. But can you start at the beginning of his most recent legal troubles and set the scene for
00:02:36.980
us? And then we'll just go through how they began to escalate. Right. So everybody knows that Sean
00:02:41.380
Combs has been in the entertainment industry for decades. People have seen movies he's been in,
00:02:46.620
music he's been a part of. He's a juggernaut. He's a juggernaut. There's no other way to explain it.
00:02:51.360
He's a purported billionaire. Now, we know that he got into legal trouble back in the day. I mean,
00:02:56.260
there was the infamous 1999 nightclub shooting that he and Jennifer Lopez were involved with.
00:03:02.700
Significantly, I should tell you, he was brought up on charges, gun possession, bribery. He wasn't
00:03:07.720
charged with attempted murder, but he was brought up on gun charges. Because a woman got shot in the
00:03:12.180
face. Yes. A woman got shot in the face. She's actually recently come out and said she would have
00:03:17.520
the bullet removed to further prove that he was the shooter. He was acquitted of those charges. He was
00:03:23.580
infamously represented by Ben Brafman and Johnny Cochran back in the day. And a little side note
00:03:28.220
about that, by the way, Megan, I think it's really interesting. She says she would want the bullet
00:03:32.160
removed because she feels that he wasn't charged properly. If he was acquitted of gun possession
00:03:38.640
charges, I'm not really sure how you could then try him for attempted murder or reckless endangerment.
00:03:46.700
If he was acquitted of having the gun, I don't know how you try him for shooting the gun,
00:03:50.720
but that's a separate question. Standby, because we actually have her on camera. Let's take a
00:03:54.000
listen to her. Natanya Rubin. I'm willing to have a doctor remove a part of the nine millimeter
00:04:01.680
bullet in my face so that they can use it as evidence if need be for this trial.
00:04:10.760
So what do they have to say to that? Oh boy. Has she been claiming since the beginning that
00:04:16.700
Diddy is the one who shot her in the face? She testified at trial that that was what happened.
00:04:21.460
She said that she saw two muzzle flashes. So one allegedly held by Sean Combs, one of the guns
00:04:27.940
being held by Combs, and then another by this individual named Shine. Now we know that Shine
00:04:32.180
was actually convicted and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The reason we're having this
00:04:37.460
conversation before we move on about we're talking so much about the 1999 nightclub shooting
00:04:41.440
is it's referenced in one of the major lawsuits that Combs is facing and it's being brought to
00:04:46.720
the forefront. And there's this allegation that Combs confessed to one of the people that's suing
00:04:52.900
him. Yeah, I was really part of the shooting and I had Shine take the fall from me. So that's why
00:04:56.880
people are talking about it. Now she actually settled a civil lawsuit with Sean Combs. I'm not
00:05:02.840
exactly sure if she, by the way, not recommending she get the bullet removed, but even if she were to do
00:05:08.280
that, what evidentiary value that would have. Are they going to retry him? They can't retry him on
00:05:14.920
the charges he was acquitted. Are they going to bring attempted murder charges? Is she going to
00:05:18.120
be part of this new civil lawsuit? She's not going to file another lawsuit against them because they
00:05:21.900
settled. So you put that to a side, not sure where that's going to go. We know that over the years
00:05:25.780
there have been allegations of violence. There's been East Coast, West Coast. Sean Combs had actually
00:05:32.340
pled guilty to a lesser charge regarding an assault of one of the people that he worked with.
00:05:36.900
But then you really fast forward to November, 2023, because that's when everything happened.
00:05:40.940
We had a lawsuit filed by Diddy's ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, Cassie, and it's bombshell.
00:05:48.500
It alleges when I say sexual assault and abuse and sexual slavery and sex trafficking,
00:05:56.380
it's not doing justice to what I read in that complaint. What she accuses him of is basically
00:06:02.100
against her will, forcing her into these sexual situations that I can't, I'm not going to repeat
00:06:06.880
to you. And it's a bombshell lawsuit. She is suing him for everything. And then she settles with him
00:06:12.400
the day after. Now, when I said to myself, I said, you know, that's not uncommon. Sometimes that happens.
00:06:18.460
Do you really want to go through a litigation? Do you want to go through a full case like that?
00:06:22.860
But the fact that it's settled the next day after such strong language in that lawsuit,
00:06:27.580
and when they settled the lawsuit, she didn't say this, you know, this clears Diddy. He said this
00:06:33.520
doesn't clear anything. It was just, we've decided to resolve this amicably. As these raids have
00:06:39.040
happened, I've always been of the opinion that she may be a key witness who is cooperating with law
00:06:44.260
enforcement because of that. Yeah, because for the record, you can sign a settlement agreement in a
00:06:48.980
civil lawsuit or an employment matter for that matter. And that doesn't preclude you from telling all to
00:06:56.000
the feds. Absolutely. You can't. It's against the law. You can't sign some sort of settlement agreement
00:07:01.160
or an NDA that says you can't cooperate with law enforcement in an ongoing investigation. So that's
00:07:06.640
what started it. And the first, when we read the lawsuit, we saw the settlement. One of the reasons
00:07:11.160
that celebrities would settle is because they don't want the floodgates to, well, actually, I should say
00:07:16.000
one of the reasons they don't settle is they don't want the floodgates to come open. Well, he settles.
00:07:19.280
And after that, we saw lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit against Sean Combs, sexual assault,
00:07:26.180
rape, sex trafficking. And one of the most bombshell lawsuits is filed by his former producer named
00:07:31.860
Rodney Littlerod Jones, where he claims that he was sexually abused and harassed by Diddy, that he was
00:07:37.900
forced into sex trafficking, forced to recruit sex workers. He alleged violence, illegal gun possession,
00:07:44.320
illegal narcotics possession. In one of the lawsuits, it was alleged that Diddy blew up
00:07:49.280
rapper Kid Cudi's car. So he's facing all of these lawsuits. And then a few months ago,
00:07:55.320
the raids happened. And somebody who's been following the lawsuits religiously, I said,
00:08:01.380
oh my gosh, this is it. They've taken everything they've seen is true. They're now going to arrest
00:08:08.020
him for sex trafficking. These people who are suing are cooperating witnesses. But I wanted to caveat it
00:08:13.760
because sometimes these raids can be just collecting information. It's collecting evidence.
00:08:18.740
It's working to build a case. So the fact that Diddy wasn't arrested and hasn't been arrested
00:08:23.420
doesn't mean that he won't be, because sometimes these cases do take time and they take time to
00:08:28.200
build. And I believe that behind the scenes, there are a number of people who have been issued
00:08:32.000
subpoenas and law enforcement and prosecutors are trying to corroborate the information they
00:08:37.060
currently have. So I think that's probably the best place to explain what's currently happening.
00:08:40.780
He's facing a number of lawsuits and we're waiting to see if he will face charges, but he's not been
00:08:45.120
charged and his sons have not been charged, even though they have been also brought up in these
00:08:49.800
allegations as well. Describe what the possible sex trafficking claim would be based on.
00:08:57.880
So when we talk about sex trafficking, we're talking about harboring, recruiting, enticing
00:09:04.960
individuals, which for commercial sex, you are offering them something of value, whether it's job
00:09:12.960
opportunities, whether it's gifts, whether it's money. And you're doing this through fraud or
00:09:18.700
coercion. And a big theme that we're seeing from these lawsuits is that Sean Diddy Combs used threats of
00:09:25.780
violence, used actual violence, used dangling opportunities in front of people to force them
00:09:33.540
into sexual situations that they did not consent to. And there's recurring themes that we're seeing
00:09:38.880
here. If people also were transported across state lines, that can be a big theme. You know,
00:09:43.880
Rodney Jones says that he was forced to do all of these illegal activities on behalf of Diddy while he
00:09:49.260
was being transported across different states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And so we see that potential
00:09:55.720
sex trafficking charges could look like that. And I should also tell you, Megan, that in the
00:09:59.220
federal code, if you are talking about sex trafficking of minors or recruiting people for
00:10:05.660
prostitution who are underage, that tacks on. That's other additional charges. And in one of the
00:10:11.760
lawsuits, he's also been accused of operating a racketeering enterprise, which is a criminal
00:10:16.560
enterprise. Now, it's interesting I say that because I think it was just yesterday that in the
00:10:22.180
Rodney Jones lawsuit, the company defendants, so it's not just Combs who's been sued, but his companies
00:10:28.220
were sued or affiliated companies were sued, they were dropped from the lawsuits. And I think that
00:10:32.960
says something about even though these allegations are quite compelling and quite incredible to listen
00:10:40.580
to, they are allegations at this point and they're civil allegations. So we have to always be careful
00:10:45.720
that it might look like Diddy did something and he's accused of doing something, but right now he's
00:10:50.480
innocent until proven guilty and he hasn't been found liable in a court of law.
00:10:54.640
Well, on that front, the best thing I've seen for Diddy so far, since this all started breaking in
00:11:01.160
November, was this admonishment of the lawyer who represents both Rodney Little Rod Jones and I think
00:11:09.660
represented Cassie. He's now had his hand really slapped in some very explicit language by, was it the
00:11:18.320
bar or was it a judge? But they basically said, you need to stop with the salacious allegations.
00:11:24.520
You're clearly going for PR here. And I've never seen anything like that in a case. So tell us about
00:11:31.720
that. His name is Tyrone Blackburn and he represents several of the plaintiffs that are suing Diddy. He
00:11:37.800
not only represents Rodney Jones, he represents Grace O'Markey, who is a woman that is accused and sued
00:11:43.400
Christian Combs, Sean Combs' son of sexual assault. And it was a judge. It was a federal judge in New
00:11:51.340
York who actually issued a complaint to the grievance committee saying, when you're looking
00:11:57.400
at what Tyrone Blackburn is doing, a reasonable inference can be that he deliberately files cases
00:12:03.080
in federal court in order to gain media attention, to pressure plaintiffs to settle,
00:12:08.040
to embarrass them. And I'm saying to myself, I haven't seen that. And I haven't seen something
00:12:13.600
like that in a long time. And there was one thing that every one of the defense attorneys who were
00:12:19.460
representing Diddy and who are representing his son have come out and said, obviously they say the
00:12:24.860
allegations are fake, but the fact that they've spoken so out against Tyrone Blackburn is something
00:12:30.980
that, again, I haven't seen. They've basically been accusing him of malpractice. And just yesterday,
00:12:35.980
as I mentioned, one of the lawsuits, Tyrone Blackburn dropped the claims against a number
00:12:41.480
of the companies. And I actually want to pull up the language because he basically said,
00:12:47.620
I read everything that was in the opposing counsel's filings, and I've decided that it's
00:12:53.960
best to dismiss the cases, dismiss the claims. I was like, okay, I mean, that's interesting.
00:13:01.640
That's an interesting thing to do. I mean, you're basically saying, yeah, I agree with opposing
00:13:06.380
counsel, probably shouldn't have done that. And it's just, it kind of gives a little, I don't know,
00:13:10.560
Tyrone Blackburn. I'm just reading what's happening here. It just kind of gives a little
00:13:13.440
bit of context to what we're talking about. Well, and it's good to pump the brakes a little
00:13:17.780
because there is, whenever there's a celebrity, an envy factor, a sort of F them factor, they've got
00:13:24.900
everything. I don't feel sorry for them. And yet they can be the victims of shakedowns. I mean,
00:13:29.680
we've seen that happen repeatedly. So it is possible that there is a lawyer who sees the
00:13:35.380
dollar signs in his eyes and knows, especially as you point out, because he settled the first
00:13:40.200
lawsuit, that he's potentially a big cash register and just continues to make these allegations.
00:13:45.880
It's extraordinary that a judge would do this, would say about a lawyer, this guy's not ethical
00:13:52.660
and he should be submitted for a bar review. I've never seen that. So that gives me a lot of pause.
00:13:57.500
I will say, having said that, the fact that Diddy settled the Cassie lawsuit within one day
00:14:06.300
Well, he could be embarrassed. He's like, I don't want this going on. I don't want to go through
00:14:09.820
discovery, which is when in the litigation, you exchange materials. He doesn't want this amplified.
00:14:14.500
He doesn't want this broadcast for everybody to see. It was interesting. It's actually the reverse
00:14:19.420
effect of the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial, which we covered a long crime and sidebar,
00:14:24.180
because at the time I said, why would Johnny Depp decide to take this to court? All of his
00:14:28.940
personal details are going to come out. And then during the course of the case, you realize why
00:14:32.620
he wanted to clear his name. He wanted everything to get out for people to get that concept of I'm
00:14:37.460
innocent. Diddy could be the complete opposite saying, I don't want any of these details revealed.
00:14:42.180
Now, one of the interesting things is we've been trying to see, have people come to Diddy's
00:14:46.460
defense? There are some people who say this is made up. Some people say I've never seen it.
00:14:50.440
But then you look at somebody like Cuba Gooding Jr., who is an actor that's named in one of these
00:14:56.100
lawsuits. And he said, this is a money grab, what Rodney Jones is accusing both Cuba Gooding Jr.
00:15:02.160
of and Diddy of. So the motivations are definitely always a key component in any case. And as we see
00:15:08.800
so many lawsuits coming out, and by the way, from a legal point of view, I just have to make this
00:15:12.300
clear, Megan. The reason we saw so many lawsuits happen towards the end of 2023 is because out in New
00:15:17.620
York, there was a law and it was called the New York Adult Survivors Act. And it gave victims of
00:15:22.560
sexual assault a one year look back window to file lawsuits against their abusers if their claims
00:15:29.240
were otherwise time barred. And that's how E. Jean Carroll brought her case against Trump.
00:15:33.440
Right. Now, in theory, great thing, right? Sometimes we've learned over the years that
00:15:37.700
people who are abused, they won't go to law enforcement immediately. They won't tell their
00:15:41.700
story immediately. There's a number of reasons why people don't speak up. So giving them an
00:15:45.320
opportunity to seek some justice, it's great. With that, of course, comes a question mark. Are
00:15:51.020
they just rushing these claims in right before the deadline for a cash grab for something else?
00:15:56.260
Or is there something legitimate here? And that's something that's going to be explored
00:15:59.060
always in a court of law. All right. We're going to continue to dive into the details here,
00:16:03.720
including what about Usher? What about Justin Bieber? We've played some of that tape in the past.
00:16:09.940
What's being alleged with respect to them, if anything? And how are these cases likely to wind up?
00:16:15.320
I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM. It's your home for open, honest,
00:16:21.440
and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal,
00:16:25.240
and cultural figures today. You can catch The Megan Kelly Show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel
00:16:30.520
featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura,
00:16:36.480
Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megan Kelly. You can stream The Megan
00:16:42.620
Kelly Show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love
00:16:49.560
the SiriusXM app. It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast, and more.
00:16:57.240
Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.
00:16:59.320
Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow
00:17:09.420
and get three months free. Offer details apply.
00:17:17.780
Jesse, let's get into the specifics of some of these many cases because I will say, as much as it's true
00:17:24.960
that big celebrities are big targets, there's a pattern, certainly, from a number of different
00:17:32.520
complainants who are all claiming he behaved similarly. I want to state for the record he's
00:17:39.220
denied all of this vehemently and said this is ridiculous. He calls these claims fabricated,
00:17:44.800
bogus, a money grab. He's denied and rejected the allegations of misconduct and pointed out that he's
00:17:50.760
an easy target for accusers who will falsify the truth. So in none of these is he giving one inch
00:17:56.740
and the settlement, we don't know why he settled so quickly with Cassie. That's up to the audience
00:18:01.380
to decide for themselves. But let's just start with her case because without getting into the most
00:18:06.980
graphic details, it's disturbing. Her 35-page federal complaint accuses him of sexual assault,
00:18:13.160
battery, and sex trafficking and saying that he forced her to engage in forced sexual acts.
00:18:18.940
She says that he signed her to his record label when she was 19. He was 37. She claimed he was
00:18:24.880
physically abusive throughout the relationship. Quote, Mr. Combs asserted complete control over
00:18:29.760
Ms. Ventura's personal and professional life, thereby ensuring her inability to escape his hold.
00:18:35.240
He demanded that she carry a firearm for him in her purse, she claims, forced her to engage in sex acts
00:18:42.040
with male sex workers, according to her complaint. She claimed his staff and bad boy entertainment
00:18:47.200
employees were aware of the abuse. Ultimately, she left her long-term abuser, according to her
00:18:50.920
in 18, after an alleged rape. That's her. Then comes Liza Gardner. She filed a 22-page lawsuit
00:19:00.780
against him and a man named Aaron Hall, accusing them of forcing her to have sex with them against
00:19:06.520
her will when she was only 16. She says she was at an event in New York for the album release for
00:19:13.020
somebody else. At a dinner for the event, Combs allegedly invited her and her friend
00:19:16.320
to this Aaron Hall's apartment for an after-party. She went, dumb move, and she alleges it was there
00:19:22.440
that Combs coerced her into having sex with him while she was getting dressed, that this man Hall
00:19:28.280
allegedly barged into the room, pinned her down, and allegedly forced her to have sex with him.
00:19:32.640
I haven't seen Hall's response. I assume it's a denial. She says Combs came in the day after the
00:19:40.040
assault to her home and began assaulting and choking her to the point where she passed out.
00:19:47.200
He responds, this is fabricated, bogus, and a money grab. So let's just start with those two.
00:19:51.900
What we're getting to here is he likes young girls. He brings them back home. He and associates
00:19:57.700
may engage in forced sex, also known as rape, and then they go back for more while the girl is
00:20:05.140
either still incapacitated or in their custody and control to the point where they actually show up
00:20:11.720
allegedly at the second girl's home the next day for more. Now, these things happen where a woman
00:20:18.360
willingly says yes to a celebrity like Sean Combs and then later says, maybe he wasn't so willing.
00:20:25.260
We don't know here. But by my count, Jesse, there's at least five lawsuits now against him
00:20:32.460
with very similar allegations, and they get worse, and we'll get to that. So what do you make of the
00:20:36.780
first two? Look, I think that some of these allegations are things that I've heard of before
00:20:42.660
in other lawsuits and in other cases. And I say to myself, it seems to be symptomatic of something
00:20:49.700
that's maybe a larger issue. Then there are details in this that are so graphic that I say
00:20:56.040
to myself, if Diddy's going to say this didn't happen, how does someone even make this stuff up?
00:21:02.040
And the more that you hear about the lawsuits is why I think it's really interesting, because
00:21:06.240
on the outside of the courtroom, you're hearing a lot of people talking about
00:21:09.560
Diddy's personal life and the parties and what he's been a part of. And we're getting kind of this
00:21:13.680
glimpse into the lifestyle. Now, these are allegations, and these are civil allegations. What I mean by that is,
00:21:18.620
remember, this is not a criminal case. They don't have to prove beyond the reasonable doubt
00:21:23.040
that he committed a crime. These are civil allegations. The burden of proof is much lower,
00:21:27.340
but it's very serious and very troubling with what we're hearing. It's interesting. When I read
00:21:32.740
the Cassandra Ventura lawsuit, and I read these allegations, a part of me thought,
00:21:37.460
Diddy's going to have to take this to trial to deny it? It's so bad. And when he settled,
00:21:42.160
I remember that Ben Brafman, who was his attorney at the time, said, let's be very clear,
00:21:46.440
just because we're settling doesn't mean we're admitting any of this. And remember,
00:21:50.300
Diddy's fighting this not only in the court of law, but the court of public opinion.
00:21:53.720
The Liza Gardner lawsuit, although old, right, we're talking about something from many years ago,
00:21:59.860
is incredibly troubling. And if allowed to proceed, her testimony alone could result in
00:22:06.680
finding that he's liable. But he's facing very similar claims here of sexual assault,
00:22:12.560
sex trafficking, sexual harassment, violations of the Trafficking Act. And so it's troubling to see.
00:22:20.460
We don't know the merits of it. I will tell you, I find it very interesting what's happening with
00:22:25.620
the legal cases in the sense like the Liza Gardner one. I remember when we talked before about you
00:22:31.840
have to look at the legal filings to determine if there's something more here. Well, in the Liza Gardner
00:22:36.140
case, Diddy filed a motion. Well, let me rephrase. She wants to now move this case from New York to
00:22:42.860
New Jersey. Happens all the time. We see it a lot of times in civil cases. But why? Well, it turns
00:22:47.760
out, she said, well, you know, we got all this new information. By the way, she's represented by
00:22:51.600
Tyrone Blackburn, that controversial attorney that we mentioned. Wants to move the case from New York
00:22:56.100
to New Jersey because we just got all this new information. It kind of clarifies the timeline,
00:23:01.140
clarifies a little bit of the context. It seems that the rape didn't actually occur in New York.
00:23:05.700
It happened in New Jersey. Again, I'm questioning. That's a big fact. You shouldn't have that been
00:23:12.680
right from the very beginning. And then I think to myself, the timing of it was interesting because
00:23:16.800
Liza Gardner at the time was being pushed by the defense, by defendants in this case,
00:23:23.060
to answer one of their legal filings. And she was running up against the extension. They were saying
00:23:28.440
she shouldn't be granted another extension to respond. And from a legal point of view, I wonder,
00:23:32.980
hey, we're going to file this motion to switch the case to another jurisdiction. It buys us a little
00:23:38.720
bit more time to respond. We're going to say we're going to have all these new allegations.
00:23:42.540
It was just something I thought of, particularly since she's being represented by Tyrone Blackburn,
00:23:46.880
and there were questions in his past. So I think some of the legal filings, and if you want to get
00:23:50.120
into it too, Megan, I mean, one of the other lawsuits that she's facing, that Diddy's facing,
00:23:54.180
I did a whole sidebar on it. I think Diddy's legal response to that was so sound that almost all the
00:24:01.140
claims are going to be thrown out. So again, there's something to be said about what's being
00:24:05.340
accused and what's being alleged and what can actually make its way to trial.
00:24:11.020
When she moved to have the venue switch to New Jersey, how recently was that?
00:24:19.120
Was it post the Harvey Weinstein reversal? I mean, because that was an important ruling
00:24:25.420
saying in New York State, you can no longer bring in every woman the defendants ever had an interlude
00:24:32.320
with. Things got harder for women post that decision. Well, let's be clear about that. So
00:24:37.180
a couple of things. One, it might've happened after. I don't want to be held to that, but it
00:24:41.480
might've happened after. The Harvey Weinstein situation, and you might not know this, Megan,
00:24:46.780
I was in that courtroom for every day of that trial. I was covering it. And I thought the
00:24:51.740
allegations and the testimony were so compelling, but having said it from a legal point of view,
00:24:57.040
I wasn't surprised it got reversed. I wasn't surprised it got thrown out. I thought the
00:25:01.800
judge in that case was so anti-defense. I remember being in that courtroom. It was freezing. The
00:25:08.080
defense counsel said to the judge, do you mind closing the window? He wouldn't do it. And that's
00:25:11.960
just a small little symptom of it. But the idea that you had a number of those witnesses who
00:25:16.900
testified about conduct that really wasn't quite the exact same conduct, what he was actually being
00:25:23.400
charged with. And that if he wanted to take the stand, he would be questioned about things that
00:25:27.580
were entirely irrelevant, whether he blew up at a board meeting, whether he threw things,
00:25:32.740
the fact that he could question about anything affected his ability to take the stand. So I wasn't
00:25:36.760
surprised that that conviction was overturned. I don't know if there's a connection between what
00:25:41.060
happened there and what happened here, but it is an interesting thing to think about.
00:25:46.000
Hmm. Always. My team is telling me she filed paperwork on May 4th and I believe, wait,
00:25:51.000
I think that, what date was the Harvey decision?
00:25:57.080
The Harvey decision came down end of April and she filed May 4th. So that could be another,
00:26:00.580
I don't know what the New Jersey law is on letting in the parade of prior bad acts,
00:26:04.800
which is generally barred by law. I have to look into it. But anyway, just a question I had.
00:26:08.660
Um, okay. So let's talk about two more because we're also, we're just trying to give the jury
00:26:13.460
and the jury, the, the audience a feel for what he's facing here. So what's the court of public
00:26:18.920
opinion too? So yeah, that's a joke. That's right. So, uh, is it joy Dickerson? Joy is J O I. Yep.
00:26:25.220
Joy Dickerson. Okay. Joy Dickerson, Neil. She's filed a lawsuit, 22 pages. And she alleged,
00:26:32.000
alleged she met Sean Combs after she'd appeared in a music video with him while she was a student at my
00:26:36.920
alma mater, um, Syracuse university. She claims she later agreed to go out to dinner with him on
00:26:42.940
January 3rd, 1991 while on a school break. She and I were probably at school at the same time.
00:26:48.320
I graduated Syracuse in 92 during their date. Dickerson alleged that Combs intentionally
00:26:53.840
drugged her. This is another theme we see through the complaints that there was intentional and
00:26:58.880
surreptitious drugging by Sean Combs. She accused him of sexually assaulting her and then video
00:27:04.780
recording the sexual assault. That's another theme that we see through the allegations unproven days
00:27:10.260
later. A male friend allegedly revealed, revealed to her that he, along with other men had viewed the
00:27:15.860
sex tape, quote unquote, sex tape. She asked her friend who had seen it. And the friend told her
00:27:19.940
everyone she alleges. She claims from that point, her life went into a tailspin and things went down
00:27:25.520
from there. She's alleging assault and battery, intentional infection of emotional distress,
00:27:30.080
human trafficking and revenge porn. He's denied it and rejected the claims of misconduct and said
00:27:35.440
he's an easy target for accusers who will falsify the truth with, without conscience or consequence
00:27:42.640
to, for their own financial benefit. Um, then there's Jane Doe, who's 17. Um, and she's alleging
00:27:52.000
she was gang raped and sex trafficked by Sean Combs and the former president of bad boy records,
00:27:57.980
Harvey Pierre, when she was just 17. And in the 11th grade, she claims that she met Pierre in a lounge
00:28:05.660
in Detroit. And he told her he was best friends with Combs. Doe claims Combs convinced her to
00:28:11.120
accompany Pierre and, and a third assailant on a private jet to come to his studio in New York
00:28:16.800
city. I must say for the record, these are all terrible decisions by these young women, just terrible.
00:28:23.100
There is a reason why you don't say yes to this when being asked to go on a private plane or to a
00:28:28.080
private hotel room, uh, or a recording studio owned and controlled by said man. When you're a young
00:28:33.780
woman and you're alone, there is a reason why you don't do that. Not blaming the victim. I'm saying
00:28:37.680
we need to take some responsibility for putting ourselves in dangerous situations. And honestly,
00:28:42.380
trust no one, uh, just trust no one use the buddy system, go with somebody else. Don't drink
00:28:46.900
and make sure that you're above age before you agree to any of this stuff. She claims she agreed
00:28:53.040
and boarded a jet that flew to Teterboro, New Jersey and was taken to Combs' studio. She alleges
00:28:57.960
that once there, Combs and his associates, including this guy, Pierre, plied her full of drugs and
00:29:02.760
alcohol and alleges she was subsequently gang raped at the studio by Combs, Pierre, and this third
00:29:07.800
assailant. Her complaint states that while Combs was raping Ms. Doe, the 17 year old, he complained
00:29:14.120
that he could not achieve climax unless she pinched his nipples as hard as she could. And that Combs
00:29:20.500
then allegedly watched as the third assailant raped her while she told him to stop quote after third
00:29:26.300
assailant was finished. Mr. Pierre took his turn at raping Ms. Doe and then violently forced her to
00:29:30.920
give him oral sex during which Ms. Doe was choking and struggling to breathe. Once again, extreme detail.
00:29:36.900
Is this another one by our friend Tyrone? Yeah. So, so let, let me just say this from the
00:29:43.380
outset about this. There is a, these are harrowing accounts and there's a level of specificity in
00:29:50.020
these accounts that I think we have to note as well. And I mentioned that you see lawsuit after
00:29:54.780
lawsuit, A, because the clock was about to run up on that New York law that allowed people to file
00:30:01.280
old claims. But I also want it to be clear that sometimes people may feel more comfortable coming
00:30:06.880
forward with allegations against somebody like a Harvey Weinstein or a Diddy, even though Diddy has
00:30:11.940
not been charged, not been found liable because they see other people coming forward. So I want to make
00:30:16.280
that clear. Yes. And here's something to note too about the weakness of these legal cases. And when I
00:30:22.160
say that, let me be clear. The Joy Dickerson Neal case, I did a whole sidebar on this. Diddy filed a
00:30:28.340
response and said almost 80%, 90% of the claims in that case should be thrown out. Why? Because
00:30:35.880
the statutes that she is suing Diddy under weren't even the law when this assault took place. So yes,
00:30:44.640
you can bring a lawsuit against somebody through the New York adult survivors act. Sure. But what you
00:30:50.700
can't do is sue somebody for saying they did something illegal that wasn't illegal at the time.
00:30:55.080
And they're all the companies that she's suing as well. They weren't even in existence at the time
00:31:00.740
this alleged assault happened. And there's more arguments that they make too, that he, this was,
00:31:05.840
he's not an employee of the company. Bottom line is, I think there's a strong argument that a lot of
00:31:09.720
those claims could be thrown out with the 17 year old. This is the Syracuse University alumni.
00:31:14.120
Correct. The Joy Dickerson Neal one. And then the 17 year old Diddy made a legal argument that those
00:31:19.300
claims are time barred under the statute. They can't be revived. And I read through the filings
00:31:24.620
from the attorney. I think there's a lot of ground there. There's a lot of water to those arguments.
00:31:29.840
And so again, it becomes a question of why were they filed? Was there a rush to file them? That was
00:31:36.760
something that made me think too. For example, we don't know when these, these women came forward with
00:31:41.720
their accounts and spoke to legal counsel and had a lawsuit. Was there a rush to get the lawsuits
00:31:47.120
filed before the deadline closed? Was there an ample time to do due diligence about this?
00:31:52.620
Something I've suspected because they seem to be some legal issues that could have been flagged at
00:31:57.380
the very beginning. We don't know. But having said, it doesn't take away from the very chilling and
00:32:02.740
harrowing accounts from these accusers. Yeah. In that last case, the Jane Doe, who says she was 17
00:32:08.240
when this terrible thing happened to her in the defendant state that she cannot allege what day or time
00:32:14.440
of year the alleged incident occurred, yet purports to miraculously recall the most prurient details
00:32:19.520
with specificity. And then they do argue that it's time barred and just, just brought too late so that
00:32:26.320
she's out of time on it. Okay. So that brings us to Rodney Jones. I did read this one myself,
00:32:33.360
this complaint, and it was a stunner. It was absolutely horrifying, although also confusing.
00:32:40.060
If I remember correctly, Jesse, correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't this complaint that alleged
00:32:47.960
that Combs suddenly touched in some way this guy's anus. Like it was a surprise. I'm sorry to get
00:32:58.600
graphic, but I remember reading like, how does that happen? Just out of the blue. And the whole
00:33:03.580
complaint reads like this. He says he was a videographer for Combs and a producer, and he's got
00:33:08.080
a lot of this stuff on tape, but give us a feel for the Rodney Jones lawsuit also being handled by
00:33:13.400
Tyrone. Okay. So he is alleging a number of things. He is saying that, yes, he was sexually harassed and
00:33:19.580
assaulted by Combs, that he was groped, fondled, that he was forced to watch Diddy naked, taking
00:33:26.680
showers, that he was forced to recruit sex workers to perform sex acts with them for the pleasure of
00:33:33.720
Diddy, that he was drugged at one point, found himself in bed with, with sex workers. So you
00:33:38.900
already see flavors of sex trafficking, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment. He also says he
00:33:43.040
witnessed acts of violence. He said that he was involved, sort of Diddy involved in a shooting at
00:33:48.500
a recording studio, that Diddy admitted to his involvement, as we mentioned before, the 1999
00:33:53.260
nightclub shooting, that he's seen drug abuse, that he's seen illegal weapons possession. He is
00:33:59.660
alleging everything. And big theme from that too, is he is alleging that Diddy groomed him for
00:34:06.100
homosexual sex. The reason I bring that up, Megan, is because there's been a lot of rumors and
00:34:11.600
speculation about Diddy because of things like that. And one of the things that he says is Diddy showed
00:34:18.800
him a video of a prominent person in the music industry having homosexual sex. He mentioned how
00:34:26.420
he was a victim of Cuba Gooding Jr. That Cuba Gooding Jr. one night was on a yacht and Diddy
00:34:31.700
left them alone and Cuba Gooding Jr. fondled him and made him uncomfortable. And then he's now suing
00:34:36.720
Cuba Gooding Jr. for that. And, and yes, Rodney Jones, it's a big lawsuit, but not only has Diddy's
00:34:43.680
counsel come out and completely denied it, but several of the high profile people who are named in that
00:34:49.860
lawsuit, not as defendants, by the way, but just named, they're accused of being these sex workers that
00:34:55.560
they were paid by Diddy to perform sex acts. They said, this is complete lies. These are well-known
00:35:00.120
artists like young Miami. And so they, the fact that you have people who are not even named as
00:35:04.740
defendants, but just mentioned in the lawsuit saying, this is not true. Again, kind of gives
00:35:09.920
you a little bit of pause to think about what's going on. And Cuba Gooding Jr. came out. I thought
00:35:13.840
this was fascinating because Cuba Gooding Jr. has been quiet since all this happened. And he sits
00:35:19.800
down for a podcast interview with Patrick, but David says, let me play it. And then you take
00:35:25.700
it on the back end. Take a listen to SOT 21. What do you think is going on with all the stuff
00:35:30.780
with Diddy, with little Rod, with, you know, all the stories that everybody's hearing about?
00:35:36.360
I mean, you know, being raiding his, you know, his house being raided.
00:35:39.480
I mean, that's crazy. That's the craziest thing I'd ever. And then, Hey, how about me? I wake up in the
00:35:44.560
morning. I turn on the stage show. Hector Cuba Gooding Jr. I was like, excuse me, pull me into
00:35:49.800
this. I can't imagine that he's stupid enough to do whatever he's doing and keep it on his
00:35:57.820
premises. I think that the raid and all of that stuff, only time will tell who was involved,
00:36:05.020
who had been a frequent guest in these places and areas. It's funny because my lawyers said,
00:36:12.860
every outlet in the world wants to talk to you. And again, I'm like, I'm not defining myself from
00:36:18.320
some headline in the press. So I stayed quiet. Go ahead, Jesse. I think we tried to get him on
00:36:24.660
sidebar, by the way. So we were one of those outlets, but, um, but no, look, I thought that
00:36:28.720
was really interesting because he's not outright denying everything about Diddy. He's not saying
00:36:33.160
the guy's completely innocent, but what was really interesting in the interview, he says,
00:36:37.080
I really don't know Diddy. Uh, he's an acquaintance, met him two or three times. Um, you know,
00:36:41.640
I can't speak anything more about that in regards to me. And this was fascinating in that interview.
00:36:46.960
He goes, I was that night. I was jumping from yacht to yacht. It was new year's Eve. I ended up
00:36:52.080
on Diddy's yacht. This guy's listening to music. We're listening to it. And there's a picture,
00:36:56.340
by the way, in that lawsuit, um, with Cuba Gooding Jr. Next to little Rod Jones, he's got his arm around
00:37:02.660
him looking very close next to him. Um, and he goes, you know, that photo that Jones put in his
00:37:08.080
lawsuit, let me show you something else. And he shows Patrick Bate David, another photo. We don't
00:37:11.480
see what it is, but it's apparently a live photo. He goes, look, this is a different angle. He goes,
00:37:15.540
so they decided to put this one photo in to make it look like something. There's another side of the
00:37:19.320
story said that this is a money grab. So he was defense. He came out on the defensive against what
00:37:24.500
he's accused of, but not so much against all the allegations for Diddy. And he definitely tried to
00:37:30.000
distance himself away from him. I'll bet, uh, this, this guy, little Rod, he's also alleging,
00:37:36.180
um, that Diddy would lace liquor bottles that he had in his house, specific bottles of alcohol
00:37:42.840
designed for females would lace them with ecstasy. And that ties in, I mean, potentially with some of
00:37:50.180
these early accusations earlier that the women had been drugged again, all of which are denied.
00:37:54.820
And Megan, let me just jump in. I think if you take his allegations as true, he is a star witness for
00:38:01.140
the prosecution in this back to the raids. Oh yeah. I have to imagine they're speaking to him
00:38:06.220
because he was the one who said, Diddy's got videotapes cameras in all of his houses that
00:38:11.340
records a lot of this illicit activity. We've wondered was one of the things that they obtained
00:38:16.040
from the raids on his LA and Miami homes, videotapes, camera systems based on what little
00:38:21.580
Rod said. I have to imagine he has at least spoken with the government or might be a cooperating witness.
00:38:27.260
I know. Although it's been a while since the raid, do you think he's going to be arrested?
00:38:32.100
There's a strong chance. I say that not only as a lawyer, not as somebody who's only covered the
00:38:36.320
cases, not only seeing comparisons to other cases, but I've spoken to former federal prosecutors,
00:38:42.600
spoke to the former federal prosecutor, put R. Kelly away and said, it is a matter of time
00:38:46.760
in the sense that, look, there could be absolutely nothing. Let me make a clear clue. Absolutely
00:38:51.500
nothing, right? They could look at this and say, these allegations were just allegations. We have
00:38:54.860
nothing to corroborate. There's nothing here, but could there be, and one of the things they're
00:39:00.140
looking at, illegal firearms possessions? Was Diddy's fingerprints on any of those weapons?
00:39:05.240
Are there videos of him? Was there illegal substances found? Do the videos show or anything
00:39:10.220
from that house show sex trafficking or sex crimes of any sort? We just don't know.
00:39:16.320
But having said that, what I keep being told is the feds don't come in like that.
00:39:21.840
And with the level of force, yes, they're dealing with massive properties. They don't know who's in
00:39:25.820
there. There's been allegations of firearms and violence. They didn't know what they were going
00:39:29.280
into, but the feds don't go in and do this unless they have something and they're going to find
00:39:33.980
something. So we don't know. We shall see. But it's definitely possible that Diddy and perhaps his
00:39:41.160
sons or associates could ultimately be charged. We just don't know, but it's possible.
00:39:44.920
There's at least one lawsuit against one of the sons with disturbing allegations. But can I last,
00:39:50.740
before I let you go, Bieber and Usher were both two up and coming stars who were taken under the wing
00:39:59.020
by Diddy. There's some weird tape of both of them talking about some experiences with Diddy. Usher
00:40:06.000
was like, it was crazy. It was, you know, bizarre land inside of Diddy's home. And Bieber was like 15
00:40:13.620
years old with Diddy. We've got the Bieber. Let's watch that. That's SOT 22.
00:40:17.940
Justin, you ever seen the movie 48 Hours? Right now he's having 48 hours with Diddy,
00:40:24.420
him and his boy. They're having the times of their lives, like, you know, where we hanging out and
00:40:30.880
what we doing. We can't really disclose. But it's definitely a 15-year-old's dream.
00:40:39.280
You know, I have been given custody of him. You know, he signed to Usher.
00:40:45.780
I'm signed to Usher. I had legal guardianship of Usher when, you know, he did his first album. I did
00:40:51.780
Usher's first album. I don't really, I don't have legal guardianship of him, but for the next 48 hours,
00:40:56.860
he's with me. So, yeah, and we're going to go full, buck full crazy. We're going crazy.
00:41:03.980
Oh, God. And when he had Usher, Usher was only 13. So what are we to make of those two
00:41:10.280
people and their relationship to Diddy? Look, if you look at that video without knowing anything
00:41:15.760
else, you'd say, not make much of it, maybe a weird video, a little strange. But we look at it
00:41:20.640
with a different lens because of everything, all of these allegations. And Usher is indirectly named
00:41:26.920
in this lawsuit as somebody that Combs admitted to Little Rod Jones that he was, had a relationship
00:41:33.580
with. And when we talk about these allegations of grooming, homosexual sex, obviously we're looking
00:41:38.760
at videos and going through past videos of Diddy with a different eye. Will this video be relevant?
00:41:45.480
Will it be relevant in an actual criminal case against Diddy? Probably not. Will Justin Bieber be
00:41:50.500
questioned by the feds about his relationship or contact with Diddy? It's hard to say and probably not.
00:41:56.780
But it's just, we look at things like that. When anybody's accused of something or anybody's
00:42:01.400
charged with something, we go back, we look at the past, we look at the videos and we try to see
00:42:05.280
if we can find clues of something that was going on. But we don't know what that was really about.
00:42:09.880
Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's just tough. He is a huge star with a very deep pocket, but this is a lot.
00:42:16.200
This is a lot of smoke if there's no fire. A ton of smoke. I can state affirmatively that
00:42:23.820
Jesse and I are not going to have six people come forward and allege that we drugged people and that
00:42:29.560
we had gang rapes and that it's all on tape and that we, you know, like there's just, there's a
00:42:33.960
pattern that I find very disturbing. And I don't think this is going to end well for Diddy. I think
00:42:40.460
he's got some defenses to some of these, but I think you're right. He's probably going to be
00:42:44.560
in custody within the next four months, but we'll see. I've been wrong before. Could be wrong on this
00:42:50.540
one too. Jesse, thank you. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
00:42:56.080
All right. Check them out on Law and Crime Sidebar. And thanks to all of you. I want to
00:43:00.000
tell you that tomorrow we have my pal Dan Bongino back with us again. Looking forward to that. We'll
00:43:05.500
see all of you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.