Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyers are pushing to have some evidence obtained during raids on his homes in Los Angeles and Miami suppressed, accusing the feds of lying to obtain the search warrants, new court filings show.
The 55-year-old disgraced music mogul’s defense team alleges authorities made “false statements and omitted critical exculpatory evidence” when it sought the warrants to search Combs’ homes, as well as his iCloud and phones, amid its notorious sex-trafficking probe, according to a motion filed in Manhattan federal court on Sunday.
When seeking the warrants, the feds left out evidence that suggested one alleged victim’s involvement in the so-called sex-fueled “Freak-Off” parties was “voluntary and consensual” — and “not coerced as the government suggested in its applications,” the motion claims.
“The probable cause statements were intentionally misleading,” his attorneys wrote. “But it worked — the government got its warrants, leaked damaging information and then executed its military-style raids at Combs’ residences,” the filing continued.
“Through this duplicity, the government obtained evidence — including multiple electronic devices with an enormous amount of information about his entire life — and an enormous and unfair tactical advantage.”
The heavily redacted filing stops short of divulging what evidence was apparently left out.
“The warrants themselves were also grossly overbroad,” the motion stated.
“On a theory that Mr Combs’s entire life was a criminal enterprise, the government sought virtually limitless authority to seize any evidence related to that ‘enterprise’ — all his digital devices and the information they contained, all information in his iCloud accounts, plus troves of records and items in his houses, almost none of which was contraband.”
The Bad Boy Records founder was slapped with federal sex trafficking charges last September following the raids on his homes.
The federal indictment against him detailed troubling claims that Combs had allegedly manipulated victims and plied them with drugs to participate in the “Freak-Offs” — violent sex sessions that were sometimes recorded against participants’ will.
Since his arrest, a flurry of civil lawsuits have also been filed against the rapper alleging abuse dating back decades.
His lawyers have repeatedly derided the civil litigation as “shameless publicity stunts.”
Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, is being held without bail in federal custody in Brooklyn ahead of his trial in May.
