As Sean “Diddy” Combs remains in federal detention while his felony trial revs up, legal expert Nancy Grace discusses the way the embattled music mogul could possibly get off.
Grace, who attained renown for the Headline News “Nancy Grace” show and her previous role as a prosecutor in Atlanta’s Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, said there are ways that the disgraced Bad Boy business baron could escape penalties for sex trafficking, racketeering and prostitution charges.
How Diddy could get off
“There is a way,” the former prosecutor told the Daily Mail’s “The Trial of Diddy” podcast. “If the victim’s credibility was so destroyed that the jury chose not to believe them,” Grace said.
The women brave enough to come forward to testify will be subjected to intense interrogation by the defense.
The alleged victims will be torched on cross-examination
“The women will be attacked on cross-examination. Their characters will be impugned. The defense will bring forward possible pecuniary or monetary interests that the witnesses may have had,” Grace continued. “They will attack the victims for not coming forward until Cassie Ventura did. There’s going to be a lot of avenues of attack. They’ll walk out in tatters, they’ll be shredded.”
This tactic does not have much of a chance at success, Grace said, because of the multiplicity of women who are going to provide testimonies that are similar to one another.
Nancy Grace said such tactics have a slim chance of success
“It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for a jury to disbelieve all those women and believe one defendant,” Grace opined. “The sheer number of victims will be overwhelming. You’ll have to choose to believe Sean Combs over all those ladies.
Grace added, “That’s going to be very hard to do – even if a few witnesses are destroyed on cross-examination.”
The Diddy trial will have long-standing ramifications
Depending on how hard Diddy’s defense attorneys — it was reported that he had eight lawyers walk in with him for the start of jury selection on Monday, May 5 — go after the alleged victims may have far-reaching ramifications for future victims of sex crimes in Hollywood.
“The overwhelming majority of sex victims are women. I think now more than ever, women are more likely to come forward,” Grace explained. “But after the Diddy trial, women are going to see the way these victims are shredded on cross-examination.
The TV attorney continued, saying, “They’ll be destroyed, humiliated, embarrassed and impeached. Lawyers love to create this chilling effect – I don’t know what effect that may have on future victims.”
