J. Wyndal Gordon, known as “The Warrior Lawyer,” brings decades of high-profile criminal defense experience to his analysis of one of the year’s most watched federal cases. The Maryland-based attorney, who served as lead stand-by counsel for alleged “D.C. Sniper” John Allen Muhammad, weighs in on Sean “Diddy” Combs’ split verdict with the same uncompromising analysis that has made him a respected voice in criminal defense.
The jury found Diddy not guilty on the most serious charges but guilty on two Mann Act violations. Break down this verdict.
The transportation for prostitution carries 10 years apiece, and it’s unlikely that he’s going to get the maximum sentence. This isn’t the most egregious case regarding transportation to engage in prostitution. If you recall, he was barely participating in the acts at all, most of the time he’s off in the corner servicing himself. The Mann Act is an act that was established many years ago during the Jack Johnson days. When Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight prize fighter, started dating white women. So the Mann Act was enacted to deal with him and his personal affairs with a white woman that he was dating.
I think he was convicted because of the acts of the male as opposed to Jane, and I believe the jury instructions said, are they guilty of violating the transportation to engage in prostitution because of Cassie and the male. I really feel like the verdict was a compromise. I believe that Puffy could have swept this entire case. I believe that there were many on that jury who probably wanted to give Puffy a full flush of the verdict, but I believe that 2 counts of the prostitution case caused the holdouts to relieve themselves of the Rico charge.
Do you expect him to be released pending sentencing?
That decision probably has been made already. The judge may decide because he’s now been adjudged as being guilty, he may present a greater flight risk today than he did pretrial. I do believe he ought to be able to come home though, that means for the time that he’ll probably face, he could probably do it on home detention. The big case is no longer a factor. The life imprisonment case, the two 15 year cases, which dealt with sex trafficking, were 15 years apiece. He got the lesser included offense that he could possibly get.
It really doesn’t take much. It’s almost as if anybody could be found guilty of that when you decide to take your girlfriend to a distant island. But I thought what was interesting about this case is that the escorts made it very clear that they were not prostitutes. They get paid to dance, they get paid for their time, they get paid for their performances. People make homegrown pornography every day. This is part of what Puffy did. They were swingers, and I agree with that. Everybody engaged in the conduct was consenting adults.
Was the split verdict a surprise, and what does it say about the prosecution’s case?
The case was ass from the start. It wasn’t a good case. This is so beneath the United States of America to bring a case like this where they’re getting inside people’s bedrooms and judging people’s lifestyle. They’re judging lifestyles as opposed to ferreting out and prosecuting crime.
I don’t necessarily believe that the verdict was split. I believe it was compromised. I believe parties got together and said, we’re not going to do X, Y, I’ll give you Z, because I’m not coming back on Monday. There’s this thing that’s called jury fatigue; they get exhausted, they get frustrated, annoyed. I got to go back to work at some point in time, I got kids, I got daycare.
I call it a [caring] case, because I feel like the victims weren’t really victims of the offenses that were charged. Now is Puffy morally depraved in some of his conduct? Yes. Is he a woman beater? Yes. However, that is not a [federal] crime. The woman beating, yes, and there were opportunities to bring them to trial or bring them to court to address those instances. However, with these Federal charges, they’re not Federal crimes, and I think that’s where this case involves prosecutorial overreach.
Where did the prosecution’s case falter?
All the above, but primarily with the witnesses. The witnesses just were not credible. In fact, if Puffy would have known, the testimony would have come out the way that it did. He probably wouldn’t have paid any of them a dime. They have so much baggage and Puffy had so much evidence to the text messages and everything else.
If you’re not going after Puffy for the domestic violence, you don’t have anything else. Quite frankly, if I didn’t see it on video, I wouldn’t even believe it. Based upon the testimony that they were producing, I wouldn’t have believed anything of what they said. So it is the video that kept this case alive. Video at the end of the day really doesn’t amount to anything more than domestic violence. It doesn’t amount to any racketeering enterprises. It doesn’t amount to any sex trafficking, and it doesn’t amount to transportation to engage in prostitution.
What does this verdict say about Diddy’s defense team?
I always say justice is available to everyone the same as the Ritz Carlton. If you can afford good legal representation, you gonna get somewhere. I don’t think that they pulled a rabbit out of the hat or anything. They did what any aggressive defense team would do. You go in on cross-examination. You got the goods because you got the text message. This case wasn’t very difficult to defend, because all of the witnesses had flaws.
All of them were flawed because all of them would not resist the lifestyle, the celebrity, the access that goes with being attached to Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. They weren’t trying to give that up, and they turned this into a story of thug passion. When you’re in these toxic relationships, there’s a lot of passion in those relationships, and I guess the makeup is just as bad as the fights.
Should his team have negotiated a plea instead of going to trial?
Nah, because they weren’t going to offer a plea that was worth going for, and if they had a plea that was available, I’m sure he would have taken it. If he could have pled to probation. Who cares if Puffy walks around with a sex offense on his record? Nobody, he’s Puffy. He’s still got money. He’s gonna always have money, and he could put people in front of him to be the face of his businesses.
Now, it takes a lot of courage, you’ve got to have the courage of a burglar to go to trial in Federal court, given their win loss rate. This is just one of those cases that again they brought to Federal Court, which was more or less a State court case, and probably the State District Court case. Maybe a Judge Judy case, if you really want to talk about it, because the evidence just wasn’t there, and they had to know that their witnesses were incredibly flawed.
How do you view the public reaction to this case?
I can tell you that everyone who followed the case was vested. About midway to almost through the trial people were picking sides. For people to celebrate in the streets, this case carried the same fervor as the O.J. Simpson case, because we felt like this was the white establishment going big game hunting and big game was Puffy Combs. It was a case of character assassination as opposed to bringing him to justice. It’s a case of them trying to break a successful black man.
When your case starts to unravel, give it up. Let it go. Make that offer that you say is so sweet of a deal that you can’t pass it up, because they have to feel like they lost, because, indeed, they did lose. First of all, they lost the majority of the charges. Second of all, he got convicted on the lowest [possible] offense that he could have. He’s not going to spend the rest of his life in jail. He’s not going to do 20 years. I don’t think he’s going to do 10 years. I don’t think he’s going to do more than 5 years.
How do these criminal convictions affect the pending civil lawsuits?
The testimony and the evidence weakened those cases. If Puffy would have known what the testimony was going to be before this trial, [he] probably wouldn’t have settled any of those cases. I wouldn’t have settled any of those cases. I would have fought him tooth and nail all the way through. I think the gravy train [has] left. Now, Puffy, all he needs to do now is just dig in. None of those suits have any merit.
When you talk about consent, when you talk about coercion. Are you really going to believe that these women were battered? They waited all these years. They waited till Cassie gets her little money, and some other lady gets their little money, and now they’re bringing their suits. I would try all of those cases. I don’t think any of those folks have credibility. I think it’s a money grab and they’re trying to get the last little morsel squeeze out of Puffy.
