Ryan McGuigan
On July 2, Sean “Diddy” Combs was acquitted on prices of intercourse trafficking and racketeering after a two-month trial in New York. Nevertheless, he’s not a free man but, as he was discovered responsible on two lesser counts of transportation to have interaction in prostitution. He faces a potential sentence of as much as 20 years in jail. Prison protection legal professional Ryan McGuigan solely shares his response to the case and the jury’s verdict with In Contact and divulges what he thinks is subsequent for the rapper.
“A couple of weeks in the past, the prosecutor had determined to drop a few of the prices, which had been the predicate prices on the trafficking of their within the RICO case, and when that occurred — I had been watching it on the information, however from the snippets that I had gotten — it seemed as if the federal government was going to have quite a lot of hassle proving their instances, as a result of they didn’t have the witnesses lined up,” McGuigan tells In Contact Investigates’ Kristin Thorne. “And if that they had them lined up, they didn’t have them dedicated to their testimony. After which when the folks determined to not present up in any respect, that was a reasonably good indication that this prosecution was going off the rails.”
McGuigan mentioned he had a sense that the “authorities was going to have quite a lot of hassle with their burden of proof, and finally they did.”
Combs, 55, was arrested in September 2024 and pleaded not responsible to all prices. His trial, which started in early Might, primarily centered on the “freak offs” that had been allegedly orchestrated by the music producer, together with his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and a lady often known as Jane Doe serving as key witnesses.
The trial got here after Cassie, 38, accused Combs of abusing her all through their 10-year relationship in a November 2023 lawsuit, which was settled at some point after it was filed. Combs denied all allegations made in opposition to him.
Resort surveillance footage from 2016 later resurfaced in Might 2024 and confirmed Combs apparently bodily assaulting Cassie. Combs issued a public apology video after the footage was launched, stating that he “sought assist,” however Ventura’s lawyer, Meredith Firetog, mentioned in an announcement that his video was “extra about himself than the many individuals he has damage.”
McGuigan tells In Contact that he believes Combs’ case “being taken federally was an overreach.”
Kristin Thorne
“I had seen the videotape of Sean Combs and his important different, and it was a brutal assault, however that’s what it was,” he says. “It was an assault within the third diploma, and it was a home assault, and people are dealt with by state prosecutions. There is no such thing as a federal prosecution for, , assaulting your boyfriend or your girlfriend or whoever your important different is, and so, for the federal authorities to come back in and step in, principally on a home case, appeared like a gross overreach.”
McGuigan was additionally shocked to see that nothing got here of the claims that different Hollywood stars may get wrapped up within the case.
“So that you had these kind of sensational media leaks, and we had been all ready for all this sensational data to come back out, and it was a giant nothing burger,” he says. “I imply, no person testified to any of it, which makes me type of scratch my head and simply marvel. You had raids of his house in Los Angeles, you had raids of his house in Miami, and reams and packing containers of videotapes and knowledge and hundreds of child oil bottles. I imply, it was completely weird, however if you had all that data, anyone from the general public, whether or not you’re a layperson otherwise you’re an skilled, you’d have thought, ‘Oh my goodness, one thing unbelievable goes to come back out of this,’ and nothing did.”
Whereas Combs faces a most of 20 years in jail, McGuigan says that is “not life like.”
“The federal government’s going to say he wants 42 months in jail to have the ability to study his lesson from this,” he explains. “And his protection is saying on the low finish of the rule of thumb vary, he needs to be getting round 21 months. … What’s life like is the rule of thumb calculation. So that you’re taking a look at someplace in between there. And with this choose, and after this trial, I don’t suppose he’s going to be given the advantage of the doubt. … They could cut up the child in there, and possibly you’d have like 36 months.”
Combs is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3.
