Sean Combs secured a partial victory, being acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking but convicted on two prostitution counts, as legal experts argue the prosecution relied on character attacks rather than evidence of coercion. Guests critique the all-white prosecution team and note how shifting social moods undermined Cassie Ventura's credibility following her settlement and continued contact with Combs. While testimony from The Punisher confirmed consensual interactions, the panel predicts a minimum two-year sentence due to his clean record. Ultimately, this verdict suggests the RICO case failed because it misapplied organized crime laws to private adult encounters, potentially forcing the hip-hop industry to radically overhaul its vetting of companions to avoid future trafficking accusations. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Weak Case, Strong Media Narrative00:08:53
The evidence was weak.
It wasn't a strong case.
It was a strong case in the media and all the pundits who wanted to say he's a woman beater.
That doesn't equal a RICO charge.
A fifth verdict really just goes to show how much women are really truly not believed.
If numbers don't lie, it was 36 to zero.
36 to 0.
Some even went as far as suggesting you must have been on the Diddy payroll.
Would you like to clear that up?
I am not on a Diddy payroll.
This was just my honest experience.
We run with certain people and you know what they could be capable of, then you know you might be in clear prison danger.
The legal system, they want to get their hunk.
They can't walk away.
They're already disgraced.
They don't want to walk away totally disgraced.
After seven weeks of revelations and a case that's shaken the showbiz world, Sean Diddy Combs has been found not guilty of racketeering and not guilty of sex trafficking his ex-partner Cassie Ventura, another woman referred to only as Jane.
The jury did find him guilty on two counts, both of transportation to engage in prostitution related to those same two women.
Well, the verdicts have come as much of a bombshell as the case itself.
We have an all-star panel of opinionated insiders and legal experts to explain what it all means and what happens next.
In a moment, I'll talk to young Jock and Sammy the Bull, and I'll talk to the punisher, whose evidence appears to have been pivotal in this trial.
But we begin with our legal panelists, Bruce Rivers, the criminal defense attorney, who's covered the Diddy trial fastidiously on his popular YouTube channel.
Suge Knight's former attorney, Matthew Fletcher, who's repeatedly questioned the strength of the prosecution's case, and Ariel Mitchell Kidd, a lawyer who's represented other women who claim to have been Diddy's victims.
Welcome to all of you.
Matthew Fletcher, let me start with you, because you've been very clear with me in the many times you've appeared on uncensored during this case that you believed they were not going to get convictions on the more serious charges.
And what is fascinating about that, A, that you've been proven right, of course, but also that in the district of Southern District of New York, the success rate for federal prosecutors is 93%.
You know, they hardly ever fail.
So just why do you think here, I mean, it's being billed as Diddy beats the feds.
Obviously, he's not completely beaten them, but he's only been found guilty of the least serious charges.
Why do you think that has happened?
Because the evidence was weak.
I've said from the very beginning, I've got over 100 jury trials.
I did this for 23 years.
All I do is trial consulting now.
I can spot a bad case a mile away.
And the first witness in this case, from the first witness in this case on, this was always about the government saying he's a bad person, he's a bad person, which he is.
He's a horrible, rotten woman beater.
And as I told you last time, Agna Fila is going to get up there and say, convict him of every single count of domestic violence.
But there aren't any counts of domestic violence.
He did that.
I told you before that they were going to sit there and say that these women enjoyed this.
There was no coercion.
There was no duress.
And to show that one video of what happened years ago, that's what they built their entire case on.
And it's horrible, but he wasn't charged with that.
Racketeering, RICO is meant for particular vices.
And those vices don't include shipping in prostitutes.
And unfortunately, they don't also include beating your wife or your girlfriend.
That's what he was.
He's a wife beater or a girlfriend beater.
He was never, never should have been charged with this.
Never close.
All the people who were wringing their hands and saying, oh, well, they must have convicted me for four counts.
It's not even true.
They never believed a word Cassie said.
They never believed a word Jane said.
That jury wasn't even out.
One hour of deliberations, they came and said, Judge, we need to throw juror 25 off because he's not deliberating.
That told you there was already a group of people together who were willing to go in one direction or the other.
That jury deliberated three hours essentially before they had conviction or had verdicts, which a fast verdict like that, in my experience, tells me that's clearly a defense verdict.
Clearly, they came back today and it was over.
It wasn't a strong case.
It was a strong case in the media and all the pundits who wanted to say he's a woman beater, which he is.
That doesn't equal a RICO charge.
No, well, you've been very consistent on that.
I mean, given the convictions he's now received, what is his likely sentence?
I mean, each count, I think, is a maximum of...
You got to give him two years.
It's a maximum of 10 years on each count.
So what do you think you'll get?
Yeah, but the feds are different.
First of all, he's convicted of procuring a prostitute.
If we're going to start throwing music moguls and billionaires in prison for procuring prostitutes, we're going to need to expand the prisons.
We're going to have to get, you know, Alligator Alcatraz fired up.
But, you know, under the guidelines, he has no criminal records, basically.
So he should get the minimum sentence, which is two years.
And they could screw him over and run him bowlegged and do them consecutively.
There's no reason for them to do that.
I expect at one o'clock the judge is going to give him bail.
I don't know why they wouldn't.
I mean, there's very few people in federal prison right now for these charges.
So I would be surprised if he didn't get bail.
And he should get the minimum because that's what they're not going to look at beat up Cassie.
That's not relevant.
No, no, it's irrelevant.
But let me ask you on a technical point.
Can the time that he served in prison then be removed?
Say he gets two years to run concurrently on both counts.
So he serves two years.
Would they remove time served or is that irrelevant?
The judge can do whatever judge wants to, but he gets his credit.
In feds, it's day for day.
So he gets a dollar for every dollar he put in.
So he's seven months into this already.
So if they run him concurrently, he's looking at probably a 20-month guideline and you knock off seven.
And there's very real chance that he's not ever going to see a federal prison.
That's if it doesn't get, if the president doesn't do something with it, because this is the kind of thing that you can see someone granting a pardon on.
I mean, it's the White Slave Trade Act.
That's real difficult to sentence somebody on the White Slave Trade Act in 2025, just from a practical standpoint.
The government failed miserably.
Yeah, well, they clearly have.
Ariel Mitchell Kidd, you represent another of women in civil cases against Sean Combs.
What is your reaction to this verdict?
Well, I think it's important that we discuss the lack of diversity that was on the prosecution team.
That was probably my most concern when I faced them when I had a hearing for Motion Aquash during the grand jury testimony.
I was very concerned when I was looking across from me at six white women and them not being able to grasp just exactly how to convey what has occurred to a jury and being able to relate these things to a jury.
Of course, my clients are very shocked at all of this.
I am shocked.
I'm actually very shocked at how they were able to reach the transportation aspect, but not the other two charges, because one kind of flows with the other.
Well, they don't, though, really, do they?
Because the transportation is that you're transporting people illegally across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.
But that doesn't mean there's any coercion.
And in fact, they have rejected all the charges, which would then lead on to a coercive situation.
No sex trafficking.
You can't cut me off and let me not finish my statement.
Sure.
So in reference to, first of all, the bar they have to meet.
It's a very, very high bar in criminal court.
It is beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, of course, it's clear that he did these things, transporting people for prostitution, the prostitutes, like you just said, the punisher, who you'll have later and other men who have said they were transported, as well as the women who said, the Jane Does who said they were also transported for this reason.
However, when we talk about the coercion, I thought the elements were mechan.
If you are asking me where I think the prosecution fell short, was I think taking six weeks to put on their case was a mistake.
Prosecution Overkill and Tax Sponsorship00:02:27
It was overkill.
I think had they shortened and streamlined their case, maybe in a three, four week at max point, they would have been successful.
And when you say the prosecution team wasn't diverse enough, what exactly do you mean?
What are you saying?
There were six white women.
So there was not any other voice other than a white woman's voice being heard.
There was not a man's voice, a man's perspective of any race, let alone any other race, especially a black voice, considering just how I don't even know what the word impactful is not even a good enough word to describe Diddy's, I want to say impacts, but again, that's not even a good enough word.
His chokehold, I'll call it, on the black community.
So when I look at, like, for example, R. Kelly, who, in my opinion, didn't do half as much or a quarter as much as Diddy did for him to be in jail for 25 years and Diddy to essentially be getting possibly 10 to 20 years, 10 years max on each count.
I don't understand it.
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I think what Diddy is doing.
Could it be, Ariel?
There was more evidence.
Could it be, Ariel, that we're just in different times, that when R. Kelly went down, we were still in the kind of full flow of the Me Too movement, a Time's Up campaign.
Shifting Mood and Acquitted Conduct00:07:47
There was a kind of, you know, real zealous desire to put bad men away for long periods of time, Harvey, Weissy and others.
And that the mood has changed somewhat now.
And that people listen to the evidence, particularly with Cassie Ventura, where, you know, she settled with Diddy for, you know, a lot of money, many millions of dollars, had her rent paid.
Then she, and all the text messages that were leaked, carried on sending him very loving text messages, talking openly about wanting to do the free costs.
The punisher, who I'm going to interview again a little later in the show, when I interviewed him, he was very persuasive that everything that he was involved in was not only consensual, but Cassie was the one driving it all.
She was the one paying him.
She was the one organizing everything.
Diddy just sat in the corner watching.
I mean, but let's be for real.
Cassie didn't have her own money.
So if that was the case, why do her parents need to take out a loan and pay Diddy for the money?
Listen, I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
I'm just saying.
And this was her thing.
Okay, but Eril, Eric, you're missing my point.
I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong.
I'm saying, do you feel like there's a different mood now about these cases?
I would hate, I was about to say, I was trying to get to what your question was, which is I would hate to think that the application of the law is on the whim of the attitude of the people.
So that's what you're implying, that because the wind has changed, there's an inappropriate application of law.
And I would hate to think that we live in a society where that is occurring.
Okay.
Bruce Rivers, I mean, you were very confident that he was going to go down to prison for the rest of his natural life.
That is clearly not going to happen.
So how do you feel about this verdict?
Well, I think the case was overcharged to begin with.
And what the defense did in this case, they really focused on the free will of Cassie Ventura.
When you have somebody that's a hanger on, somebody that is getting something out of this, as opposed to somebody who's being forced into something, you know, that's where I think the defense really won the day.
And, you know, I was going basically on the sensationalistic nature of the conduct because it really is bad.
But when you really apply, I just tried one of these RICO cases here in Minneapolis on a gang case about a month and a half ago.
And it's really easy to prove.
But the thing about it is here, the court can use some of this under this acquitted conduct in sentencing.
And so the final chapter hasn't been written.
Well, you mean he may still get a substantial prison sentence, you think?
He could.
He could.
The average person wouldn't, but the average person doesn't have all this other conduct.
How much of that is relevant to what a judge may decide should be a sentence?
I mean, I don't think this judge is going to...
I mean, the judge, for example, can't bring in the appalling beating video because the statute of limitations is over for that, right?
It's not even relevant legally.
Oh, sure, it is.
All the conduct of Diddy throughout this whole thing is relevant.
You know, the judge will take into consideration the whole picture of Diddy, not just the offense for which he's charged.
You know, he's got, what, I think he's like seven months in or something like that.
So if you just look at the low end of the guidelines, he's almost got that served.
And so a judge may say, this is not the message I want to send to the public.
You know, and the judge very may well, he could sentence him consecutively.
I doubt that he's going to.
But how should the jury, look, I mean, isn't the bottom line here that the jury seems to have concluded, and we may hear from some jurors, but I've just seen a statement from Cassie Ventura's lawyer, Doug Wigdo.
He says, we're just pleased that he still faces substantial jail time.
Well, that remains to be seen.
By coming forward with her experience, Cassie's left an indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice.
She displayed unquestionable strength and brought attention to the realities of powerful men in our orbit and the misconduct that's persisted for decades without repercussion.
I'm not sure she has established that in terms of the eyes of the jury.
You know, Listen, hang on.
I share the general view that that video of Diddy beating her up in the hotel corridor was disgusting.
He's clearly an appalling woman beater.
However, that's not what he was charged with.
And in terms of the charges, it just seems to me they didn't establish that any of this was non-consensual.
There's some truth to that, but they could have decided the RICO on the fact that there wasn't an enterprise.
I mean, they could have just, we don't know why they acquitted on the RICO.
On the sex trafficking, you know, it has to be forced part of coercion, but they could have acquitted on something else.
It's pretty, but, and I think one of the things, like you said, Pierce, is that they really focused on the free will.
And they had plenty of evidence to back that up.
You know, all the text messages saying I can't wait for the freak off, you know?
Right.
But I thought, listen, as somebody, you know, who's just looking at it with a journalist eye, I found that pretty persuasive for the defense.
You know, and again, I think it comes back.
I mean, I'll bring Matthew back in here.
The reason I mentioned the changing, the changing mood really about these kind of stories is that I think that people have become a little bit more cynical about cases where women have stayed in touch with the alleged abuser in a very loving and apparently very consensual way for a long period after the abuse is said to have happened.
And then you add in the fact that there was a big settlement and Cassie took all that money and so on and so on.
You know, I think when you put it all together, a lot of people may feel differently now than they would have done, you know, in 2019, 2020.
No, first of all, R. Kelly got convicted because he was screwing kids.
That's the big difference.
To equate R. Kelly with Puff is just, it's wrong and it's silly and it's just, it's almost, it's nonsensical.
R. Kelly was guilty of screwing around with kids.
No one's, no time 50 years ago or 50 years from now will that be okay.
This was a bad case.
You know, no one believed Cassie.
Here's all you need to know.
Every single count in which the credibility of the alleged victims was put into question, the jury came back 36 times and said not guilty.
Every single case, every single charge that had anything to do with Cassie or with Jane, the jury absolutely did not believe them, found them to not be credible, even to the extent to convict someone who's on a video beating the living snot out of the woman.
That tells you all you need to know about the case.
The media and people, lawyers, plaintiffs' lawyers who wanted to sue him said, oh, she's so convincing.
It's hard to feel sorry for a woman who's instructing a sex worker on how to urinate in their mouth and telling her how to do it.
And the punisher, who I think is just an absolute star, explained this to such a point of view.
I threw my hands up because I literally go, I don't know.
You can't have better testimony than that, other than when Jane said she thought that P. Diddy was a cuckold.
And if the prosecution, if they didn't think they had to do it, the defense didn't think they had to do it, they could have called any head of the human sexuality department and said, tell us about the swingers' lifestyle.
Tell us about water games.
Victims Found Not to Be Victims00:15:30
Tell us about this.
Put on the videos.
That's clearly what it was.
We don't have to guess because the jury has told us they believed what the defense team put out there.
And Tenny Garrigo from the very beginning set the stage for this, the tenor.
This is all consensual.
It's nothing coerced.
And the jury believed every single word of it.
The two convictions are just based upon plane tickets and receipts.
That's all.
It literally didn't need any testimony from any of the two alleged victims.
And I don't know why we're calling them other than the videotape.
In this case, they were found not to be victims.
They were found to be incredible witnesses and the evidence from their own mouths and their own fingertips and their own text messages proved that they shouldn't be believed.
And the jury obliged them and didn't believe a word they said.
Yes, true.
Ariel, in terms of the women you represent with civil actions against Sean Combs, how much will this verdict affect those?
I mean, does it make it more difficult now to win a civil case?
Before I get into that, I want to just address this verdict really just goes to show how much women are really truly not believed.
What if they're not telling the truth?
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But who are you to tell somebody what they're doing?
Well, who are you to tell a jury of 12 Americans?
You're implying.
Hang on.
Hang on, Ariel.
Hang on, Ariel.
20 years ago, but you're cutting me off so we can get it.
Well, no, you're cutting me off.
20 years ago or 10 years ago, as you just said, there was a movement with Me Too where women were actually starting to be heard.
And now we're just going back to regular status.
No, no, no, no.
That's not true.
No, no.
No, no, hang on.
Hang on.
Hang on one sec.
I was going to say, Ariel, just to be clear, they have been heard, right?
They went into a criminal.
I said believed.
I said we were.
Can you not interrupt me, given you didn't want me interrupting you?
Thank you.
They have been heard for six weeks and they weren't believed.
So it's not a question of women not being heard.
They've had their chance to try and prove their case and so much evidence came out which contradicted what they had to say, including very powerful evidence from the punisher who I'm about to interview.
But this idea that somehow this is about women being silenced, not being heard and so on, the complete opposite has happened.
And what you're actually doing is you're saying this jury of 12 Americans didn't know what they were doing or had some weird desire not to listen to women.
It seems to me they listened very carefully to the evidence and they've reached a conclusion they didn't believe these women.
And you know what, Ariel?
Sometimes women lie.
I'm not saying, okay, who's saying that people lie?
Women or men?
Meanwhile, women lie.
Numbers don't.
So we all know that.
So why are you saying it's a throwback to when women weren't believed?
Women are not being believed.
So there were eight men on a jury who, again, I'm saying they to say they heard them, I don't think they did.
So believe them definitely because you can't believe somebody if you not truly are listening to them.
Why?
Because you're not going to be able to do it.
You've got no evidence they didn't listen to them.
No man on this panel, all three of you, will never be in a position of any woman in any scenario where you can be taken advantage of, where you can be literally not be heard.
So I'm just saying there are three men who will, and eight men on that jury who will never know what it's like.
And instead of trying to understand the position that a woman could be in and a woman like Cassie and a woman like the other Jane Doe who testified in this matter, they completely disregarded it.
No, they didn't.
They didn't disregard it.
They didn't believe it.
They didn't believe it.
And what you're doing, you're basically saying no man can ever be on a jury fairly in a case like this.
There's no evidence to suggest that whatsoever.
The evidence was a man.
I said, no, Ariel.
Ariel, on the evidence that was presented, if I'd been on that jury, I'd have come to the same conclusion.
A man, I would assume a man would.
Actually, most women.
Most women I know, most women I know who studied the evidence properly also reached that conclusion.
And it's some men I talked to who reached the opposite.
So I'm not saying any men are all men because every person is different.
But what I'm saying is men in general who don't, the men who I know who do understand had women who experienced that like their mothers.
So they and they experienced that in tandem with their mothers.
So they have a better understanding of how abuse works, how the cycle of abuse works, how women typically go back to their abusers.
But outside of that, you asked me about how did this affect my clients in our cases moving forward.
It does not.
This case had no effect and would have no effect.
We have our own bars that we need to meet in terms of the preponderance of the evidence that we need to reach in our cases.
And we are also glad, just in the same voice with Mrs. Ventura, that Diddy will be going to jail.
He has skirted.
And for there to be this assertion that Diddy has been this law-abiding citizen who hasn't been through this multiple times before, this is really just the only time he got caught up.
So I think all of that will affect him.
And we are very happy to see him be convicted.
We are very happy to see what type of jail time he faces.
And we are more excited to litigate our cases against him.
Okay.
Final word to you, Bruce, just quickly.
The women's cases were heard.
They had to withstand scrutiny.
The jury that included women were unanimous in their rejection of their story.
Simple as that.
And he is going to get some significant prison time.
And he's already done significant jail time.
So, you know, hopefully he engages in other behavior, not so risky.
Yeah, I agree.
Panel, if numbers don't lie, it's 30.
Let me say this.
If numbers don't lie, it was 36 to 0.
36 to 0 in the counts in which the women jurors and the male jurors were asked, do you believe what Cassie and Jane Doe say?
36 to 0 said, we do not believe him.
Yep.
Numbers don't lie.
Pretty overwhelming, you might think.
Thank you all very much.
I appreciate it.
Well, young Jock and Sammy DeBull are coming up momentarily, but I'm going to bring in a man whose testimony of a trial may have been a game changer.
May I escort Sheree Hayes, known as the Punisher, was caught by the prosecution.
As he later explained on a sense that it may have been more helpful Helpful to the defense?
Get any cues.
I didn't have anything that would lead me to believe in the moment that she was under any duress or any forced scenario.
It was presented to me that this was something that she wanted to create for a husband.
Well, Shere Hayes rejoins me now.
Welcome back to Uncensored, Shere.
I really felt after the interview that we did, which followed you giving evidence, that you were a very powerful cog, I think, in the wheel for the defense of Diddy, because you spoke very openly, very honestly, I felt, and you made it crystal clear that from everything you had observed over 18 months, two years, you'd never seen anything which you felt was non-consensual.
And it seems that has been the conclusion that the jury has reached.
Not that women were not taken across state lines, which is obviously illegal if they're prostitutes, but that sorry, men as well.
But that actually that is the only thing which was wrong here, that actually there was no coercion or trafficking or people being made to do things against their will.
Yeah, I mean, that was my experience.
You know, me taking a stand, I wanted to just be completely honest with the facts of what went on.
And, you know, something I will say is, you know, as you know, this went on over the course of two and a half years.
And I would have very personable one-on-one interaction with Kathy prior to the activity and then also at the conclusion of the activity.
And it was always good spirited, good vibe, no indication that there was anything, any issues or not even any indication of being the slightest intoxicated under the influence of any drugs or substances.
And it was always a pleasant scenario that I told you, I walked away with actually feeling as like a positive thing that I was even involved.
So everything threw me off with the allegations.
I can only speak from my specific experience, but none of it never really added up to me.
So are you, I mean, what's your response to the verdict?
I thought the verdict was what it was supposed to be.
You know, this is domestic violence.
You know, if you want to talk about domestic violence and his behavior in those situations, that's a different subject.
But when you look at a 10-year relationship and mutual text messages expressing love and care and at multiple points, excitement about the sexual activity, to then say, okay, I'm going to signal out a couple of instances and make it a crime always to me was a stretch.
Do you feel, we were talking about it earlier, that there might be a changing mood about these kind of cases, that at the height of Me Too, there was a kind of frenzy.
And, you know, some very bad men clearly got the punishment they deserved.
Others, many people felt there was a massive overreach.
And a lot of those cases, which were messier, involved cases where there was lots of evidence after the alleged crime or claimed crime that everything was still very friendly, consensual, loving, and so on.
Do you think that juries now maybe are less willing to convict people when that kind of evidence comes out than they may have been, say, three, four years ago?
I do.
I think initially, because there was such a strong movement, right?
And all of these cases and there was a neglect over years of women being hurt.
And that was a real thing.
But now, because there's so many scenarios of financial gain and a monetary gain based on these circumstances, you know, the majority of these cases are filed civilly before they're filed criminal, right?
And so I think it is just responsible, right, to look at these things in totality, especially in a case like this, where you have people in a long-standing, loving, caring relationship, that years after the fact, it becomes a crime.
And, you know, every relationship has ups and downs and tough moments and difficulties and adversity that gets ugly sometimes.
But for it to translate to a space of criminal activity in the midst of being in love and then continuing to be in love, it should be looked at and scrutinized really strongly.
I mean, the complication, of course, with Diddy is that we've all seen the horrific video of him attacking Cassie Ventura in a hotel corridor, which is clearly criminal behavior.
I mean, he beats her up in the most disgusting manner.
Had he been charged with that, when the charges could still be leveled in terms of the time scale after it happened, he might well have gone to prison for that.
So this is a complication of this case.
Everybody has seen that video and they know that he is a nasty piece of work who is capable of beating up a woman badly, even one is in a relationship with, in a hotel corridor.
So that's why I think this is a complex case for people to say, well, if he now gets away, as they would see it, gets away with a very light sentence for quite minor offenses, that imagery is still lurking in the background about the kind of person he really is.
Yeah, I mean, look, domestic violence, you know, there's no way to sidestep the behavior in that video.
And, you know, statutory limitations are what they are.
There was no charges that could be brought up for it.
But if you're just talking about the charges themselves in regards to sex trafficking and racketeering, it's just hard to take that instance and turn it into those charges.
You know, as egregious as that instance was, it just doesn't add up.
It's just not aligned.
How has your life been affected by being such a high-profile witness in a case like this?
It's something that I have to manage because in forums like this, where you have people that's going to judge it based on the facts, judge it based on the way I represent myself or whatever, it's fine.
I feel like to be involved in such a high-profile, ugly scenario, I've landed on my feet.
But you still have a big portion of people that they operate on ideology and opinion.
And, you know, I get DMs periodically, you know, with women yelling at me saying I urinated on Cassie.
How could you urinate on Cassie?
So there is a negative aspect that I just have to maneuver through.
But hey, look, where are some of our choices?
This was a choice.
This was a decision I made.
And I'm just dealing with it, you know, trying to make the most of it to whatever degree I can.
You had barely any interaction whatsoever with Diddy in the entire time that you were part of their world.
What are your feelings about him now that we know what he's been convicted of and he's likely to face a prison sentence for some time?
We don't know how long that will be, but it could be up to 10 years, very unlikely.
But he certainly will go to prison for a lot longer than he's currently served.
What are your feelings about him?
I really think I look at this situation with Mr. Combs, similar that you see with a lot of people who are in very powerful positions for long periods.
Power Dynamics and Defense Strategy00:02:57
You know, if they don't have a good circle as someone that can actually give them an opinion, a strong opinion adversely, hear no, you know, here, listen, you shouldn't be doing this.
A lot of these people do escalate to behaviors that push the limit.
And I think this is an excellent wake-up call for him because I'm sure he's looking at his own behaviors and his own histories and he's rethinking a lot of things.
And I'm sure he'll be a better person going forward for it.
But, you know, I think that's the silver lining in this.
He is going to face some charges in some time for his actions.
And I think going forward, it will present him being a better human to people in his circle and people he anti-aco.
And finally, when you came on Uncensored last time, we had a few people leaving comments on our YouTube channel saying what a lone goal it was for the prosecution to put you on the stand because it seemed to play into the defense's case.
I think it played into the defense's case because of your honesty.
Some even went as far as suggesting you must have been on the Diddy payroll.
This has now become a raging conspiracy theory.
Would you like to clear that up?
Yeah, I am not on a Diddy payroll.
This was just my honest experience.
And as much as getting caught up into the hype, which some people do and they like to exaggerate scenarios and exaggerate circumstances, I just stayed true to the facts.
And, you know, I'm at peace with that.
You know, I feel like it kept my integrity intact.
And I hope that all sides, the victims, Mr. Combs, everybody sees that that's exactly what I did.
And it just stops there.
But no, no, no briefcase dropped to me in the parking lot.
Sure.
It's great to have you back on Uncensored.
I thought it was a very powerful interview last time.
And you certainly, you influenced my thinking about this case very strongly with what you said in that interview and with what you said on the stand under oath.
So I think you were a very important, as I say, cog in the wheel, actually, almost by default in Diddy's defense, because of course you were a witness for the prosecution.
But I appreciate you coming on.
Thank you very much.
Always a pleasure, man.
Thank you for having me.
Good to see you.
Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast.
If you want straight talk on national security, foreign policy, and the biggest global stories going on of the day, this is the show for you.
We publish twice a day, Monday through Friday, once in the morning, again in the afternoon.
And on the weekend, we go longer with the PDB Situation Report with excellent guests, including national security insiders and foreign policy experts.
Check us out on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Also on our YouTube channel at President's Daily Brief.
Well, we're now joined by two men who've been listening in and can give us a truly unique perspective on this case.
Mischaracterized Coercion and Hair Trends00:04:25
Young Jock is a rapper and alumni of Diddy's Bad Boy Records, who's one of the first to see Diddy's abusive behavior towards Cassie Ventura.
And Salvatore Gravano, better known as Sammy the Bull, a former underboss in the Gambino crime family, who knows more about Rico cases than probably any man alive.
Well, welcome to both of you, both making your uncensored debuts.
I appreciate it.
Young Jock, let me just get your reaction first of all to this verdict.
I kind of felt that it could play out in this way.
Once some of those stories started not really adding up, you know, they weren't properly cooperated between Cassie and some of the other people involved and the way some of them changed stuff.
And then with you having on, what was the guy's name who was the punisher?
Yeah.
He was on, he was supposed to be there for Cassie's behalf, basically.
And they try to, it seems like, it sounds like they asked him to be as clean and cut as possible and don't add too much, don't take away.
And it seemed like it hurt their case.
Yeah.
Because he basically said, hey, man, it's time she called me and, you know, and the other girl was calling and tipping me and doing, you know, it's kind of like, well, to make it seem as if I'm forced to be here and you setting up the plays, it just seems to me like it didn't play out well, but it played out well for Diddy.
It didn't play out well for prosecution.
But from what you saw of Diddy and Cassie Ventura, are you happy with this verdict?
Or do you think he's got away with something here where he did have a controlling relationship with her?
No, I mean, listen, let's be honest.
When you're talking about consenting adults, there's too many times that I was with Cassie and Diddy.
My ex-wife's birthday party one year.
We were in Miami and I pulled up to Diddy's house in a hundred-foot yacht.
You know what I'm saying?
He's like, me and Cassie, we're in the house.
You and your wife want to come in and kick it.
We came, kicked the jet skis, kicked it or whatnot.
And that's the night, you know.
And just to clean it up, the way you introduced me, I never saw any abusive behavior towards Diddy.
And this is what's interesting.
When this case first took off, the minute the lawsuit dropped, I was just on Vlad television, Vlad TV, and I was talking about the moment we were in Miami, the night that I'm speaking of, while being there with Diddy and Cassie and my wife and other friends and other celebrities.
And all I made reference to is the influence he had over the culture.
That's all I was speaking of because he saw a white woman in the club who I saw him notice.
I was like, what is he doing?
Because he stopped amid everything and he jumps down.
He comes tell Cassie, hey, I want you to cut shave the side of your head.
Now, I thought that was crazy.
Yeah, I was like, what?
Why would you do that?
And then she said to me, whatever Sean wants, Sean gets.
And after that, it's like that was the perfect time for them to drop the whole lawsuit.
It's very interesting what you're saying because what you're, I think what you're saying is that it may have been mischaracterized as being a non-consensual thing that he was, you know, forcing her to do this, but that she was happy to do it.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, because at the end of the day, it's not like he said, hey, get over here, grab the body neck, cut your hair off tomorrow.
No, he said, baby, yo, I just saw something really dope.
Tomorrow, he was enthused.
He was hype.
We was having a good time.
We were partying.
He's like, my ex-wife was sitting right here.
Cassie's sitting on this side of me.
The rest of the crew, we kicking it.
And he said, I think it'll be really dope.
I just want you to shave the side of your head.
And she was like, shave the side of my head.
He's like, yeah, it's going to be big, trust me.
And she said, oh, okay.
And he walked back, got back on the, we went and lived.
He jumped back on the, you know, it's not a stage, but the bar or whatever.
And he puts his whistle back in his mouth and get back to the party.
And I'm like, are you really going to do this?
And that's when she said what she said to me.
Like, yeah, if he wanted it.
And I remember her calling me two days later and sending me the picture of her hair.
And I was like, whoa, you really did it.
And from there, I saw that trend take off.
So that's all I was saying in that space that I was speaking on.
Very interesting.
Sammy, do you mind if I call you Sammy?
Would you prefer to be called Salvatore?
Business Relationships and Criminal Exposure00:13:28
How do you?
That's good.
Sammy's good.
Sammy, welcome to Uncensored.
You obviously were involved in Rico cases.
They were kind of set up to deal with the mafia.
Were you surprised when you originally heard they were trying to get Diddy as a Rico case?
Were you surprised?
Did you feel that was an overreach?
You know, I did a lot of interviews with a lot of people while the case was going on.
I didn't follow it too close.
But yes, it didn't fit a RICO case.
RICO case is for the mafia.
It's an organized crime.
There's a boss, an underboss at Unzaire, a list of people with names and what positions they're in and what they're doing to get money and stuff like that.
He didn't seem to fit that mold.
You know, he had a business and he ran it.
He might have been a little freaky, a little bit with the girls, whatever he did.
But I didn't see it as a RICO case, and I thought that was going to destroy it.
Most people don't even understand what a RICO case is.
You're giving it to a juror of 12 people.
Probably none of those people understood what a RICO case is.
And they took different statements.
I'm going to agree with some of the people that you interviewed already and the guy sitting next to you.
And a lot of this was consensual.
And that's what really blew it out of the water for the defense.
It sounded like a win.
When you do something violent, listen, you had a female lawyer talking a little while ago, and she says it's about race.
It's about women.
It's about the, it's nothing to do with race or women.
It was black, there was white, there was everything.
But the point is that when you're having consensual sex, it's a different ballgame.
It's not that much of a crime anymore.
What blew me away is that when she was calling him back after she got beat up and all of that stuff and told him, when are we going to have the next recall?
When's the next party?
So she's not a victim to me anymore.
She's something that they enjoy doing together in their parties and they're back and forth.
So how do you make her a victim?
Because she's just a woman.
That's what that other lawyer said.
Well, I think that's very interesting because I think that is what the jury, who were eight men, four women, that is the conclusion they all reached.
They clearly did not believe what the two women were saying.
They did not believe it was non-consensual.
Absolutely.
Let me go back with the female lawyer you had on when she said there was men and we don't understand women.
That's ridiculous.
Very patronizing.
I have a daughter.
I have a granddaughter.
I have four or five women working for me.
I know what women are about.
To say I don't understand women because I'm a man, that's insane.
It's the act.
It's not whether he's black or white or a man or a woman.
It's about the facts of the case and what went on.
I was just saying, he's been at a party.
She told him to shape.
He told her to shave her head.
She went ahead and did it.
I mean, listen, it's consensual.
Now, if I had one of the girls who worked for me tell her, shave a head, and she says, no, forget about it.
I ain't doing that.
And I grab her by the neck and I bring the razor.
That's violence.
Yes.
Now she's scared to death.
No, I agree.
As we're talking, 50 Cent has given a reaction on Instagram.
Did he beat the feds?
That boy is a bad man.
Beat the Rico.
He's the gay John Gotti.
What's your response to that, Sammy?
You know, no, I don't like the thing.
I think he's half gay because he met with women at men, so you could call him gay.
John Gotti was not gay.
John Gotti beat the government.
He was flamboyant.
may not like his style, but to label him is gay.
To be clear, he doesn't call it, I think he's saying he's the gay version of John Gotti because Gotti, of course, did beat the rap as well.
So I think he's making the point that Diddy is the gay version.
He's not actually saying John Gotti was gay.
Okay, I understand it a little better now.
And if that's what they want to call him, that's up to them.
All this mudswinging about all of this stuff, whether he's gay, whether he's black, whether he's whatever it is, whatever, you know, that's all bullshit.
You have a case.
The government screwed up.
They hit him with a Rico case.
It didn't fit.
People didn't understand it.
And the evidence was there.
Men were understanding.
You had a few men talking, especially the guy sitting right next to me.
They seem pretty open and honest about it.
Doesn't matter, black or white.
Doesn't matter if he's gay or straight.
He's telling you the truth.
It sounds like the truth.
And the woman basically is saying the same thing.
So why would I not believe him?
Because he's black.
Yeah, I think bringing his color into it and the gender thing, I didn't really get all that.
Let me bring young Jock back in.
You wanted to say something there.
You put your hand up, I think.
No, I'm following him.
I'm loving what he's saying.
But I did have a question, and I wish I could have asked one of the attorneys, but I could ask you guys.
You guys definitely have been around for quite some time and have seen some things.
And interestingly enough, Mr. Sammy, as you're knowing about RICOs or whatnot, I was wondering, had they not granted immunity to Diddy's so-called co-defendants, then I believe the whole RICO Act could have stuck because all they had to do was incriminate Cassie alongside with him when she's putting together these freak offs as well.
Like you said, as you just spoke of, Sammy, her coming back after the incident in the hotel and saying, hey, you know, this is that, that, but when are we going to get back to what we normally do, our regularly scheduled programming with the freak offs.
Now, at that moment, it raised a lot of concern for me because I said, I wonder, at that moment, was that the moment she began plotting?
That's a really interesting question.
In other words, I do.
So, Sammy, I think you understood it very quickly, but what he's saying is that was she basically covering her own potential criminal exposure by going after Diddy the way she did.
She then couldn't become herself part of a wider RICO charging.
Right.
And you testify.
In other words, we used John Gotti.
John Gotti got indicted.
I was the underboss.
I got indicted as well.
No matter what I said, I was RICO as well.
So you could understand the RICO.
Now, there was captains and lower-level guys who were in the family.
They're all getting indicted.
That's RICO.
You've created a whole organization.
It's not a single person.
That's not a RICO.
Not one man.
He's not a whole organization.
And do you think maybe, Sammy, that Cassie Ventura, as young Jock is suggesting, she may have seen the way it was all going and thought, I better get in here and protect myself.
And if I accuse him and get immunity, I can't then get caught up in any wider charging.
Probably.
And then you take, you know, a lot of women now in some of these cases that are coming up years ago.
You had the Me Too movement.
Women had a tough time to survive.
Then it changed with the Me Too movement and then they became more aggressive.
Now they come out doing things and then they want to sue.
So it's about money.
And then they want to testify and put the guy in prison besides.
So you have from one extreme, we went to another extreme.
Because she's a woman, we got to believe her.
Even though she was part of the whole thing, she had these love letters and notes.
I mean, he didn't, you know, he beat her up one time in the hallway.
That was a mistake.
He lost his temper.
He could have hit her and beat her worse.
He was frustrated.
He did what he did.
That's a crime.
He could have been on that one particular crime or certain things, but not all of everything that they brought against him.
And it failed.
It failed.
It definitely failed.
Young Jock, I interviewed Big Homie a few days ago, and he said this.
I know if he walks, you know, I'm going to be target number one, which is fine.
I'm used to that.
You know, it's kind of exciting for me.
He left the country, left America, Big Homies.
He's Diddy's former bodyguard, because he believes that Diddy may exact some kind of revenge on him.
What do you feel about that?
Well, I think that he's worried because maybe he was lying to her, Diddy.
Right.
And now he's going to get out and he's got a problem.
But the guy you had just before, he's walking around.
He was a government witness.
He told the truth.
He's not worried about Diddy.
This guy, maybe what he said and did, he was lying and he has a conscience.
He's worried about Diddy coming out and he's got money and maybe he's worried about his health right now.
Young Jock, what do you think of that?
I definitely can see his concerns.
You know what I'm saying?
And Sammy, even if he, let's say he didn't lie.
Let's just say, just let's say he didn't lie.
The fact that he's given up all of his information, which some of his information is kind of like, you know, what if it wasn't really this bad?
But because I'm giving up this particular information, it makes it look that bad.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like, I'll give you a perfect example.
If something happened between two adults in a single space and it's just two adults, it's bad, right?
We saw the video where he and Cassie, he, you know, this, this fight.
Everybody talk about the video.
It was bad, right?
And he has done it.
He had done it before, just to be clear.
But had a child been present, that would make it even worse, right?
10 times worse.
So what I'm saying is, so Big Homie may have been giving up certain information that made these scenarios appear to be even worse.
You know what I'm saying?
It's just like right now, if you talked about murder, let's say a murder happened at night.
You kind of expect it to happen at night.
But when people say it happened in broad daylight, it amplifies.
It magnifies the whole overall situation.
So I think Big Homie probably said some things that may have made situation worse that he didn't have to say, you know, embellishing some somewhere.
And the moment you embellish the truth, as Sammy said, it's a lie.
So I agree with you on that.
And I just know that, you know, some people, when you've run with certain people, when you've run with certain people and you know what they could be capable of, or you realize what they've gotten away with, then you know you might be in clear and prison danger.
Not saying Diddy's going to be coming out trying to do anything to anybody.
I'm pretty sure right now, all he wants to do is get back to his safe place, take a shower, his own tub, get back to his kids and try, try to get back to his regularly scheduled programming.
But we all know as adults that the regularly scheduled programming will definitely be edited, to say the least.
And also, I mean, I would say the same thing.
And Jan Joke, I mean, this is going to have a profound effect, this case, on the whole world of music, isn't it?
And in particular, hip-hop and rap and everything.
I mean, isn't this going to change people's behavior probably irrevocably?
I think so.
And I think it's for the better, though, Pierce.
Let me say this: because for one, I think that you opened the eyes to a lot of possibilities.
Now, first and foremost, let's say that.
So, for one who, let's say a guy who's been emulating the same behavior for however long, he ain't seeing nothing wrong with it.
He's like, Man, I'm just, I'm a boss.
I'm not bringing, I like to do freaky stuff with my lady.
And when I go to these cities, I can't just have anybody pulling up.
So, I'm going to go with someone who I've already taken through a vetting process.
We've, you know, we've gotten to know this person.
We've done business with them, having issues.
So, you continue to do business with this person.
You know what I'm saying?
So, it's kind of like, how do we get into a place where it's no longer prostitution or sex trafficking?
Because this is the person I like, but I want to make sure they're compensated for their time.
Because if you marry, if you, if you take a woman in and you say, hey, I'm going to take care of you, and all you got to do is come and be a kept woman, is that not prostitution or is that constitution?
Bail Expectations and Wealthy Protection00:03:20
It's associated cost with it.
So, I think there's a lot of things.
And the fact that he wasn't found guilty on those, then this may help in the future because it kind of comes off like a cheat sheet.
Because now they don't have this situation of case law that they could reference back to and find people like other celebrities that you spoke of who may be living a kind of similar lifestyle.
You know, you fly a chick in, you might not be paying for sex, but there's a cost involved.
That's why I said constitute and not a prostitute.
Yes.
Because if you do it for a fee, then it's professionally done.
So it's a professional prostitute.
If you just do it for a cost, you know, right now, if I take you out to eat, baby, I'm not giving you the money directly for sex.
But if we end up having sex later that night, it's almost like I gave you money for sex indirectly.
Yeah.
Sammy, how long do you think Diddy's going to get in prison for?
I mean, there's a maximum of 10 years on both counts of bringing prostitutes across state lines.
Very unlikely he gets that.
What do you think he'll end up with?
But here's what I think is going to happen.
I think the judge is going to give him bail.
He beat the serious charges.
He was in almost a year.
He was packing up to turn himself in when they told him he was going to be arrested.
The cops jumped the gun and arrested him.
So he didn't run the first time.
And I think the charges are not that extreme.
He deserves bail unless they want to overdo it because of the publicity.
He deserves bail.
He'll have some conditions.
And I think if the judge gives him bail, they're not going to double up those sentences, like 10 years, one, 10 years on the other one, running concurrently.
The judge is following the law.
He probably won't do that.
He may give him a flat 10 on the whole thing.
And if he doesn't give him bail, which he deserves right now, then he's probably going to double those 10s up.
And he might wind up with 20.
That almost tells you what the judge is thinking and what's going to happen, in my opinion.
But could he get a much smaller sentence?
I mean, 10 is the maximum.
Could it be?
I mean, it doesn't seem on the face of it that it's a very serious conviction.
But it'll embarrass the judge, the whole country, you know, the legal system.
They're going to push for at least a 10 or something like that.
They want to get their hunk.
They can't walk away.
They're already disgraced.
They don't want to walk away totally disgraced.
And even if he gets five or eight years sentenced and he's in a year already, he'll do another five or something.
And this time when he goes in prison, he's going to be fine.
He's going to have guys who want to protect him because he's got money, take care of him, whatever.
So he'll be fine all the way around.
But it's up to the judge what he does with this bail.
Right.
He deserves a bail.
I think most people would give him a bail.
He doesn't face a lot of time.
He's been in a can.
He hasn't done anything wrong.
The jury spoke and the charges are bullshit.
So he's got there.
Yeah.
Sammy the Bull and young Jock.
Independent View on Bail and Release00:00:45
An unusual pairing for a panel on Uncensored, but you were both terrific.
Thank you very, very much indeed.
You made us make friends.
I'm going to be singing with him on the next video.
I might even join him.
We could probably have a hit on our hands.
Thank you both very much.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Bye-bye.
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