Ten months ago, Cassie Ventura filed a civil suit against her ex-boyfriend Sean Combs, the music mogul known professionally as Diddy, which detailed years of extensive physical, sexual, and psychological abuse she claims to have suffered during their relationship. Last Monday, the Southern District of New York charged him with racketeering conspiracy, transportation to engage in prostitution and sex trafficking. Although he offered the court his mother’s and children’s passports, a $50 million bond, GPS-monitored house arrest, and the equity to his mother’s Florida home, he was remanded to The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to await trial.
Meghann Cuniff, one of the internet’s most trusted legal affairs reporters, has been following this case since November, and doesn’t expect Diddy will get out anytime soon. “He could file something with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals asking for release,” she tells GQ, “[but] the idea that the Second Circuit is going to look at these two judges who made these rulings and go against them…That’s never going to happen.”
Although she’s covered a variety of local and federal trials for over two decades, Cuniff has lately made a name for herself on the Internet by covering high-profile hip-hop cases, from last year’s Tory Lanez trial to the ongoing case against Young Thug and YSL in Bolton County Superior Court in Georgia. She encourages people to keep up to date with the Diddy trial: “This would be just a good chance to see the system in action and how it plays out.” If convicted, according to the United States Department of Justice, Diddy could serve anywhere from 10 years to life in prison.
Cuniff catches GQ up on the case, addresses some misinformation surrounding the investigation, and explains why she doesn’t think this case will spark a broader #MeToo movement in hip-hop.
Do you think that if Diddy hadn’t quickly settled that lawsuit when Cassie Ventura went public, the criminal investigation would still have happened in the way that it did?
It’s hard to say. I’d just be speculating, but probably. I always wondered if the settlement was spurred by concern over a criminal investigation and the desire to try to thwart that. I guess it was never really clear to me what was going on, because she’s clearly the victim in this case that was filed.
I’m like if you look at this indictment, she’s the victim in this indictment. If this goes to trial, which it probably will eventually, she’s going to have to testify. She’s going to have to say his name publicly then. I don’t know what happened with that lawsuit, but I’m sure the lawsuit is what caught the federal investigator’s attention.
Is there anything novel in the way that prosecutors are pursuing this case? What do you make of their approach?
The Southern District of New York has a history of trying to be aggressive about these crimes and go after them, so I don’t think we’re seeing anything unusual in that regard, other than just a continuation of the other prosecutions that they’ve done. They have, at this point, a lot of experience doing cases like that.
