New York: Prosecutors have accused music mogul Sean Combs of continuing efforts to obstruct the federal racketeering and sex trafficking case against him from a Brooklyn jail, by alleging in court papers that he had been trying to evade government monitoring by seeking to arrange three-way phone calls and buy the use of other inmates’ phone privileges.
The government’s account came a week before another hearing to decide whether Combs would be granted release on bail. Since September, he has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC) in Brooklyn, inside a unit where high-profile inmates are often assigned.
Seam Combs is accused of trying to evade government monitoring of his communications while in prison.Credit: AP
In the court filing, the government accused Combs of “relentless efforts” to contact potential witnesses, including by attempting to use three-way calls to contact associates whom prosecutors consider part of his “criminal enterprise”. Prosecutors also accused Combs of making unauthorised calls by using the telephone accounts of at least eight other inmates, instructing others to pay them – sometimes through their commissary accounts – to secure their co-operation.
“The defendant has demonstrated an uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding – employees, family members, and MDC inmates alike,” prosecutors wrote.
Details of recipients and substance of the phone calls were redacted in the court documents. The calls generated using other inmates’ privileges were not identified as being directed at witnesses, but prosecutors said they were evidence of Combs’ disregard for the jail’s regulations and were part of what they described as obstruction efforts.
Representatives for Combs, who is known as Diddy, did not immediately respond to the allegations about Combs’ communications. He has pleaded not guilty and vehemently denied the criminal charges, arguing that the drug-fuelled sexual encounters called “freak-offs” at the heart of his case were all consensual.
Combs’ lawyers have said that if granted bail, their client would be put under extremely restricted conditions with no access to a phone or internet, and would abide by limitations on whom he contacts. The proposed bail package includes a $US50 million ($77 million) bond and a team of private security personnel to monitor Combs at all hours to assure the court that he would not engage in obstruction efforts.
The judge who denied Combs bail in September, ruling that he posed a danger of witness tampering and a safety risk to others, has since recused himself because of a professional and social relationship with a new lawyer hired by Combs’ team. Combs renewed his efforts to secure release with the new judge on the case, arguing that the government’s allegations of witness tampering were not supported by evidence.
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