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Sean Combs, AKA Diddy, is being accused by federal prosecutors of trying to corrupt and influence witness testimony and taint the jury pool. Court documents, filed on Friday, claim the rapper is engaging in this alleged obstruction of justice, all while being locked up in prison.
Diddy, who is currently being housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, has “among other things, orchestrated social media campaigns that are, in his own words, aimed at tainting the jury pool; made efforts to publicly leak materials he views as helpful to his case; and contacted witnesses through third parties,” according to the court documents.
Federal prosecutors claim Diddy has done this by paying at least eight other inmates to use their telephone accounts and make three-way calls to people who are not on his approved contacts list, “seemingly to avoid law enforcement monitoring,” ABC News reports.
“To obtain or maintain access to other inmates’ [phone access code] numbers, the defendant directs others to pay the inmates, including through payment processing apps and BOP commissary account deposits,” prosecutors said in the filing.
They also reported that recordings of Diddy’s phone calls from prison reveal the rapper told family members to contact potential victims and witnesses and to create a narrative on social media “with the intention of influencing the potential jury in this criminal proceeding.”
“At the defendant’s carefully curated direction, the defendant’s children posted a video to their respective social media accounts showing the defendant’s children gathered to celebrate the defendant’s birthday,” NBC News reports the court filing sates.
After making the social media post, Diddy then allegedly monitored the analytics of the post’s engagement “and explicitly discussed with his family how to ensure that the video had his desired effect on potential jury members in this case.”
A sweep of Diddy’s prison cell, the court filing also claims, revealed notes that indicate a “strong inference” that Diddy paid an unnamed witness to make a post on Instagram
“The defendant has shown repeatedly — even while in custody — that he will flagrantly and repeatedly flout rules in order to improperly impact the outcome of his case,” prosecutors argued. “The defendant has shown, in other words, that he cannot be trusted to abide by rules or conditions.”