Diddy files appeal against federal sex-trafficking charges

• Sean Combs’ attorneys filed an appeal Tuesday night.
• Combs hopes to be released to home detention pending trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
• His appeal accuses his former judges of not clearly justifying why he is being held.

Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs filed a bail appeal Tuesday night — citing Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere as examples of sex offenders whose bail denials were clearly explained and justified, unlike his.

Combs has remained incarcerated in Brooklyn since his Sept. 16 arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges. His lawyers have since argued that he should be allowed to serve home detention on $50 million bail pending trial.

Combs also offered to comply with weekly drug testing, have no access to phones or the Internet and restrict visitors to family and friends not involved in the case.

The 31-page motion for pretrial release was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan.

It argues that while the judges provided a lengthy and detailed explanation for denying bail to Epstein, Maxwell and Raniere — as required by federal law section 3142(g) — no such detailed explanation was given for holding Combs in custody before trial.

According to Combs’ attorneys, the district court made a “legal error by failing to make any factual findings or weigh the necessary factors.”

In US v Epstein, US v Maxwell and US v Raniere, “detention orders were supported by detailed factual findings and explicit weighing of the 3142(g) factors,” the appeal states.

“This court overturned the equally defective detention orders,” the appeal added, citing a Second Circuit reversal of a 1988 bail denial.

Combs has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have fiercely attacked the DOJ’s case in previous court appearances, describing the alleged conduct as consensual and the main witness against him as not credible.

Tuesday night’s appeal filing reinforces these two themes. It describes the DOJ’s trafficking case as based on the sexual behavior of the volunteer participants — specifically what the government described in the indictment as “crazy” or “elaborate and produced sexual performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded electronically. “

“Mr. Combs believes that the evidence will show that, to the extent that such activities occurred, all of the individuals who participated were adults voluntarily engaged in consensual sexual relations,” Combs’ attorneys wrote Tuesday.

The government’s case, the lawyers argue, also relies excessively on a single “widely publicized March 5, 2016, video of Mr. Combs describing a domestic violence incident with an ex-girlfriend.” That point of the call was a reference to footage of Combs punching and kicking R&B singer Cassie Ventura at a hotel in California.

Combs apologized when CNN first published the video in May, but his lawyers have since adopted an attack-the-accusation strategy.

Combs and Ventura shared “a long-term love relationship that became strained by mutual infidelity and jealousy” and was “often mutually toxic,” his lawyers wrote Tuesday.

Combs is described in the appeal as “a 54-year-old father of seven, an American citizen, an extraordinarily successful artist, businessman and philanthropist, and one of the most recognizable people on earth.”

The plea, signed by new attorney Alexandra AE Shapiro, further promises that Combs will not attempt to flee, obstruct justice or intimidate witnesses, three major concerns cited by prosecutors.

“He traveled to New York to turn himself in because he knew he would be indicted. He took extraordinary steps to show that he intended to face and contest the charges, not run away.” file read.

Those steps, according to Combs’ lawyers, included moving from Miami to a New York hotel so he could be within reach to turn himself in, putting his private jet up for sale, paying off the $18 million debt on his home of $48 million from Miami in August “. so it could provide unencumbered security for any future bail package.”

Prosecutors will respond to Combs’ appeal before a decision is made.

Meanwhile, Combs is scheduled to appear in court Thursday for a scheduled status conference before U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian, who has already said he will not hear any further bail arguments.