Diddy Will Lean on NXIVM Cult Leader Lawyers to Mount Alleged Sex Trafficking ‘Freak Offs’ Defense

If and when music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs faces trial for allegedly running a sex trafficking and racketeering “freak offs” ring, he’ll be leaning on a brand new law firm staffed by veteran criminal defense attorneys who previously repped convicted money laundering ex-Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng and convicted sex trafficking NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere.

New York-based Agnifilo Intrater opened less than seven months ago, on March 1. But the small boutique firm of just three attorneys, now spearheading arguably the most watched criminal defense case in America, has a well of experience tenaciously defending alleged crooks and perverts.

The Agnifilo in Agnifilo Intrater is Marc Agnifilo, formerly a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney and U.S. Attorney’s Office supervisor who went on to work for Combs’ longtime lawyer Ben Brafman for 18 years at his Brafman & Associates.

While there, Agnifilo worked on some the firm’s highest-profile cases. He was a lead attorney for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French economist and former International Monetary Fund director whose 2011 sexual assault case collapsed and was withdrawn by prosecutors over concerns about the complainant’s credibility. (His wife, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, then a New York prosecutor, had to recuse herself from the case over the marital conflict.)

He also repped so-called “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, the convicted fraudster who was banned from the pharmaceutical industry for life after jacking up the price of an anti-malaria drug often given to HIV patients from $17.50 to $750 per pill in 2015.

In more recent years, his most prominent clients included Ng, the ex-Goldman banker convicted of helping loot billions from a now-collapsed Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, and NXIVM leader Raniere.

Like Combs, Raniere was accused of running human trafficking operations through front organizations, in his case purported self-help and personal development seminars and services that also concealed a violent and abusive cult. Raniere, 64, is currently serving a 120-year prison sentence handed out in 2020.

At Agnifilo’s side during the Shkreli, Ng, and Raniere cases was his protégé Teny Geragos, the nepo baby daughter of celebrity defense attorney Mark Geragos.

Her dad repped Winona Ryder in her 2002 shoplifting case, Chris Brown in his 2009 case where he pleaded guilty to felony assault of Rihanna, and briefly repped Michael Jackson alongside Bragman during his 2004 molestation case before the singer dumped him for spending too much time working on other clients.

Geragos worked at Brafman & Associates for eight years, overlapping with Agnifilo in all of them, and left with him to form Agnifilo Intrater. The younger Geragos has even taken to TikTok to defend Combs, posting messages from his alleged victims that she implied exculpate him in a new and unusual defense strategy.

“We’ve been through a lot together, we were like two people walking through hell together,” Agnifilo told the New York Law Journal, of working with Geragos. “Like Virgil and Dante, we came out the other side and we saw the stars.”

The third lawyer at Agnifilo Intrater, Zach Intrater, is not listed on the Combs case. He is another veteran of Brafman & Associates.

It’s very clear why Combs would choose Brafman’s disciples as his defense counsel—Brafman was his longtime attorney and won him an acquittal in a 2001 case on gun and bribery charges. Combs was so smitten with his attorney at the time that he called him “Uncle Benny.” Brafman also repped him in several civil cases, including a 2011 assault case.

What isn’t clear is why Combs ditched “Uncle Benny”—who repped the mogul as recently as Nov. 2023 when his ex Cassie Ventura filed a sexual assault lawsuit against him.

“I’ve always viewed Ben as a mentor,” Agnifilo told Business Insider in July. “He fought Puffy’s battle 25 years ago, and I get to fight it now.”

“I wish them well, but my firm is continuing to thrive,” Brafman said, of his departed underlings, back in February. “In fact we have never been busier.”