Sean Diddy Combs’s Attorney Mark Agnifolo Reveals Racism and Sex-Shaming Defense Plan

Sean Combs will claim everyone consented to his freak-offs and go on offense against the feds.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ attorney is launching a new defense of the indicted rapper—accusing federal prosecutors of targeting a “successful Black man.”

Mark Agnifolo claimed that his client was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy by federal prosecutors in Manhattan solely because they had failed to take down his business empire in the past. The charges cover 16 years of alleged wrongdoing.

Combs, 53, is awaiting trial in the hellish Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where his dormitory mate is the crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. The allegations against him include claims that he made women and men take part in “freak-offs,” days-long sex and drugs “parties” which included celebrities and which he filmed for blackmail. The freak-offs were so taxing that he would recover with the help of an IV drip, federal prosecutors claimed.

His dramatic arrest in a New York hotel lobby came after a drip-drip of allegations of sexual violence prompted by the leak of an appalling video of him throwing his then-girlfriend Cassie to the ground and repeatedly kicking her in a hotel corridor. Combs faces life in prison if found guilty of all charges—and his attorney’s intervention indicates he could take a high-risk, and expensive, strategy of going to trial and claiming he is the victim of racism.

Speaking on a TMZ documentary, TMZ Presents: The Downfall of Diddy Agnifolo claimed that the case was brought by the government which is “no friend historically of the successful Black man.”

“They’re making the case, in my opinion, as a take down of a successful Black man,” he said. If he’s not a big celebrity, he’s just going about his life without interference from the U.S. government.

“He’s a man who’s made some of the most important businesses owned by a Black man. His businesses are fine. He pays his taxes. He does everything right. We’re going to go into his bedroom because maybe we don’t like the way he’s having sex.”

He added, “We have reduced him… to being a monster.”

Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Of the video of Combs beating Cassie, he said it was not in the charges, and added, “Their difficulties stemmed from the fact that she was cheating on him and he was cheating on her.”

Agnifolo also indicated how Combs might try to deal with the “freak-off” allegations—by claiming that everyone consented and enjoyed taking part. “Back in the late ‘70s when I was a kid they were called threesomes,” Agnifolo said. Agnifolo said that the allegations came out of Combs’ relationship with Cassie, which he described as involving drugs and both partners cheating. That suggests Agnifolo could effectively try to put Cassie on trial as part of his defense at the same time as accusing prosecutors of sex-shaming Diddy.

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

“This was with the woman that was his woman at the time and allegedly a third person. I’ve spoken to about half a dozen of these different men involved and I’ve asked them, ‘Were there any indicia of lack of consent?’ And they said, ‘Absolutely not. We would never have gone forward a single step had it seemed like anyone in that room was not consenting.’” He added, “No-one was too high and too drunk.”

If Combs goes to trial it will be the second time he has faced a jury. The first time, in 2001, he successfully beat a gun possession rap after a 1999 nightclub shooting in Times Square. That trial turned into a celebrity circus, with his girlfriend J-Lo a key part of the case. The woman shot in the face during the shooting, Natania Reuben told the Daily Beast that when she heard he had been arrested, “I just screamed out to God, ‘Thank you, merciful father!’”