The judge supervising the criminal trial on Sean's sex trafficking “Diddy” Combs suddenly criticized a member of the legal team of his family at a closed meeting, calling comments he made on a “scandalous” podcast.
During a Tuesday morning meeting in the flight hall of the American district judge Arun Subramanian, the judge castigated the lawyer, Mark Geragos, for having described the entirely female prosecution team as “a pack of six white women”.
“When you say things about a podcast like” six women, all white, I think I understand that you have a pack of six white women “, Submaranian told Geragos, according to a transcript from the Reunion Tribunal. “As it is not – it is something that you should not – that no one should say as an officer of the court and member of the bar, right?”
Geragos – A criminal defense lawyer who represented Michael Jackson and Hunter Biden, among other daring names – spoke of the Combs affair in an episode of Friday “2 Angry Men”, a podcast he co -anima with the founder of Tmz Harvey Levin.
In addition to describing them as “a pack of six white women”, Geragos said that the prosecutors were in charge of a surveillance video where Combs was beating his former partner Cassie Ventura in a hotel corridor, saying that Combs was upset because she took her phone.
“Have you ever had a situation where your significant other took your mobile phone?” Geragos said on the podcast. “And does that take you from 0 to 60 really quickly?”
The by-product exhorted Geragos for the comments on prosecutors, claiming that he had violated a court of the Court prohibiting the lawyers involved in cases in the process of making “extrajudicial comments” about them.
It marks a difficult start for the legal team in the case of Combs. Prosecutors accused the singer of “I'm going to miss” of sexual abuse and racketeering, which he denies. The jury selection started this week and the trial is expected to last up to eight weeks.
Geragos did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Until the meeting of the Tuesday morning flight room, the precise participation of Geragos in the case was not clear. He was seated among the members of the Combs legal team in the Lower Manhattan courtroom during the jury selection process on Monday and Tuesday, but he did not officially appear in the case. The prosecutors addressed the ambiguity of his role in their letter to the judge on Tuesday morning. The letter underlined his comments from Podcast and asked the judge to prevent him from continuing to talk about the case.
During the meeting of the Thieves' Salle, Geragos said that he represents Combs’s mother and speaks with the hip-hop tycoon “with a great frequency”.
Geragos told Subramanian that he thought that the rule prohibiting “extrajudicial comments” had been perverted over the years “and interferes with the right of the accused to receive a fair trial. He also declared that he had refrained from criticizing the lawyers who represent women who have accused sexual assault combs.
“I think that when you have a black man who is prosecuted and that the customer has the impression of being targeted, it's an observation,” said Geragos.
“I think it's ridiculous,” says Submaranien. “I think that referring to the accusation in this case as” a pack of six white women “is scandalous.”
One of the prosecutors, Mary Slavik, said that the Geragos podcast had millions of subscribers and that his remarks could reach jurors in the case.
“This TMZ podcast, of which Mr. Geragos is part of several million subscribers,” she said. “The danger of the declarations of Mr. Geragos infecting the jury, I think, is very serious.”
Submaranien said he would watch “2 angry men” for additional comments that Geragos could make on the case.
“You have another podcast listener,” said the judge.
“As long as you subscribe, I am absolutely for that,” replied Geragos.
