Sean “Diddy” Combs wants to take the stand and testify in his sex trafficking case, according to his attorney.
The embattled music mogul, 54, “is very eager to tell his story,” lawyer Marc Agnifilo says in a clip from TMZ’s “The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment,” dropping Thursday night on Tubi.
Asked whether the 2016 footage of Combs beating ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, for which he apologized this spring, compels Agnifilo to have his client testify, the lawyer said: “I don’t know that I can keep him off the stand.”
Marc Agnifilo, attorney of Sean “Diddy” Combs (Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News)
“I think he is very eager to tell his story,” continued Agnifilo. “And I think he will tell every part of his story, including what you see on the video. So I expect it’s going to be explained by the both of us.”
Combs has pleaded not guilty after he was arrested and charged on Sept. 16 with sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy. The Harlem native has twice been denied bail and is currently on suicide watch at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
“The United States government, they start making this case as a takedown of a successful Black man,” said Agnifilo.
When asked whether he’s concerned about Combs being cross-examined, Agnifilo said the Bad Boy Records founder “has his story and he has a story that I think only he can tell in the way he can tell it, in real time.”
The initial installment of “The Downfall of Diddy” dropped back in the spring, ahead of CNN publishing that damning footage of Combs and Ventura, 38. It was the R&B singer’s blockbuster federal lawsuit last November that accused him of rape, sex trafficking and long-lasting abuse and kicked off a string of lawsuits leveling similar allegations. The latest suit accusing Combs of drugging and rape was filed against him this week.
