Rochelle Keyhan
Appearances
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
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The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I'm actually surprised there haven't been any yet. And I'm wondering if part of it is that they're witnesses and we'll see those outcomes after the trial. And the charges are dependent on whether they decide to flip for Diddy or not, because it doesn't quite make sense that Rico's charged and he's the only defendant. And I think that that's one also huge gap over the last 25 years that...
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
We don't pursue these cases from an organized crime perspective. And so they become a he said, she said case when it's not that, right? And so when I looked at the motions, the evidence that prosecution's intending to present appears that they've handled this really well. They have investigated the full organized crime. They have the financial records.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And so they should have the other co-conspirators involved. So here's hoping that after this trial, we'll see who else is being held accountable and that they actually do get held accountable because there's also the potential, right? Like, oh, you testified. We got the big fish so you can have a year of probation.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
It's like, what's their disincentive from behaving like this again if that's the only consequence? So there should be other charges coming, hopefully, and with hopefully real consequences.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Yeah, because Rico requires like more than one guy, you know? So, I mean, not necessarily to be charged, but by its nature, it means they've found some others.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
It can, absolutely. And I think that's why often prosecutors are stressed when civil stuff gets filed because the civil attorneys don't necessarily care how it affects the criminal. So I think often the hope is when you're collaborating that civil will wait to really push hard and forward until after the criminal is complete.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
So I think that there's a lot that can manifest after sort of like all the chips fall and we know who the co-conspirators are that are confirmed. I think it will open up a lot civilly.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I think it helps a lot. Maybe less on P. Diddy's because I think he identified as a pimp a lot. You know what I mean? We're not surprised by his. And one good piece on P. Diddy's that it's really highlighting is it looks like their girlfriend because that's how they're grooming them. That's how they're building their trust. before they get it done. So yeah, it does look like their girlfriend.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And the girlfriend might not even realize that this guy doesn't love them at all. And it's just the form of control that's present. And it's humanizing, I think, victims that otherwise you could just say, well, why didn't they just leave their abusive relationship? It's really giving more depth to our understanding as a community.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
So I really wish these high profile people weren't doing it, but it makes a lot more people pay closer attention, which is amazing, I think, for us That's why I'm having hope that the jury just knows better now than they did 10 or 15 years ago.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Yeah, but it's a lot less scary if we're like, oh, it's a boogeyman. It's out of our control as opposed to my best friend or my uncle or my dad could be the one, you know?
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Absolutely. So prosecutors are often charging the highest, most comprehensive charge that they can find. So in this case, trafficking is the bigger charge, even though underneath it, it's going to have assault, sex assault, all kinds of other felonies as well.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And that lets them make sure they have strong enough penalties, but still present like a clear, cohesive picture, tell a clear story that doesn't get distracted by other clauses they have to prove for charges. So it's a great strategy from that perspective. And then, yeah, what's tough is not all the evidence they have then gets to fit into that narrative. And you're making a tradeoff here.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Like if I tell this cohesive story with this really damning evidence that I have, the odds are good we're going to win. But what does that mean for these six victims that might not fit in and might get excluded? And what does that mean for if this witness goes off the rails for the main charge and I don't have these other charges to fall back on? now what's my strategy?
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And it really is like high level chess that you're playing here on like, what's going to get the best outcome here. So while I'm highly critical of prosecutors all over the US that I think are not going hard enough on the organized crime piece of trafficking, I also really understand that there's a lot of complexity.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And granted, this is a federal trial, but it's in a district that had that Weinstein case and had that case law happened. And so these judges are still a lot of, there's like a lot of that influence on that's what the region here handles things as. So they have that political stuff to navigate that we're not even always aware of as well. So yeah, I think that's an important thing to flag.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Like prosecutors can always improve and always do better, but it's not a simple thing that they're improving on. And actually every time it's completely different because the human variables are always changing.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I think the stakes are very high because if this prosecutor loses the case, it's going to be really bad. Because when you see someone that we all know has been doing various levels of interpersonal violence for a while, it's been part of pop culture. They joked about it. It wasn't a hidden thing. And if they just can get away with it,
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I think that's going to be a very chilling impact on victims coming forward and people having trust in the system that's I think already really teetering on not having sufficient trust around the right outcomes coming for victims. So I think there's a lot at stake here.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And I do think if there is a conviction, hopefully it gives justice to these victims and really brings a reckoning for the criminal justice system. Like, why did, had we handled this 15 years ago, how many dozens, hundreds of victims would not have suffered from it? You know, like how many would have been spared had we thought about this and done this right a long time ago?
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And what can we do in the future to be doing this more proactively and efficiently and sooner? Hopefully we get that reckoning and not the further backslide of a lost verdict.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Absolutely. So I was a prosecutor in Philadelphia for six years where I did domestic violence, sex assault, and human trafficking cases. I tried the first two trafficking trials in the state of Pennsylvania. So I learned through how tough all of that can be. And now I run Collective Liberty.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
We're a national anti-trafficking nonprofit organization that's really focused on identifying trafficking networks and evidence around them to support more prosecutions of traffickers in the U.S.,
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Yeah, it's a potentially tough ruling. So prior bad acts are, so when a defendant is charged with something, often especially in domestic violence and sex assault cases where it's emotionally charged, the prosecution will look at other things the defendant has done in the past that kind of show the character of the defendant or show how they make these decisions.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And they do do these things to bring credibility to the evidence you're hearing and sort of corroborate it. But what can be tough is a balance between if it's so damning, why did we not charge this victim as well, right? Like, why are they not also a victim on this case? So a balance between how many uncharged other acts you can bring in versus when you should actually bring the charges for them.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And it's not just in these types of cases where other acts are admissible, but it is more common. And there's been different rulings in New York specifically over the last several years that tries to limit how many uncharged other acts can come in. And I think what's interesting about this ruling is that it kind of.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
refers back to a Harvey Weinstein ruling last year that led to one of his verdicts being overturned because too much evidence came in through other acts. So prosecutors have this really delicate balance they have to navigate on strategy, right? Okay, I need to win this case.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I need to bring as much evidence as possible to win this case, but I want that verdict to last, not just be two years and then overturned. Right. So I don't think that this evidence is 100 percent not coming in because what it also did was put defense on notice. Like we have these witnesses that can say this stuff. Sure. At this moment, trial hasn't started.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
The judge doesn't know what's going to be said. So they're not allowed. But it makes defense have to sort of walk a tightrope to not open the door for the prosecution then to re-argue this and say, look, it's admissible now. Like, you have to let us bring these witnesses in. So it kind of also ties the hands of defense a little bit, even if they lost the motion at the moment.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
So hopefully it's not a full-on windfall for them.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Yeah, if something changes, absolutely. So defense could just make the wrong argument and prosecution is just waiting for it to be like, okay, Your Honor, we have to argue motions.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Music mogul and rapper Sean Diddy Combs has faced four different lawsuits in recent weeks alleging sexual assault. Combs can be seen grabbing Ventura and throwing her to the ground.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Absolutely. I think that's probably partially why the judge was weighing things, right? Because it's always more inflammatory when these types of abuse happens to a minor. Personally, for me, I feel like it's inflammatory regardless of age, but I definitely know having tried juries, the horror... is higher the younger the victim is. It's absolutely something that the defense needs to be weary of.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I think also it makes me wonder why prosecution didn't charge sexual assault, because then all of these probably would have come in as other acts, or they could have charged it, because then it would be directly relevant to his history of coercive sex. And that minor would have made potentially a big difference.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
So I wonder if part of it's also just strategy on prosecution where they want to be able to focus on a specific type of behavior and not have to have a whole separate trial on something different. Because if they were arguing sexual assault separately and having that minor as part of the main case, it might distract from or confuse the
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
what they're arguing on trafficking and RICO, which are really already pretty complex concepts to communicate to a lay jury.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Oh, this guy is dangerous. Another woman has now come forward alleging Combs of sexual assault. She claims she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I don't know that you really can prep a victim for what what they're going to experience. It's it's kind of impossible because not only are they having to get up there and relive it in front of people and then be like torn apart by someone in front of a bunch of strangers, it's in front of the guy that did it, right? So you can only prep them as much as possible.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I think one interesting thing is if any of them are at the point where it would be healing to say it all out loud and they're at the healing stage where they know it's not their shame, it's his, which I'm feeling like might be where Cassie is coming from. Cause she was like, no, I'm going to say it by my name.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And it's making me think of the, the lady in France, whose husband, I don't going to pronounce her name wrong, but whose husband drugged her and had men rape her. Right. And she's like, I'm not doing this anonymously because this isn't my shame. This is his. And I want to make sure everyone knows who did it and what he did. And I feel like in that way, Right. Right.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
I mean, at some point, probably we will know who those other victims are, right? It's not necessarily they can stay anonymous and hide behind this. And it's something that the internet makes permanent, so they'll have it forever. So it's really focusing on their holistic well-being and making sure that there's support around them before, during, and after trial.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Because you can't really prep someone for something like that.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
It's going to be tough. And especially since he's saying it's all consensual, we can imagine the inflammatory things he's going to say to describe these women, to say that, you know, like the behavior in these cases, what he's basically saying is they love
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
performative sex while intoxicated doing violent things in front of a million famous people like it's the leaps they're gonna have to go to describe is gonna truly be like a character shift on them and so I think that trial aspect of it is going to be interesting and we're going to have to just really trust juries that it's not 2000 anymore and hopefully they know better.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
And that video should be really helpful to show like, what do you mean this is consensual? Hopefully we can trust them to really see through it. And the stressor is all they need to do is convince one guy and the prosecutors have to convince all 12. But I'm pretty confident we're going to hopefully have a jury that can see through some of that.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Yeah, definitely. So I like to describe human trafficking as like really extreme domestic violence with sexual assault. You know, it's got so much coercive control that's present in domestic violence. So evidence of domestic violence is relevant to sex trafficking cases. And his main argument is she loved it and she's consenting to all of this. So
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
that video directly contradicts any sort of real defense he could have. And I think it also makes them seem a little monstrous. Like the jury is going to be like, oh, because his defense attorney argued it's an unfortunate domestic dispute. So in their mind, that's just normal in a domestic dispute. And it calls to question for any moral jury to be like,
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
oh, you're not saying you didn't do any of those things. You just think they're normal and okay. You know, it's going to just really reframe it for them because that was extreme violence in that video. It wasn't like a yelling match or a slap. So I do think the video is really compelling evidence. And if it got excluded, I do think it would like seriously impact the case.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
But we don't know what other evidence they have also. That's just the piece that went viral. So there's potentially abundant other similar pieces.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
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The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
So I really do hope they get the chance to testify because I think it seems that at this point, if they're ready to come forward, they've had a lot of healing and they're able. And I think if they're not... could impact them emotionally and personally if their story doesn't get to be part of the consequences that he experiences.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
But most probably, if there is a conviction, prosecution will allow them at least at sentencing to testify, and there's not really a limit on how many victims can come forward. So if there's a conviction, they should get a chance then. But I think that it also kind of highlights how when prosecution isn't taken seriously on gender-based violence, this is what happens.
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
Finally, there's some sort of reckoning happening for P. Diddy, but most of his victims never got a chance the last 20-something years, and they're still not getting a chance now because we never took it seriously back then. Charged their case and allowed them to have that paper trail that made it justifiable to now argue statute of limitations has passed there's so many limitations now and
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
because we just couldn't be bothered. That's kind of what really bothers me when he finally got arrested. And I was like, oh, surprise. Nobody's surprised by this. But my only surprise is like, why are we finally doing it? You know, and what took so long to get it done?
The Trial of Diddy
It's Not Their Shame, It's His
So that is one area of the injustice that some of these victims aren't going to have their voice heard, even though they're ready to, because the system this whole time just hasn't supported them.