Thomas Kenniff
speaker
41 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Thomas Kenniff’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Look, the answer, unfortunately, probably not the one you're looking for, is we may never know. There are a variety of reasons why a criminal, certainly it's unusual, particularly this late in the proceedings. But there are reasons why a criminal defense attorney could make the request to get off the case and why the judge in certain situations could be convicted.
constrained to grant it and one of them is you know if the attorney becomes conflicted um so it is possible for instance um particularly in these federal cases a lot of the discovery we refer to as 3500 material you don't get until the eve of trial um if it appears for instance let's say that the government is calling as a prosecution witness someone where there's a conflict
With the defense attorney or is it like I can't represent this client without being conflicted because of my prior relationship or current relationship with this witness? That could be one. There certainly could be other more sinister reasons. And those certainly may be at play here. We don't really know exactly.
Look, that is, you know, I mean, that that is certainly an inference one can draw. And I don't know. You're such a lawyer. Yeah. Listen, you have a lawyer on you get lawyerly answers. I don't know what to tell you. You know, there are situations like that that have occurred. And, you know, it's possible it could be something a little less sensational than page six would like to admit.
But we don't know. But certainly at this stage in the case, it's eye opening. I'll give you that.
Well, one thing that I think your viewers and listeners should keep in mind, and a lot of people would have no reason to really perceive this unless they worked in the system, but the state system and the federal system are very different in a lot of ways. But one of the ways they're most different is
is on the state level, particularly in a place like New York City where I practice, we have this Persian bazaar type plea bargaining. Someone is charged with attempted murder, we'll let them plead to assault, then you'll get this many years and it's wrapped up nice and tight. On the federal level where Diddy, for better or worse, probably worse if you're him or his attorneys finds himself,
That's not the practice, particularly not in the Southern District of New York where this case is pending. A guilty plea in 99% of the cases in federal court means you plead guilty to the indictment. And then you look for mercy from the judge to deviate from the federal sentencing guidelines and give you a lesser sentence than you might otherwise be. fall into.
The problem for Diddy is that the human trafficking charge in particular is one of the reasons why federal prosecutors love to charge this, carries with it a, yes, that he could be sentenced to life in prison, and that's a real possibility here, but at minimum, the most merciful judge, the most sympathetic judge could not deviate below the 15-year minimum sentence. Right.
So I don't know the terms of any plea offer. If there was one, I don't think that's public. But if there was, the overwhelming likelihood is it had a cap of 15 years on it, which would make it probably a lot less enticing to someone in his position.
I think, listen, I've had clients that see it in all different ways. I've had clients charged with homicide, and they would not plead guilty to a parking ticket if it was offered. I've had other clients that maybe have very strong defenses, but say, look, Tom, get me anything that guarantees me less jail than I might otherwise have to do, and I'm taking it because I don't have the risk tolerance.
In this situation, look, you know, yes, a judge being most merciful could give him a 15-year minimum, couldn't go below that, but there's certainly no guarantee that a judge is going to do that, particularly a federal judge in the Southern District of New York. So, yes, he'd have a chance at 15 years, but the judge certainly could go higher than that, even with a plea.
So when you start looking at it through that lens, and you're in his situation, and you have the ego, and you think you're in the right, then...
I mean, eight lawyers is certainly a large number. I mean, it's not uncommon to see defense teams in any high-profile criminal case, state or federal. You know, sometimes you'll see two, three, four lawyers, right, the OJ dreams teams.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it is getting up there. I think what you're starting to see what's more common nowadays is, you know, you may have a team of, you know, three or four attorneys, but you have other people assisting an allegation. For instance, in Daniel Penny's case, we had Joellen Demetrius. as our jury consultant. And she had us, they're not lawyers, but that's her expertise.
So during jury selection, you had the, myself and Steven Razor at the defense table, and we had our jury selection team behind us. And then once the jury was picked, they went on their way. Then of course we had experts, as I'm sure we're going to see in this case. But yes, eight attorneys working on one case that is with one defendant, by the way.
You know, it's interesting about this indictment, ordinarily or often, In these federal indictments, particularly cases involving racketeering, conspiracy, there's a number of defendants. So when you see the trial, you see all these lawyers, they're representing different people. Here you have eight attorneys representing one individual. That's high.
It could. I mean, a couple of things to keep in mind. You know, generally the prosecution, you know, Robert, you know, in defense of his legal strategy, if not his conduct itself. you know, the Southern district, you're going up against the unlimited resources of the federal government.
Um, and again, particularly in the Southern district in Europe is considered the creme de la creme of federal prosecutors offices where they prosecute the bin Laden's of the world and many more. Um, you know, they're going to have a team of prosecutors. They're going to have their agents sitting at the table. So they will, they're going to have more than one or two lawyers themselves. Um,
Do I still think aid is a lot, particularly having court sitting at the defense table? Absolutely. If no other reason, you don't want too many chefs in the kitchen. And it's good to have some diversity of opinion, diversity of skill. Sometimes, for instance, if you have a...
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