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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Appearances
female witness, particularly in a case involving these kinds of allegations, you may want to, you may prefer to have a female lawyer deal with that witness, not because any, you know, gender is better at cross-examination than any other, but a female lawyer can be more aggressive, other things being equal towards a would be a vulnerable female witness than, let's say, somebody like me, right?
So things like that. But yes, eight may be more than enough.
And the first time around, I can't remember her name, but there was a woman from the Midwest. And now he has a female attorney who actually watched a lot of her cross last week. I was in the courtroom, Jennifer Bonjean, who I've known for a long time. She's very good. And she's working under Artie Adala, who's a very close friend of mine.
So, yeah, I mean, more than one attorney, high profile case, very common. Sometimes you have two, sometimes three. You know, once you start getting north of that, it's, you know, it stands out a bit. Sure.
Yeah, certainly in a case like this. And look, one of the reasons why the feds are so successful, and it's not because the assistant US attorneys or all these brilliant trial lawyers, many of them are very, very good and they have great pedigree and so forth. So it's not a knock on them, but it really has to do with the tools they've been given to obtain convictions.
They do not have to worry about resources. I said that already, the way your state's district attorney's offices do. The environment in a federal courtroom is much more controlled and lends itself much less to control. The sort of theatrics may not be the right word, but the defense attorneys have less room to roam in a federal court than in a state court.
For example, in jury selection, jury selection in federal court, that's a stark difference between most any state court. I've been in and I've prosecuted cases in state courts in many different parts of the country. In addition, New York is, you know, void deer jury selection.
We call void deer is an opportunity in state court to really start trying your case, start indoctrinating, start conditioning the jury to your theory of the case. In addition to weeding out the, you know, the ones you want and the ones you don't in federal court, the ability to do that is stymied.
Almost completely, because the judge reads questions to the jury that the judge, yes, you do get the request, the questions you want answered, asked and answered. By the time they get back to you, they're usually whittled down. The things you really want aren't in there. And then the judge conducts the jury selection in, again, a very stilted environment. That's a big thing.
Well, what what is going on here? I mean, in the federal the federal prosecutors, this is something they're very good at. This is, you know, Wiley trade, Wiley craft in their in their toolbox, if you will. And they do this.
particularly here in this jurisdiction, where they will marry unsavory conduct, you know, conduct that makes us go, ew, or yuck, or even conduct, let's say, that may be criminal but is not subject to the indictment, right?
So, you know, what his lawyers may say was really a domestic violence incident with him and his girlfriend, and it's horrific and all that, but it has nothing to do with racketeering, conspiracy, human trafficking, prostitution, and so forth.
Whether he buys in bulk or not, look, you know, so people, you know, do have sex parties, right? People in Hollywood, you know, whether they're music moguls.
They have illicit sex. You know, there was the Playboy Nation, you know, that goes on. It is not always without consent. Even regular ordinary mortals, you know, you know, engage in all different, you know, swinging lifestyle.
Right. So the baby oil in itself, I mean, if I'm a defense, I say, yeah, look, this guy had these wild sex parties. There was plenty of opportunity when you're a, you know, at the top of the hip hop industry, there's no shortage of willing participants and he used lubricants. Okay. News at 11. All right. Yeah.
That would be a tough sell in my judgment. You know, but I think, you know, the the other reason and I know we're getting getting short on time. The other reason why federal prosecutors tend to be overwhelmingly successful is because the laws are written by Congress for them to use and prosecute and get convictions. Just the reality of it.
You know, the sex trafficking, which is really where he faces the worst consequence here. There's three words to it by fraud. force or coercion, right? Well, we pretty much all understand what force is, right? You hold someone down and you know, they're an unwilling participant. When you start getting into things like fraud and coercion, then there's a question of, you know, what does that mean?
I mean, is pouring someone a heavier glass of wine out on a date in the hope that you might loosen them up for later? Is that coercive? Is seducing someone with your prowess in the entertainment industry so that they believe that you might be able to arrange for them an audition or a part or what have you?
or is that, you know, a casting couch? And so, you know, the prosecutors are going to have to prove a mens rea element here, that, you know, what he was doing was, you know, he was intending to subject these individuals to, you know, sexual conduct, you know, it was not of their own free will, their own free participation.
And if he's on drugs and he's high himself and he thinks I'm just living this party and everyone loves hanging out with me because I'm Diddy, I don't know. 30 years of diminished capacity, though, that's a new one.
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