a shocking Fall From Grace as P Diddy now sits in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center up against some intense federal charges but by all accounts Diddy is planning to put up a fight in the way of a legal defense and that's headed by New York defense attorney Mark AGN so who is AGN we'll take a deeper dive into his history and potential plans for his defense of Diddy I'm Sierra Gillespie and this is law on crime news it's now been more than a week since 54-year-old sha P Diddy Colmes has been behind bars accused of multiple
federal charges last week a grand jury indicted Diddy and he was charged with racketeering conspiracy sex trafficking by forc fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution Diddy pleaded not guilty to these charges and requested bail twice offering up $50 million for his release that would be co-signed by Diddy his sister his mom his three adult sons and the mothers of two of his children on top of that the defense also suggested Diddy would have major restrictions on travel a GPS Monitor and even limitations on female visitors but US District Judge Andrew L Carter
gave that the red light and denied Diddy's release instead he ruled Diddy will remain in custody as he awaits trial Diddy's been placed at MDC in Brooklyn one of the most notorious jails in the country free Diddy's team immediately pushed back citing recent murders suicide and deplorable conditions at MDC his legal team requests that Diddy be transferred to a different jail in New Jersey and the point person behind that request and Diddy's team is defense attorney Mark annif if that name is familiar to you it may be because you've heard it before he's repped several
high-profile defendants like the Nexium cult leader Keith reri and Roger ing a former Goldman Sachs Banker convict Ed of bribery and moneya laundering we'll get to those cases in a second but first a bit about ago's history he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and political science from Connecticut College in 1986 in 1990 he received his jurist degree from Brooklyn law school and while there even received the American jurist Prudence award for outstanding performance in trial advocacy starting in 1998 agnolo began his work at the US attorney's office in the district of New Jersey there
he worked as the chief of violent crime unit and specialized in cases involving murder money laundering extortion and drug trafficking during his tenure there agnifilo became a nationally recognized expert in sophisticated criminal prosecutions and the RICO statute the very same statute that Diddy is now charged under agnifilo stayed with the US attorney's office until 2006 when he began work at the law office of Benjamin brafman who by the way Reed Diddy and his trial regarding the New York nightclub shooting you may remember Diddy was charged with illegal weapons violations and bribery charges in that case
after a shooting broke out near Times Square in 1999 no one was injured and Diddy was ultimately acquitted of the charges his former rapper Shine however was convicted and served multiple years in prison before being deported to his home country of bise but back to agnifilo according to his own resume he writes quote I handle high stakes complex criminal cases involving Securities mail wire insurance and bankruptcy fraud money laundering construction and labor union matters Foreign Corrupt Practices Act fcpa violations racketeering and Enterprise corruption International arms dealing antitrust bribery Kickbacks criminal tax investigations Espionage Iran sanctioned
violations and political corruption I specialize in sensitive and high-profile matters including United States Congressional investigations AGN has multiple bar admissions including the New York State Bar state of New Jersey bar United States district courts for the Southern and Eastern districts of New York the Supreme Court of the United States and the United States courts of appeals for the second circuit for the past several years AGN has been lead Council for the AGN inur Law Firm that leads us to ano's notable cases beginning with the federal trial of Nexium cult leader Keith reri he was arrested
in March 2018 on federal charges of sex trafficking conspiracy for sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit forced labor these charges stemmed from Rene's role as the leader of Nexium a personal development company that offered things like self-help seminars in reality Nexium was a cult with renei at the helm over the course of more than a decade rener mentally physically and sexually assaulted Nexium members essentially creating sex slaves many who branded themselves with a symbol consisting of his initials KR Rene's federal trial began in May 2019 with agnifilo as part of his representation the next month
Riri was found guilty on all charges and later sentenced to 120 years in prison agnifilo also defended Roger ing the onetime banker for Goldman Sachs who was convicted for his role in a massive money laundering scheme in conspired to launder billions of dollars embezzled from the Strategic development company one Malaysia development be had all this is often referred to as the 1mdb Scandal that not only saw in and bezel but pay more than $1.6 billion in bribes to government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi he was convicted and last March sentenced to 10 years in
prison all this brings us to Diddy's indictment agnf jumped on board to Diddy's team shortly before he was indicted on federal charges on September 16th since then he's been somewhat outspoken releasing a statement following Diddy's arrest that reads in part quote sha Diddy Colmes is a music icon self-made entrepreneur Loving Family Man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire adoring his children and working to uplift the black community he is an imperfect person but is not criminal to his credit Mr Colmes has been nothing but Cooperative with the investigation
please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts these are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide and he looks forward to clearing his name in the court in the trailer for an upcoming TMZ documentary the downfall of Diddy the indictment agnolo said quote I don't know that I could keep him off the stand I think he is very eager to tell his story agnifilo also addressed Diddy's relationship with Cassie and the graphic video released this spring showing Diddy assaulting Cassie in a hotel hallway agnifilo said quote I think he will
tell every part of his story including when you see on the video he went on to say quote he 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 and it's a human story it's a story of love it's a story of hurt it's a story of heartbreak when he describes that relationship the one with Cassie the word he uses more than any other word is heartbreak he was heartbroken she was heartbroken agnifilo also addressed the vast amount of baby oil
and personal lubricant that Federal investigators collected during the raids of Diddy's homes he said quote I don't think it was 1,000 I think it was a lot I mean there is a Costco right down the street I think Americans buy in bulk as we know these allegations against P didy are truly shocking but the plaintiffs filing them seek Justice for these alleged assaults and if you're injured you can do the same I'm talking about our sponsor and proud partner of lawn crime Morgan and Morgan they have an army of over a thousand attorneys who will
fight for what you deserve not to mention they have a pretty impressive track record of winds under their belt so if you're ever hurt or seriously injured turn to Morgan and Morgan your case could be worth millions start a claim in eight clicks or less at forthepeople.com youout takeover less than two weeks removed from Diddy's arrest we're sure to hear more from magnolo before the trial but in the meantime let's hear from lawn crime legal analyst Julie rendelman obviously Diddy has been very outspoken saying that he denies all of these allegations through a video a
couple of statements and now that he's Behind Bars his legal team has put out even more saying he's not doing this and we're going to prove it in court what do you think is the route that the defense is going to take as they're building up their case well I think they've showed some of the route they're going to take I think Mark IGN nifo is incredibly effective um he's handled many um high-profile cases and you know look I I think one of the things that he's saying or or at least should be saying is
you know wait before anyone judges what the evidence is in this case and I think the other thing he's suggesting and I think should be suggesting is you know people keep comparing this case to R Kelly and quite frankly I was during a period of time they're distinctively different R Kelly's case involved minors which I think is very different um than the case we have with regards to Sean Colmes and one of the things Mark igno has focused in on is consent um he has you know gone on national TV and said these are Al
ations that involved consenting adults very different than what you've seen in the R Kelly case and cases in the past and I think they're going to focus in on that and I think they're going to learn every single thing they can interview every single witness they possibly can that's willing to speak to them see any inconsistencies any lack of corroboration anything that puts them in the best like going forward to trial Diddy has been very straightforward that he is ready to put up a fight and he also has seemingly end L resources at his disposal
a very Hefty bank account so do you think him choosing Mark agif to lead his legal defense was a good choice I mean I think Mark igno is a fantastic uh defense attorney um and I respect him um you know look one might he has females on the team some some like to see a female as front and center um because some especially when someone's alleged to have committed um sex crimes um they sometimes think and it happened in the Harvey Weinstein case um that when the face is a female it's potentially more effective I'm
not sure if that's correct or not um it really depends on every aspect of the case including who the jury is and who the judge is and who um the other players are um but I think he's an excellent choice for this case what do you think is going on with him as of right now because obviously we're still super early on there's been no trial date that's set but he's going to want to be super prepared when that does does happen use all the time as his resource so what would he be doing right
now in the immediate future I mean look I this is an incredible Fall From Grace um for Sean comes um he has you know from all accounts lived an incredible life of luxury um and and some would say or many would say entitlement um and so now he is at MDC which I can tell you for myself is probably the worst place to be in um and so you know I think I'm confident you know anyone in his in his predicament needed to take the time to realize they are where they are and then move
forward um and trying to make sure um that they are helping their defense in the best way they can keep in mind when someone's in jail it is very difficult to help your defense we have clients all the time that are incarcerated it makes our job so much more difficult so it's always easier for the defense when we have a client that's able to work with us see the evidence instead of us having to go in through MD which by the way even getting to see someone takes hours before you even get in to talk
to them um and so I'm confident that he is working as hard as he can I assume uh to make sure his defense has all the information they need to help them in terms of strategizing I think after Diddy's Arrest A lot of people are looking to his defense team and saying who is this guy what's his background and obviously with agnolo we oftentimes connect it to the case of Keith rener who was the Nexium ult leader they're kind of comparing these two cases because Keith reri was also charged with racketeering similarish charges and in
that case he lost I mean he was sentenced to 120 years in prison is that any indication of what could happen to Diddy so I you know I anytime we talk about the federal government um I think everyone has to recognize the federal government has an advantage um that the state government doesn't um and in terms of their ability to try cases their ability to access information their ability to have evidence admitted um during the trial is is much more powerful than in any other state um State prosecution and so anytime one goes to trial
they're up against um quite a ma quite a large um obstacle and um you know when we talk about uh the the reineer case the case was overwhelming um against him that doesn't mean he had a weak defense attorney um Mark nifo has been successful in many cases he used to work for Ben brafman who by the way represented Sean Colmes years before um and so um I'm not sure that defines who he is uh you know obviously if someone walked into a courtroom and saw him doing an ineffective cross-examination then maybe we would change
our mind but I don't think the fact that he lost um a case such as the one we're talking about right now has any indic that he's not fully capable of handling this case he's also been pretty outspoken talking to Major news outlets and most recently he's discussed Diddy taking the stand apparently Diddy himself wants to testify when it comes time to trial and agnifilo is saying okay we're going to tell our story so that opens kind of a can of worms putting your defendant on the stand he's subject then to cross-examination I mean what
would that look like so it's it's funny Sarah you know someone asked me recently like how I handle kind of the idea of publicity when you're dealing with a case I Pro and everyone's different my Approach is to say less I I don't like to talk about a case um publicly unless I know absolutely everything because I'm always worried that something will come out that will kick me in the you know what um and so I tend to be very quiet about that I also don't tend to talk about the idea of a client testifying
why because you know granted jurors aren't supposed to watch TV they're not supposed to look up the case but inevitably they don't always follow the rules and if a juror expects my client to testify and then my client doesn't they're going to hold it against them whether they said they were or not he may very well be planning to testify and will testify um but you know it's so early on it's hard to imagine that anyone knows if he's going to now if he does testify um the question becomes well what's what's that going to
look like um and remember this is federal court so we don't get to watch you know we just see the texts afterwards as to what the um the reporters got to see but this is not live um and so we're never going to fully get a full breath of what that cross-examination looked like um but I I do sense that the prosecution will have a wide ltitude in terms of the questions they're going to ask and it'll be interesting to see how prepared Sean comes is there are a couple of follow-ups I want to that
because you brought up some pretty interesting things but I wanted to start with the publicity obviously this is a huge we've been kind of anticipating this for at least 6 months if not longer so AGN knows he's got a high-profile celebrity case and there's a lot of Publications about it so why do you think he would be so outspoken and willing to speak with other people talk about the case rather than keep quiet to himself so remember it's not necessarily just ago's decision I think you know anytime you have a case especially with a high-profile
client that client is going to have some input on what they want happening too and I'm sure there's a team of people making those decisions and remember um you know Sean comes I know that the most important thing right now is this criminal case secondary his civil cases but also His Image matters and so when an image matters you're going to put out the pr that you think will help him you want the community the world to say you know what maybe we're we're too quick to judge um let's wait this out let's hear more
before we we make a decision uh and that may very well be the reason that he's doing it you mentioned the world because honestly all eyes globally are on Diddy and this case and that leads into my next question how difficult is it going to be to seat a jury I mean most people are going to at least know who Diddy is if not have heard any of these allegations it's almost like we can't escape the headline so how do you think that agnf himself would kind of tackle that so I mean federal court and
and choosing jurors is much different than in State Court um it's more limited in terms of what uh the defense attorneys and the prosecution is allowed to ask the jurors um and remember you know it's not required that a jurors never heard of Sean Colmes P Diddy puff like that that's not required um what's required is that a they don't read anything during the course of the the trial and B that they haven't formed any opinions about the guilt or non- guilt of this individual that they really come in with a completely clean slate um
the difficulty is you know when a juror comes in are they telling you the truth some jurors want to sit because they think that they will make them famous we've heard of jurors wanting to sit because they want to write a book two months later um and so it's so difficult uh to know really who your jurors are after meeting them for what 10 minutes a half hour an hour um and so um I I I think that navigating this is incredibly difficult but the goal for both sides um and particular for Sean coles's side
is someone who's saying you know what I need to hear the evidence before I make any decisions about his guilt long crime has reached out to mark agnf for an interview but we have not yet heard back we can expect to see him though on October 9th when Diddy is Du back in court reporting for long crime I'm Sierra gaspie
