the freak offs from the Shawn Diddy Colmes criminal case are back in the news in a very big way so we thought let's provide you a bit of some updates when it comes to these alleged illegal sexual encounters welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber it is time once again to talk about the infamous freak offs these are at the center of Shawn com's Federal Criminal Case out of the southern district of New York where he faces charges of racketeering conspiracy sex trafficking through Force fraud or coercion of victim one and
transportation to engage in prostitution trial currently scheduled for May 5th 2025 I want to go back to the indictment because this is really where it centers upon it so it alleges that sha comes and other members and Associates of the comes Enterprise wielded the power and Prestige of com's role at the com's business to intimidate threaten and lure female victims into com's orbit often under the pretense of a romantic relationship combms then use Force threats of force and coercion to cause victims to engage in extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers that Colmes referred
to as among other things freak offs freak offs were a laborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged directed pleasured himself during and often electronically recorded in arranging these freak offs coms with the assistance of members and Associates of the Combs Enterprise transported and caused to be transported commercial sex workers across state lines and internationally freak offs occurred regularly sometimes lasted multiple days and often involved multiple commercial sex workers during freak offs comes distributed a variety of Controlled Substances to victims in part to keep the victims obedient and compliant sometimes unbeknownst to the victims Colmes
kept videos he filmed of victims engaging in sex acts with commercial sex workers after freak offs Colmes and the victims typically received IV fluids to recover from the physical exertion and drug use and let's not forget that prosecutors alleged that these freak offs weren't just happening years and years ago in one of their letters to the court they wrote indeed since at least in or about January 2024 when the defendant was unquestionably aware of the criminal investigation the evidence shows that he is engaged in multiple freak offs some involving the interstate transportation of individuals to
par participate has continued to use narcotics and has contacted multiple Witnesses now I think there's a fair argument to say that Shan col's defense Council isn't going to shy away from the term freak off they might accept yeah Sean com's called these sexual encounters freak offs yeah they weren't with commercial sex workers but maybe it was group sex or maybe it was things that were filmed with him and a partner of his but doesn't make it a legal the way it becomes illegal is if you do bring in these sex workers if there is some
sort of force or fraud or coercion that is used or there are narcotics that are used um and this idea that it wasn't on the up and up but I think they're going to say it might be different from what you and I do but it's not necessarily illegal I want you to keep that in mind and obviously as you heard there there are elements to the racketeering charge this kind of idea that there was a criminal Enterprise that engaged in all sorts of illegal activity Shan Colmes was leading it the sex trafficking again you
particularly moving people across state lines uh for commercial sex acts there has to be an element of fraud or force or coercion by the way we want to keep on bringing you these Sean Colmes updates and for that I got to thank our sponsor upside their support helps make this happen and upside is great it is a free app that gets you cash back on daily Essentials like gas groceries food this is actual real cash back it's money that appears in your upside app that you transfer right into your bank account look here I used
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QR code on screen but make sure to use our promo code sidebar because you get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas com's attorneys filed a letter asking judge Arun sub Romanian this is the judge in the southern district of New York who is overseeing this case they are asking him to order the prosecution to electronically produce videos of the freak offs to the defense and the reason they want these electronically produce the reason they want copies of these in their possession to review and analyze and why they
need the court to step in is because they say that under the current protective order in this case regarding how evidence will be viewed and disseminated the video evidence is available for inspection only right they have to go to a certain place provided by the prosecution in order to view these videos they say that's not fair and according to the defense the federal prosecutors refuse to produce over these videos to them but more importantly and this is the KY Colmes lawyers right we need these videos because they prove our client is innocent quote having reviewed
these videos it is now abundantly clear that they confirm Mr com's innocence and that their full exculpatory value cannot be investigated and used unless they are electronically produced The Nine videos that issue are the so-called freak off tapes with a victim one that the government has repeatedly referenced causing wild speculation in the media contrary to what the government has led this court and the public to believe the so-called freak offs were private sexual activity between fully consenting adults in a long-term relationship like many Americans in the privacy of their own bedrooms they sometimes filmed their
sexual activity these videos unambiguously show that the person alleged in the indictment to be victim one not only consented but thoroughly enjoyed herself and we believe victim one to be Cassandra ventur this is Diddy's ex who first filed that initial sexual assault lawsuit against comes back in 2023 she was also in that Infamous surveillance footage that was published by CNN months ago uh where you see Shawn comes in a towel beating Cassandra Ventura dragging her kicking her the filing goes on to say quote moreover contrary to inumerable sensationalistic media reports the videos do not depict
sex parties there are no secret cameras no orgies no other celebrities involved no underground tunnels no Miners and not so much of a hint of coercion or violence so not only talking about the allegations and the indictment but also all of the claims that have been made in the media as well now far from the government's lurd descriptions the videos show adults having consensual sex plain and simple at bottom this case is about whether victim was or was not a willing participant in her private sex life with Mr Colmes the videos confirm that she plainly
was and the defense in this letter describes victim one in these videos as quote happy dominant and completely in control they write there is no evidence of any violence coercion threats or manipulation whatsoever there's no evidence that anyone is incapacitated or under the influence of drugs or excessive alcohol consumption there is certainly no evidence of sex trafficking that's what they say they go on to write the premise that freak offs are inherently dangerous shows that the government seeks to police non-conforming sexual activity and that it assumes despite all evidence to the contrary that a woman's
willing participation must have been coerced so again that idea of doesn't seem like they're shying away from these freak offs but saying while the freak offs might be unusual they're not illegal now the defense also says that they reviewed photo rhs that they say victim one allegedly sent to Shawn Colmes and they too appear in their characterization quote to reflect entirely consensual sexual activity and the defense also claims in this letter that these recordings corroborate what Witnesses have told the government and they don't really explain more about that but that seems to suggest that these
Witnesses are going to be helpful to Shan colm's defense maybe these are sex workers who were there and say look our opinion Cassie consented to everything that was going on or victim one consented to everything that was going on now we actually spoke with criminal defense attorney Bradford Cohen about this and he's represented celebrities like Drake Lil Wayne Kodak Black and the question is based on the defense's characterization is this the end of the prosecution's case right do these videos prove that sha Colmes is innocent is there anything more take a look I think it's
interesting because you know from the very beginning of this casee I was saying I think that the original tape showing the violence against Cassie I think the original tape was leaked by her her team to show that she is a victim and not a willing participant or a codefendant so I've been saying that for a long time so to hear this that okay we've seen these nine videotapes and these nine videotapes kind of back up what we've been saying the whole time that it's consensual uh sex between adults it's an interest in thing to to
say because I think that the the videotapes are going to show that Cassie probably was uh engaging with another individual the videotapes are probably going to show that it wasn't a hidden camera maybe that she was making faces or saying something to the camera that uh confirms that it wasn't a hidden camera or someone's talking on camera all those different things definitely help his case is it a Smoking Gun as we say no probably not a Smoking Gun because she's GNA still say listen I was still under the control of of sha Colmes he was
physically controlling me he was mentally controlling me that's going to be where she goes with this whole thing and that's where that tape of violence comes in to show that yeah it might have looked like I was doing these things on video that I was a willing participant but in reality I knew if I was not a willing participant then something else would have happened to me physically or mentally now you might be saying well look the fact that the tapes exist Jesse that shows that sha Colmes is guilty because the government alleges he secretly
filmed these encounters and used it to Blackmail victim one to stay silent to do what he wanted the defense to do what he wanted well the defense has an answer to that in their letter they write these recordings were not on Mr col's devices and were not seized from his homes rather victim one kept these videos on her own device for years and produce them to the government herself now Bradford also had an interesting take on that as well if the defense had these tapes or Sean col had these tapes when the tape came out
or when the accusations came out that she was not a willing participant in this sex you don't think those tapes would have been leaked like well he would have got in a lot of trouble if he did that right well before the charges were even filed when she said when he when she first hit him with the Civil complaint and in that civil complaint say she was not a willing participant she was not involved in these things all these different kind of accusations and that civil complaint you would at that point say what are you
talking about I settled but he settled with her the next day and if you're him I don't want to release these videos of me my my private sex life you know he probably want no but you could there's a way you could leak it to make her to make sure her's version of events was was questioned now in terms of the defense's argument for why they are entitled to electronic production copies of these videos they argue that this is a form of exculpatory evidence covered under what we call in the law Brady that the government
has to turn over that Colmes has a constitutional right to properly prepare for his defense he has a due process right that's why he should have it and they also cite the federal rules of criminal procedure specifically rule 16 which states in part upon a defendant's request the government must permit the defendant to inspect and to copy data that is within the POS that is within the government's possession custody or control and that is material to Preparing the defense and here they argue that videos of the freak offs they are material because that's essentially the
prosecution central point in this case the freak offs and they argue the government has not presented enough evidence to withhold the videos because this is not child pornography this is not classified information now the prosecution responded in a letter of their own to the court and they didn't directly respond to the rule 16 argument or what the tape show but they argued that the defense's letter violated the protective order that has been put in place by the court that under the protective order that no portion of the videos should have been filed on the public
docket without being filed under seal or without the defense first conferring with the government as to the designation and they said neither occurred quote instead of conferring in advance or redacting all content related to the videos the motion latly violated the protective order when it left unredacted descriptions and characterizations of material designated AEO attorney's Eyes Only and they argue this threatens the privacy of victims and they are asking the court to remove it from the public filing and have it be refiled with redactions well the defense responded to that in a follow-up letter and they
said look we will make the requested redactions but they want the court to step in and they want to be able to refile this with narrower redactions why because they argue that the government's request was way too over Brad that the government they already told everybody what all of this is about that they have been quite explicit and specific about freak offs and they also argue that there is a presumption of Public Access here this is about the government's key piece of evidence in this case the freak offs and that Mr colm's trial rights are
being compromised by not having proper access to this material they write indeed the public can only have confidence in the conscientiousness reasonableness OR honesty of judicial proceedings if the documents on which judges rely are publicly available and they say the government provides no satisfactory or adequate reason for why this information needs to be seal and I want to read you this part in its entirety because I think this is really key to the defense's argument so in their letter they write quote while victim one may have privacy interests that justify keeping the videos themselves under
seal at this stage including details of the content of the videos the fact that victim one was filmed while participating in the so-called freak offs is public information indeed the government has publicized that these were extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers and elaborate and produce sex performances that were electronically recorded the government has publicized gratuitous details including the use of baby oil lubricant extra Linens and lighting room damage and delivery of IV fluids the government even held a press conference publicizing the seizure of more than a thousand bottles of personal lubricant and baby
oil and the government has publicly asserted that during the freak offs alleged victims were subjected to physical emotional and verbal abuse including being hit kicked and dragged and that alleged victim claims are corroborated by videos of the freak offs faulting the defense for characterizing that same evidence as exculpatory and consensual is an unfair double standard and demonstrates the government's intent to mislead the public and the court to accept the government's broad reading of the protective order would turn it into a tool to Shield the public from any interpretation of the evidence that could be favorable
to Mr Colmes after the government has been able to tout its own inculpatory interpretation the result will be an unfairly polluted jury pool manufactured by the government's misleading narrative and widely disseminated by the Press so the question becomes how much will be revealed about these tapes Apes either before trial or even during trial and you wonder how much a jury will be sitting there being shown these tapes looking to see if there's a legal or consensual activity going on and also by the way what's the reporting going to look like from inside that courtroom right
no cameras are going to be allowed but the reporters will presumably be front and center watching these videos because there'll be exhibits during this trial videos of the alleged freak offs but I think it is fair to say that the government is not and cannot in order to prove their case rely solely on the tapes of the freak offs right they have to have more corroborating information whether it's witness testimony whether it's the victim's testimony there needs to be more to show that this isn't just group sex but that it was forced that it was
coerced that there was an element of violence or fear that these sex acts were done through illegal means for Shawn colm's pleasure we'll see what happens that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcasts I'm Jesse Weber speak to you next time
