Federal prosecutors in New York on Tuesday unsealed a stunning indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs, charging him with three counts: conspiracy to commit racketeering; sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and transportation to engage in prostitution. While no one knows how the criminal case will play out, one of the most significant pieces of evidence against the music mogul could be alleged acts of obstruction, cover-up and related conduct.
The graphic and depraved nature of the allegations is clear in the 14-page indictment. But any evidence that a defendant attempted to conceal his actions or engaged in other covert behavior could help prosecutors prove guilt at trial, regardless of the underlying charge.
Combs’ attorney said his client will plead not guilty to the charges and “will fight this with all his energy and all his might and the full confidence of his attorneys.” Criminal defendants are presumed innocent.
In laying out the alleged racketeering conspiracy, prosecutors wrote that Combs had created a criminal enterprise “whose members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, inter alia, crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.” While the last item on that sordid list — obstruction — may seem the most mundane, prosecutors could present related evidence that would help them tie together their broader claim that Combs knowingly engaged in criminality in a way that would provide grounds for him and/or his associates to commit obstruction.
That is, prosecutors may wonder out loud during the trial: Why would a defendant want to cover up his behavior if he has done nothing wrong?
In that regard, prosecutors allege that Combs used his business to, among other things, “cover up his abuse and commercial sex.” Elsewhere in the indictment, a paragraph alleging various crimes also alleges “concealing the commission of such acts.” While concealment may seem less important than the alleged acts themselves, to the extent there is conflicting evidence at trial, prosecutors can point to any cover-up activity as further evidence that a defendant was knowingly and willfully engaged in wrongdoing.
In that vein, prosecutors could also highlight the fact that authorities have reportedly recovered guns with defaced serial numbers from Combs’ homes. As I noted in connection with the Florida weapons charges in the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, that could indicate an effort to avoid detection by law enforcement.
Notably, in requesting Combs’ pretrial detention, prosecutors wrote to the court that the hip-hop star “poses a significant risk of obstruction of justice,” and that he “has attempted to bribe security personnel and threatened and obstructed witnesses to his criminal conduct. He has already attempted to obstruct the government’s investigation into this matter by repeatedly contacting victims and witnesses and telling them false stories about events.”
On top of everything else in the extensive indictment (and it’s quite a bit), to the extent that prosecutors can show a jury that Combs was guilty of a cover-up, they could help the government prove its case.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
