OJ Simpson’s attorney explains the one thing that Diddy’s ‘terrific’ Dream team of lawyers did to avoid disaster
One of OJ Simpson’s attorneys has explained how a single “smart move” made by Sean “Diddy” Combs’s defense team may have been why the rapper was found not guilty on two of the more serious charges in his sex trafficking trial.
Combs hired a team of nine lawyers, led by powerhouse attorney Marc Agnifilo, to go up against six federal prosecutors.
The rapper was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but not guilty of the more serious racketeering charge and two sex trafficking counts at a Manhattan federal court.
The verdict came almost 10 months after the 55-year-old music tycoon was arrested, with federal prosecutors accusing him of running a criminal enterprise and of abusing, threatening and coercing victims to “fulfill his sexual desires” from 2004 to 2024.
The counts he was found guilty of carry a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.
Alan Dershowitz, part of the Simpson “Dream Team” that got the late disgraced athlete acquitted in the killing of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994, said Combs’s defense team was right not to put him on the stand.
“Ultimately, the smart decision was not putting OJ on the witness stand. The smart decision here was not putting Combs on the witness stand,” Professor Emeritus Dershowitz told Fox News Digital. “The difference is we want a complete victory. They got a partial victory, but an almost complete victory, so I commend them for excellent work.”
“I think this was a good day for justice today, and it showed the power of juries to stand up against the federal government,” he added. “And that’s a necessary check on the excesses of prosecutors.”
Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, said that he thought the judge’s decision to deny Combs bail and send him back to the Metropolitan Detention Center was “vindictive and wrong.”
“He was convicted of transactional, consensual sex with two adults,” Deshowitz said.
Robert Shapiro, who represented Simpson in his 8-month trial, also praised Combs’s attorneys for how they handled the case.
“The defense team did a terrific job on a case the U.S. Attorney overcharged,” Shapiro told Fox News Digital. “An acquittal in Federal Court is highly unusual. Congratulations to Marc and Tenny for building an incredible group of talented lawyers.”
Part of Agnifilo’s defense strategy, which some say was risky, was “owning” the domestic violence committed by his client. “We own the domestic violence,” he said. “We own it.”
In the end, it paid off for Combs. “This trial was a major gamble and Combs won that bet,” New York Law School professor Anna Cominsky said after the verdict came in.
“Everything is stacked against the defendant going into a federal case, in particular one like this. His attorneys were smart and they owned the bad facts. They fought on the things that mattered and it paid off,” she added.
Attorney Daniel Horwitz, who worked with Agnifilo in another trial that ended in acquittals for both their clients, said the lawyer’s ability to “connect with the jury” is what makes him so successful.
“He can combine folksiness, humor, sarcasm and seriousness in a way that is relatable for a jury,” Horwitz told the Wall Street Journal.
Domestic violence advocates and women’s rights campaigners, on the other hand, called it a “disastrous verdict” for survivors.
“The brave survivors who stepped forward to share their stories in this trial can at least know that their abuser wasn’t allowed to walk free today,” said Arisha Hatch, interim executive director of the group UltraViolet.
“This is a rare silver lining in an otherwise disastrous verdict which failed to fully hold Diddy accountable for using his position of power and fame to exploit young women and men alike,” Hatch said. “We will continue to stand with the brave women and men who took great risk to reveal the person Diddy really is.”
