Shaun Kent
Appearances
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
We can find you. But isn't that going to take forever? We've only got two months. The jury selection in this case could take two to three weeks easily. Don't forget the O.J. Simpson trial. These trials were year long and the jury selection took a month. We try cases all the time in America. A$AP Rocky. I mean, he got a fair and impartial. I mean, you get juries. He got a fair and impartial jury.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Don't forget, this is a video with him with a gun shooting and he was found not guilty. So we do get fair and impartial juries. It's just hard. Our system has been working for a long time for very public, very famous people. And so it happens. So the system is designed for this situation. So I feel comfortable. He's going to get a good jury, a fair jury.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
It's just going to take a while and it's going to be hard.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
I've always said if there was credible evidence to that, and again, I haven't seen it. I don't know the evidence, but I've dealt with the federal government for a very long time. They love the path of least resistance. And if there were identifiable minors who they could identify, talk to, interview, verify, then that would have been the easiest case.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Just somebody saying, I've seen the video and they appear to be minors is not enough. Hmm. Just period. And the federal government, again, path of least resistance. And so if they could identify minors in the video, 100 percent, there would be an additional charge. That's the one thing that's very interesting about this thing is this is the United States of America, the federal government.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
And for some reason, they have chosen not to bring a single minor charge. So even though all those allegations are there, they didn't bring one. And the strongest defense to this case will be these are all consenting adults and they were not coerced. But just because the video's out there, we haven't seen it.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Maybe the government could see people in there who appeared to be young but couldn't find them, couldn't identify, couldn't talk to them, couldn't verify their ages. I don't know. I haven't seen the video.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
She could absolutely sit for a deposition. I think this is going to be a situation where this case doesn't go very far. Why? Because as Cheyenne just mentioned, this is a long time ago. This is a civil case. The statute of limitations, if I'm not mistaken, is six years on these types of situations.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Not to sound like a Dave Chappelle skit, but given in 2025 with artificial intelligence and things of this nature, the federal government is very specific on verifying information. Just could you send a video and say this is what it proposes to be? They verify it. They check it. They look. And if they can't find this so-so person and talk to them specifically, they're not bringing the charges.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
I think he tried to file suit against Diddy, if I read correctly, at least two different times for the same action. They were both thrown out based upon it was outside the statute of limitations. I think the same thing is going to happen on this situation because I don't do good math, but that's well outside the six-year window in which this case is being brought.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
I still think what's hilarious to me is I... From my sources, the people who I know on both sides, neither team is prepared. Neither team is ready. And it's a game of chicken, and that happens a lot. And the defense is definitely not prepared for trial, and the United States is not prepared.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
But from a defense standpoint, you would rather go against an unprepared America than a prepared America, as opposed to the other way. So neither side is going to be the one who asks for the continuance first. I'm still beyond shocked that this trial is still going in May. So I think as of this point, we're just waiting for the jury summonses to go out.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
When you start hearing people saying they beat summons and giving away social medias, you know you're going to get postings from people saying that they are going to go to jury.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
You're not supposed to talk about the grand jury either. But what has been happening? Nobody is listening to the rules that I grew up watching. So I'm quite sure you'll be like, I'm coming to that jury.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Thanks for having me. I appreciate you guys.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
And so they're being creative and trying to bring it outside the statute now.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
That's why they're getting creative. We don't want someone to bring a lawsuit 10 and 20 years outside the scope. The biggest reason is people die, memories are fallible, evidence is lost. And so we want lawsuits to be brought as close or contemporaneous to the action as humanly possible. But the standard that they're relying upon is the new or should have known standard.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
And so what they're saying is we would not have known about this lawsuit until now. So the statute of limitations could not have run. The problem that they're missing is what I just said, new or should have known. So I guarantee the response will be through due diligence and a tad bit of investigation.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
They should have been able to find out way back in the day that his mom possibly had something to do with it. When we bring lawsuits in any time, and this is a great lesson, Anytime you've read a lawsuit, if you've noticed that there's like 60 people listed, you're like, why are they listing all of these people in the lawsuits? This is exactly why.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
So we don't run the risk of missing somebody and then later having to bring a lawsuit 10 days down the road.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
You've got corroboration, you've got corroboration of conduct. A lot of these lawsuits, I think, well, there's no doubt we're going to stop seeing these lawsuits. The filings are officially stopped. The Gender Motivated Violence Act had a timeline on it, which hit, I think, Sean, correct me if I'm wrong, February 28th. And so that's why you saw these last filings come through.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
So they're officially done. But yeah, you have her words, you have corroboration. I don't want to call it a valid lawsuit, but you have an appropriate filed lawsuit from the victim's point of view. The problem is, if you watch... I don't want to say the wrong way, but the social media push. And I think I talked about this the first time we ever got on here.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
When you have or you have one bad lawsuit or you have one situation, if you look like the Jay-Z, Busby situation, it affects everybody else's lawsuits. So now everybody is now looking at these new finds of lawsuits with a little bit of is this a good one or is not a good one? New York passed a statute, a Gender Motivated Violence Act.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
So basically the purpose of this statute is, and keep it as simple as possible, that if you can allege that something happened on you based upon your gender, it's kind of not hilarious when you think about it because... Men and women are bringing actions against each other under the statute. So the gender doesn't really need to be there.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
But if you make an allegation that somebody attacked you, harassed you, did something on you based upon your gender, the purpose of this statute was to open. And so we're talking about it now, the statute of limitations and say, we're giving you guys a window. We're giving you a small and I think it was a two-year window that you can bring claims from whenever. Bring them back.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Because what would end up happening is real victims, if you're really victimized, sometimes you're just like, I can't bring this lawsuit right now. I don't want to talk about it. In a Diddy situation, I'm scared for retaliation. He can come get me. So we had this window that it doesn't matter how long ago it was, you can bring the claim within a specific window. And it was two years.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
I think it already has. It's already affecting because it is making it seem like some of these cases doesn't have merit, that he's not looking into his cases, whether it's true or not. It's affecting that. And no, there's no evidence whatsoever this was a settlement. Zero. Less than zero.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Yeah, it's crazy. And it's actually the judge's analysis is really good. They filed him for two things. They filed him for extortion and they filed for defamation. The judge said this ain't extortion. Lawyers have a right to send a demand letter as much as they possibly want. Move on with that.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
As far, though, as and last week we talked about lawyers have qualified immunity or immunity to bring lawsuits. The judge says you have to prove actual malice that Busby acted with actual malice in the filing of this lawsuit. And he says, look. Just failure to investigate a case might be bad lawyering, but it's not actual malice to the point that I can bring a case.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Yes and no. So what ends up happening is we send letters. I'm going to call them letters. We'll send letters out to prospective jurors. They'll send a bunch of letters out to prospective jurors. The difference between our federal system and our state system, usually in the state system, anybody with a driver's license can get on a jury.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
which means you get a very large swath of individuals who could be on a jury. In the federal system, it's usually who votes. As you know, less people vote than can drive. And so you get a much more specific, civic-minded jury with the federal system.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
That's one of the reasons why people are always like, your federal juries are more likely to convict because those are more civic-minded individuals who've went out of the way to make sure they can vote. So all of these individuals will get these letters in the mail. They'll come, they'll sit down for jury questions. They'll get a large questionnaire before they even get there.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
And the only thing that really matters is they'll, all of that stuff matters if they can answer one question. Can you be fair and impartial? Period. And they can lie. But as long as they ask that question per the Constitution, can you be fair and impartial? And they say yes, they can get on the jury.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Now, the defense and the state both have what are called preemptory challenges, which means we can get rid of you for any reason whatsoever. So if we're reading that thing and we've gone to your social media and we see free Diddy or Diddy's a jerk, you're like, I'm striking that person for cause. I'm striking that person for cause. But after that, anybody can get on.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
then you be fair and impartial. Yeah. I know you have made that comment. I know you have seen this. You have done that. Can you be a fair and impartial jury? And it can't be equivocation. They'd be like, I think I can't. No, no, no, no. Yes or no. Yes, I can be fair and impartial.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
And by the way, remember, it's the defense's job and the prosecution's job to look for those comments such as you've just said.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
The clerk of court says, juror number 375, Cheyenne Roundtree, comes up. And we're sitting there with our little list. I was like, do you remember where she liked this comment so forth? Yeah, I don't care for that that much. Strike her. Your Honor, at this point in time, we move to excuse this juror and she's out.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
Some just rely on the questionnaire that you send off. But remember, people... And here's the other thing. It's not like when you get... The jury summons is that, oh, by the way, we're summoning you for the Diddy trial. You don't know. It's getting a summons to show up for court.
Diddy On Trial
Breaking: Jay-Z sues woman who alleged rape
And you don't know, even though everybody in the world is going to know, wait a minute, this is random that I'm in the sunny district of New York in May. I wonder what case that could be for. And you show up. They go through your questionnaire. Good lawyers go through all of your background that they can find. And now with the advent of social media, everything you've ever done is online.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
That forced threat or force or fraud or coercion or any combination would be used to get her to engage in a commercial sex act. If he's saying, look, in my mind, reading these text messages, she wanted it. This is what she told me she wants. This is me assuming she is putting in writing. So how am I supposed to not think she wants it?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
If that would have happened in opening statements, I guarantee you the government would have said, you are going to see a video of this woman doing blank.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And this is the great thing about press conferences, opening statements. None of that's evidence. You can say whatever the heck you want until it's presented. And I tell everybody until I see it in the trial, it ain't evidence to me. There is a real chance here. Diddy and Cassie can both be telling the truth.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Diddy 100% believed that she was into it by the text messages, and Cassie's like, I just wrote this because I hate him. They both could be telling the truth. So in his mind, he could be like, why is she saying this? I've got these text messages. I love you. I care about you. Now, freak offs are the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And in her mind is, I don't want to get beat anymore, so I'm writing everything. So in his mind, he might be like, I'm not pleading guilty.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
The great thing about what I believe is our American justice system is any human could serve on our jury. And we're not in their bedrooms. There could be people who we don't know who have certain fetishes. They could have certain proclivities, if you will, that could lend themselves to siding with the evidence presented against Diddy. I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it isn't.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
But they could have proclivities that they could look at this evidence through their own lens. The judge said, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you bring your own individual wisdom to the jury and you use it. And given the fact you don't know who it is, some people could get on there and just say, that's OK to me.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
My personal belief in knowing the lawyers on this team the way that I know them, given that there are seven lawyers, I promise you they are scouring social media for other commentary and people of that nature. And remember, we don't know what this 12 jury is actually seeing. And, you know, John Q. Public, how many times have you seen it on social media?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Drugs in the baby, GHB in the baby oil, it's in the baby oil, it's in the baby oil, it's in the baby oil. And maybe that's just the question. It's like, you know what? Let's just knock this out in case there's any person on that jury who's thinking otherwise.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I love that you're so interested in the criminal justice system. It makes me so happy because it is confusing. But once you start to understand it, like it's very clear you're starting to understand it. And it's like putting a piece of a puzzle together that you now see why they're crossing the way they are and why they're asking the direct questions.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I thought the direct testimony was actually perfect. I thought the government did what they are supposed to do. People don't understand in the United States when you're looking to get a conviction, you have to go with elements is what we do. We have elements of our offenses. And so the government's doing what we talk about. Believe it or not, they're working on their closing argument right now.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
You're like, what do you mean? Because at the end of the trial, the very end, the judge is going to say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, for you to convict Mr. Combs of these charges, the government has to prove this, this, this, this, and this. And so what the government is doing through the testimony of Cassie is going through this, this, this, this, and this.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And so when you watch the closing argument, I promise you what they're going to do is they're going to say, ladies and gentlemen, do you remember when Cassie testified? She testified about force. She testified about coercion. She talked about abuse. She talked about a history abuse. She talked about going across county lines because they're just going through the elements.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And that's the problem is when everybody's got an opinion, but people don't rely on the law and the law. And we're making these assumptions that all the government is doing is proving a case of domestic violence, which, yes, they have. This is domestic violence. But as I mentioned, the judge is going to tell the jury there are certain things required for sex trafficking and it's not a lot.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
He's going to say at the beginning of trial, you took an oath to follow the law. This is that law. One, is there a person involved? Check. That person is Cassie. Did somebody use force, coercion, or something to get them to engage in a commercial sex act? Yes, she testified force was used. What is a commercial sex act?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
A commercial sex act is basically engaging in sex for money or anything of value. They're going to say, yes, they did. And then the last thing is, and this is what I think is interesting, is the entire defense is going to come on, knew or should have known. Meaning, did the defendant know that he was engaging in coercion?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Or should he have known that what he was doing was coercing through physical activity? And that's it. That is all they've got to prove. And I guarantee you, if you go back to the testimony now in your head, you're like, yeah, that's why they asked that question. That's why they asked that question.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And when I read the law, like if I read the charge, it was like, and I think I have it in front of me somewhere. The last line of the charge, the judge will say, third, the defendant's acts were in or affecting interstate law. or foreign commerce within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. That's why that's in there. That's why they did it.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
One, everybody like there's a famous case in the United States of America. It's a case of guy Al Capone. The United States got Al Capone basically on tax fraud, but not all the awful stuff that he's done. I'm not saying that that's what they're doing the ditty, but people tend to forget this Cassie charge. If they stopped and they said today, you know what, judge, we don't want to go any further.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And they said, we want the jury to convict him of just the sex trafficking and the elements I just told you. 60 months is five years. 120 months is 10 years. So you can assume if they just stop here, they've convicted him of a 15 year offense without even getting into the RICO. And number two, the reason they're not it's not that they're not getting into the RICO is I made the joke.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Cassie is 11 teen months pregnant. If they didn't start with her right now, there's a real chance that she would have had this baby. And who knows where we are?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Yeah, he is. And that's why, if I'm not mistaken, they also had one of the sex workers who were also testifying that there was a freak off going on. But you're exactly right. That's why I think he's going to testify. Because he is the one who's going to have to explain this is what was really going on, not what she was saying. Because she has made the government's case. This was a freak-off.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I was leading the freak-off. He beat me. And let's... To make it easier for the law, let's call it what it was. I was leaving a commercial sex act because that's what the law is. We call them a free cost, but for the statute, I was leaving a commercial sex act. I didn't want to participate. Somebody was getting paid and he was beating me up and making me go backwards. Check.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Element, element, element, element, element.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And this is what the judge is going to tell the jury. He's going to say the government must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's a strong burden. Make that clear. Beyond any doubt, a reasonable doubt. And if a jury is like, huh. And the second element, the defendant, Puffy Combs, knew.