The legal team for Sean “Diddy” Combs has requested copies of the “freak off” tapes set to be used as evidence in Combs’ ongoing sex trafficking case, arguing in a filing that the recordings show only consensual sex acts.
“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,” reads the request, which was filed Tuesday and obtained by HuffPost.
Combs’ ex, Casandra Ventura, a model and singer widely known as Cassie, claimed in a swiftly settled lawsuit in November 2023 that Combs would force her to engage in sexual relations with male sex workers as he watched and directed her. He referred to those encounters as “freak offs,” her lawsuit claimed. In the months after Cassie’s lawsuit, numerous other suits followed.
The “freak offs” were sometimes days long. Ventura accused him of forcing participants to take ketamine, MDMA and the date rape drug GBH in order to keep them “obedient and compliant,” then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams previously said.
Prosecutors reportedly have nine videos of “freak offs” involving “Victim-1,” who requested that the videos not be produced “to protect her privacy,” according to the document.
Combs’ attorneys viewed the footage on Nov. 20 and Dec. 13 with law enforcement present, as both parties had previously agreed, according to the document. Combs’ attorneys are now requesting the footage because they claim the tapes make it “abundantly clear” that he is innocent.
“Contrary to innumerable sensationalistic media reports, the videos do not depict sex parties,” the document states. “There are no secret cameras, no orgies, no other celebrities involved, no underground tunnels, no minors, and not so much as a hint of coercion or violence.”
Combs’ defense wants electronic copies of the videos to improve their quality and to “analyze the metadata.” They also seek “to extract portions of the videos to create trial exhibits, stills, and transcripts.”
Pointing to previous filings that discuss the “freak offs,” Combs’ team claimed Tuesday that the prosecution of the media mogul is “sexist and puritanical.”
“It is sexist because the government’s theory perpetuates stereotypes of female victimhood and lack of agency. The prosecution reflects a paternalistic view that the government is here to protect women, who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about sex, and are not capable of consenting to sex that the prosecutors view as outside the ‘norm.’”
Combs is being held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center as his May 5 trial date approaches. He has denied the allegations against him.
HuffPost reached out to representatives for Combs and the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, where the case is filed, but did not immediately hear back.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.