Diddy and Weinstein’s Day in Court

Photo: Jane Rosenberg

As Harvey Weinstein was being arraigned at the 100 Centre Street courthouse in Manhattan on Wednesday, Sean “Diddy” Combs, another very famous man facing sex-crimes charges, was just blocks away, pushing for bail in his federal sex-trafficking and racketeering-conspiracy case.

Weinstein pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan Supreme Court to one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree following a new indictment related to his years-old sex-crimes case. Weinstein had been found guilty on February 24, 2020, of rape in the third degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree for assaulting two women, Jessica Mann and Miriam “Mimi” Haleyi. This proceeding stemmed from the New York State Court of Appeals’ decision to throw out his conviction after finding that testimony from three other accusers for whom he was not charged with attacking — Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff, and Lauren Young — was unfair. Following the appeals court decision, Manhattan prosecutors vowed to retry Weinstein. The just-unsealed-charging paperwork alleges that Weinstein engaged in forcible oral sex with an accuser around early May 2006.

At 3:30 p.m., Combs entered Judge Andrew L. Carter’s  Manhattan federal courtroom, he then looked toward the gallery behind him, tapped his heart twice, brought his hand to his mouth, and tapped his chest again. The rapper was arrested on Monday, September 16, on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs first appeared in court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty, and he was ordered detained pending trial by a magistrate judge. Federal prosecutors have centered much of their case on alleged sex parties where, they claim, Combs abused women and forced them to perform elaborate sex acts, oftentimes with male sex workers, referred to as “Freak Offs.” Combs’s lawyer appealed the magistrate judge’s denial of his pitch for bail, which included a $50 million bond and home detention with GPS monitoring.

Weinstein’s and Combs’s cases have their differences, but they both effectively boil down to the same accusations. For years, powerful men in the entertainment industry have been accused of harming women sexually, physically, and verbally. The allegations against Weinstein kicked off the Me Too movement in 2017, thus empowering countless other women to come forward and spurring high-profile prosecutions, and the case against Combs is arguably an extension of this momentum. Me Too activist Tarana Burke said as much in an interview with AP News following Diddy’s indictment. “This new case is no different than so many that we’ve seen where you have an incredibly powerful and privileged person who decides to abuse it,” Burke told AP. “The wonderful thing, though … is that because of the shift we’ve seen after Me Too went viral, now these things are public. And now, when a person comes forward and says, ‘This person harmed me,’ people take it more seriously.”

Combs’s case underscores the unseemly sexual politics that come to light when men defend themselves against heinous allegations. To wit: One of Combs’s defenses appears to be that he was a cuck, not a creep. His lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, claimed that any encounters that might have happened between Combs, a female partner, and a male sex worker, were consensual, just their “thing.” “The sex and the violence were totally separated — motivated by totally different things,” he said. “The way that couple chose to be intimate — they would bring a third person in — that was their thing. It was a sought-after, special part of their relationship.”

Of the video showing Carter seemingly beating a former partner in a hotel hallway, Carter asked Agnifilo how that lined up with the “special” intimate behavior. “What’s love got to do with that?” Carter asked. (It was unclear whether Carter unwittingly made an allusion to a song by Tina Turner, a domestic-violence survivor, in a case about violence against women.) No matter. Carter sided with prosecutors and found there were no conditions that could eliminate risks posed by Combs.

“I am denying bail,” Carter said.

Even with these alleged abuses of power being taken more seriously, the fact that two sex-crime cases are happening on the same day makes one realize just how pervasive this all still is in Hollywood and its circles. Ultimately, it’s not shocking that Weinstein and Combs both appeared in court on the same day for sex-crime charges. After their respective appearances, the two shared the same fate: remaining in custody as they await trial.