Lawyer compares Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to Harvey Weinstein
On December 18th, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs had a pretrial hearing at a Manhattan court for charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation for prostitution to which he has pleaded not guilty. However, due to the severity of his charges and the number of civil cases he is fighting, lawyers are already comparing him to the disgraced incarcerated movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
One lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, who is representing three anonymous male accusers in lawsuits against Combs, has alleged that the Bad Boy founder’s patterns of abuse are reminiscent of another disgraced Hollywood player, Harvey Weinstein. Giuffra claimed on CNN that he saw a lot of commonalities between the behaviour of the movie director and the musician.
These behaviours and similarities are what caught the lawyer’s attention early on. Giuffra asserted that, about alleged abusers, there is always a pattern of behaviour and first drew attention to the patterns exhibited by Harvey Weinstein. He then detailed the patterns he heard from his three male clients and said they have a similar throughline.
Focusing on Combs, he explained how all of the accusers he represents entered Combs’ inner circle, allegedly had drinks that made them feel woozy and then woke up realising the mogul had sodomised them.
During his interview with Sara Sidner of CNN, Giuffra began, “Whenever you have a serial abuser, they follow a pattern. Harvey Weinstein had a pattern, Sean Combs has a pattern, and with all of [my clients], the stories are a little different, but the pattern is the same.”
He continued, “Come into my orbit, have a drink, you get woozy, take a rest, wake up to being sodomised.” Although all of the claims made by Giuffra’s clients are allegations and are yet to be proven in a court of law, Combs’ attorneys have asserted they are markedly false.
In a statement, Combs’ legal team told media outlet TMZ, “These complaints are full of lies. We will prove them false and seek sanctions against every unethical lawyer who filed fictional claims against him.”
Weinstein is currently incarcerated in Rikers Island. However, his legal team spoke to TMZ and lambasted Giuffra for the comparisons, asserting, “It is an outright lie to say that Harvey Weinstein had a pattern of drugging women and sexually abusing them. Not one accuser of Mr. Weinsteins ever alleged that. To make such a claim is reckless and irresponsible. The difference in the allegations between Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Combs could not be any more different. In New York Mr. Weinstein is an innocent man anxiously awaiting his trial to finally clear his name here.”