IT’S ALL OVER BUT THE DELIBERATIN’
The differing portraits of the December 1999 night in Club New York comes down to this: goldiggers vs. guns.
Defense attorney Benjamin Brafman tried to convince the jury that the reason people were testifying against Puffy was to get money out of him (hitsdailydouble.com, 3/13). He made a point of the fact that gunshot victims Natania Reuben and Julius Jones—who both claimed to see Combs aiming a gun before they were hit—have filed suits against Combs, for $150 million and $700 million respectively. Chauffeur Wardel Fenderson, who was allegedly bribed by Puffy with a ring and $50,000 to take the rap for the gun found in Puffy's SUV (hitsdailydouble.com, 2/16), has also filed a suit against Combs—his for $3 million.
"It's like ‘Who Wants To Be A Billionaire,'" Brafman said. "What happened is bad people came into this courtroom and made accusations against Sean Combs to get rich."
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos painted a different much simpler picture.
"This is not the ‘Puff Daddy' trial. This is not the Jennifer Lopez trial. This is not the Jamal ‘Shyne' Barrow trial," Bogdanos told the jury. "It's about three people who were shot in a club a little over a year ago. Three defendants stand before you. Three guns, and that's a fact."
Emphasizing his point, Bogdanos laid each of the three guns out for the jurors to see.
Five people testified seeing Combs with a gun that night, Bogdanos said. "What do you do when a celebrity commits a crime?" he asked. "You do your job regardless of who broke the law. It's not the breaker. It's the law broken. Do not substitute their rhymes for your reason."
Prosecutors had also accused Combs of witness tampering (hitsdailydouble.com, 3/8).
Jurors went to court Wednesday (3/14) to receive instructions from Judge Charles Solomon. His instructions were expected to take about two hours. Deliberations were expected to begin by midday. The jury is made up of seven blacks and five whites.
Speaking outside the courtroom on Wednesday, Brafman expressed confidence that his client would be cleared of the charges. "If you're asking me is he nervous? Absolutely, yeah," Brafman said. "If you're asking me is he confident, he's confident. He is innocent. He wants to get this over with quickly."
As with all of our gavel-to-gavel coverage of this trial, this story was culled from other news sources, owing to the fact that our on-the-spot correspondent for the trial accidentally went to South By Southwest in Austin instead of the courthouse in New York.
