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Sean Combs appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday as his lawyers objected to the prosecution’s use of handwritten notes found inside the music mogul’s jail cell, arguing that his rights had been violated when they were turned over to prosecutors.
The dispute stemmed from a recent sweep of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Mr. Combs has been held since September. Prosecutors cited the notes, which they contend exposed prohibited behavior, in a court filing last week in which they argued Mr. Combs should remain incarcerated until his trial, which is scheduled for May.
The text of Mr. Combs’s notes was redacted from the public record. But prosecutors said it showed that he was trying to obstruct their case, by suggesting that he had paid a potential witness to post a statement on social media expressing support for him. Another note, the government said, related to him directing someone to find “dirt” on two alleged victims.
Mr. Combs’s lawyers quickly lodged an objection to the prosecution’s possession of the notes, arguing that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.
“This has been a complete institutional failure,” Marc Agnifilo, Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer, said at the hearing.
The prosecution has defended its handling of the notes, writing in court papers that the sweep was preplanned and not engineered to target Mr. Combs. The government further said that any recovered material was reviewed by a “filter team” within the U.S. attorney’s office tasked with excluding any privileged materials from prosecutors handling the case.
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