Diddy’s high-profile claim of racial targeting is being dismantled by federal prosecutors in a response that painted the Hip-Hop mogul’s allegations as “outrageous and illogical.”
Diddy recently filed a motion alleging that federal authorities had singled him out on Count Three of his RICO indictment because of his race.
Count One charges him with racketeering conspiracy, alleging that he led a criminal enterprise involved in sex trafficking, drug distribution, and violent assaults over decades.
Count Two accuses him of sex trafficking, claiming he used force, fraud, and coercion to exploit victims for commercial sex.
Count Three, which Diddy seeks to have dismissed, specifically charges him under the Mann Act for allegedly transporting multiple victims, including male escorts, across state lines for the purpose of commercial sex.
Acting United States District Attorney Matthew Podolsky said that the charge is “overlapping and intertwined” with the more expansive racketeering and sex trafficking allegations documented in Counts One and Two, which span multiple years and multiple victims.
But in a sharply worded rebuttal, Podolsky asserted that race had “no role whatsoever” in the charges, which they emphasized stemmed purely from Diddy’s alleged “violent, abusive, and criminal conduct.”
The government’s blistering response didn’t mince words, stating explicitly that Diddy offered nothing beyond his own “say-so” to substantiate claims of discrimination.
Podolsky highlighted that the indictment included multiple severe allegations of violence, abuse, and sexual coercion involving multiple victims across several years.
He argued emphatically that the severity of these allegations alone “defeats the Motion.”
The government stressed that Diddy’s case fundamentally differed from the examples his attorneys cited, including former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Jerry Falwell Jr., and unnamed escort clients.
“The Motion misleadingly suggests that anyone who has ever hired an escort is similarly situated to [Diddy],” Podolsky stated, adding that such comparisons ignored the serious “aggravating factors” present in Diddy’s charges.
He noted explicitly that Diddy allegedly violated the Mann Act by hauling multiple victims through coercion and force for commercial sex acts—allegations missing from the cases cited by his defense team.
[Diddy] used his wealth and power to build an enterprise characterized by violence against victims, employees, and rivals alike,” Podolsky said. “And he used that same enterprise to fund the transportation of victims and escorts in violation of the Mann Act. Nothing in the Motion suggests that Spitzer, Falwell, or the other clients of the escort service transported escorts as part of a pattern of racketeering activity or that they committed any other crimes whatsoever during the same period when they engaged in commercial sex.”
The government’s scathing rebuttal ultimately said his claims lacked merit and factual support and should be denied.