The high-powered criminal defense attorney representing Sean “Diddy” Combs’ son Justin accused federal agents of tipping off the press about the raids on the hip hop mogul’s mansions and “dirtying” a potential jury pool.
Jeffrey Lichtman, best known for previously defending mobster John Gotti Jr. and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, said that what bothered him the most about what he called the Department of Homeland Security “overboard” searches of Combs’ properties in Los Angeles and Miami last week was the presence of the news media.
“They were all there, ready to record it,” Lichtman complained on his radio show, “Beyond the Legal Limit.”
“They were all there, told about it and breathlessly reporting what anonymous agents of law enforcement are telling them about what they’re looking for, evidence of sex trafficking.”
“That’s bad because that’s just an evil thing for our government or law enforcement to do,” the attorney added.
His client, Justin Combs, 30, and his brother, Christian, 25, were seen on surveillance video being marched out of their dad’s Holmby Hills estate in Los Angeles with their hands on their heads, and then being handcuffed on the lawn by heavily armed officers.
The pair were not arrested and allowed to leave a short time later.
But Lichtman argued that the damage had already been done.
“By using the press to leak what they’re looking for, they’re just dirtying a potentially future jury pool,” he said, referring to reports that law enforcement sources had confirmed to the press that the search warrants were part of a sex trafficking probe.
The feds descended on Combs’ luxury homes in heavily armed vehicles because they wanted to seize his phones and computers, sources told The Post.
Combs, 54, was not arrested or charged with any crime but spoke to authorities, according to his lawyer Aaron Dyer, who blasted the searches as “a gross overuse of military-level force.”
Separately, Combs has been named as a defendant in multiple bombshell sexual abuse lawsuits, including one from a woman claiming that the hip-hop star drugged and raped her when she was 17.
Another $30 million complaint filed by music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones alleged that Combs sexually assaulted him and forced him to have sex with prostitutes.
Lichtman, whose client, Justin Combs, is named as a co-defendant in Jones’ lawsuit, dismissed the producer’s claims as “utterly bonkers.”
“It’s clearly written in an effort to get as much publicity as possible, not only for the case, but for the lawyer whose name I don’t even remember, literally some maniac,” Lichtman said.
“And the feds, the idea that they’re taking that stuff as gospel, which it very well may be they are, is almost hard to believe.”