Failure to sequester Diddy trial jury was a mistake, legal expert argues

Jury deliberations in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal trial for sex crimes continued to hit roadblocks Tuesday as the court dealt with more notes from the jurors.Multiple notes were sent back from the jury throughout the roughly six hours of deliberations so far.By Tuesday morning, the jury had sent the court three notes of substance.The case against Diddy is proving to be a “rare nail-biter” for the prosecution, according to Fox News contributor Paul Mauro.“The Southern District’s conviction rate is well north of 90%. They don’t take cases to lose them,” the retired NYPD inspector told Fox News Digital.“That said, the Diddy case has some real challenges. In the end, the evidence came down to how coerced the female victims were. As these women reached out affirmatively to Diddy, were they suffering a version of battered wife syndrome? Or was the entire thing transactional?”“Further: Without that sexual activity, will the drug and weapons allegations suffice to demonstrate an actual racketeering entity? This is a rare nail-biter for SDNY — far from a slam dunk. And the possibility of a split verdict here, at the least, is very real.” On Monday, before court ended for the day, the jury sent a note asking, “If a recipient asks for a controlled substance, and another person hands it over to them, are they distributing?” Judge Arun Subramanian chose to send a note back to the jury Tuesday morning as deliberations resumed.

He pointed the group to page 37 of the charge document, which explained the law behind the distribution-of-drugs allegation.Diddy took notes while the prosecution, defense and judge discussed how to respond to the jury’s note asking for clarification on drug distribution.The rapper mostly looked at the judge during the short court session.

He occasionally looked at defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, seated to his right.Diddy also glanced over to his other lawyers, Teny Geragos and Alexandra Shapiro, seated to his...