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Sean "Puffy" Combs claims he's been targeted by prosecutors for being a young, black celebrity -- but that celebrity is built on a criminal image.
Feb 6, 2001 | In his opening statement to the jury in the trial of rap star/mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos hammered hard on the notion that Combs is a brutal, swaggering thug who believed that his exalted status as a rap idol put him above the law. Combs faces bribery and gun charges stemming from a shootout at a New York nightclub in December 1999 in which three people were wounded.
According to the prosecution, someone at the club flung money into Combs' face and his bodyguards allegedly whipped out their guns and started blasting away. Police claim that Combs threw a gun out the window of his limo as he sped away from the club after the shooting.
Combs' attorney insisted that prosecutors targeted him because he is a celebrity, and not a criminal. This is pretty much the same line that Baltimore Ravens superstar linebacker Ray Lewis and his defense attorneys shouted before, during and after his acquittal in the beating death of two men in Atlanta following last year's Super Bowl. They claimed that Lewis, who professed his innocence, was tried because he was a celebrity.
Neither Lewis nor Combs openly said it, but another element lurks underneath their charge of celebrity persecution. Both hinted that they also believe they are at deep peril from vindictive prosecutors because they are young, black males. In this, they are right and wrong.
Most big city district attorneys know that prosecuting and convicting a high-profile athlete, entertainer or film star will reap a bonanza of media and public fame that could give their political careers a huge rocket launch. The bonanza is even bigger when the celebrity they dump in a court docket is a gangsta rapper whom much of the public detests and vilifies.
The man who greenlighted the prosecution of Combs, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, has seemingly taken special relish in nailing rap celebrities. The list of those he's taken down includes Tupac Shakur, Naughty by Nature, the Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah, Heltah Skeltah and Da Cocoa Brovaz. He purportedly rejected a plea bargain pitch from Combs' defense attorneys that would not have included any jail time. If convicted of the gun and bribery charges, Combs could get 15 years to life.
But district attorneys also know there's a risk in botching a case against a celebrity defendant, the O.J. Simpson case being the best example.
Virtually the moment Simpson was in cuffs, Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti popped up on NBC's "The Today Show," ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "This Morning" and nearly every other TV talk show, assuring the public that prosecutors had the goods on Simpson and that he'd be convicted. The public believed him and expected that Simpson would be permanently imprisoned. When he wasn't, millions were disgusted and enraged. When voters booted Garcetti out of office this past November, many cited the botched O.J. Simpson case as a major reason for dumping him.
The Simpson debacle did not escape Combs. He hired Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran to help with the defense. The idea is to hinge part of his defense on the contention that a big reason he's in court is because he's a young black male.
He expects Cochran to convince the seven black jurors, as he did in the Simpson case, that police beat, shoot, harass, lie and plant evidence to nail young blacks, and that the police did the same in Combs' case.
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