Sean Combs Must Stay in Jail Until Trial After Judge Rejects Appeal

The judge said Mr. Combs posed a risk of witness tampering and was a danger to the community while awaiting his sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial.

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Sean Combs to remain in jail until his trial for sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, rejecting an appeal by the music mogul’s lawyers requesting that he be released on bail.

Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. said at a hearing in Lower Manhattan that Mr. Combs posed a risk of witness tampering and was a danger to the safety of the community. He rejected an unusual proposal from Mr. Combs’s legal team in which he would have remained at his mansion in Florida, monitored around the clock by a private security force. The lawyers had offered a $50 million bond for his release.

Arguing that Mr. Combs was prone to violence, prosecutors spoke at length about a leaked surveillance video from 2016 in which he was seen physically assaulting Casandra Ventura, his former girlfriend, who is known as Cassie. She filed a sexual assault lawsuit against him last year that was quickly settled.

The judge said “that video is quite disturbing,” after which Mr. Combs, seated between his lawyers, nodded several times.

Marc Agnifilo, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers, said his client should not be detained based on an assault from eight years ago that led him to go to rehab. “Mr. Combs has the unfortunate reality that the worst thing he ever did is on videotape,” the lawyer said.

The government’s concern that Mr. Combs might intimidate witnesses was a theme of the hearing.

“His influence makes it so difficult for witnesses to share their experiences and trust that the government can keep them safe from him,” said Emily A. Johnson, one of the prosecutors.

After hearing the defense’s proposal of security monitoring — effectively a private version of house arrest — the judge said that even under those terms Mr. Combs could still use employees to contact witnesses, perhaps even “through coded messages.”

Announced by his lawyer as “Mr. Sean ‘Love’ Combs,” the mogul wore a black T-shirt and sweatpants and listened closely, sometimes nodding to his lawyers to indicate his agreement with strict restrictions if released. Mr. Agnifilo tried to convince the judge of his client’s good character, saying he was a religious man who watched a sermon each day and was an altar boy as a child — a detail that caused the judge to scoff.

Mr. Agnifilo argued that if Mr. Combs remained incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — which he said would involve him living in a special housing unit — the restrictions would make it difficult for them to properly prepare for trial.

“I’m going to do everything I can to move the case as quickly as possible,” Mr. Agnifilo said outside the courthouse.

The hearing was an attempt by Mr. Combs’s lawyers to reverse a decision by a magistrate judge at his arraignment on Tuesday. That judge, Robyn F. Tarnofsky, also denied bail and ordered Mr. Combs detained, citing his history of substance abuse, prosecutors’ accusations of witness tampering and the serious nature of the sex trafficking charge.

In appealing her decision to Judge Carter, the district judge, Mr. Combs’s lawyers argued once again that he had been cooperating with the prosecutors’ investigation for months, had voluntarily surrendered his passport and had paid off an $18 million mortgage on his house in Miami Beach so that the property could be used to secure the $50 million bond.

The defense also disputed the government’s allegation that he had intimidated potential witnesses, saying that Mr. Combs had contacted people only to inform them that his counsel would be in touch to interview them. The government cited the example of Kalenna Harper, a performer who was in the group Diddy — Dirty Money with Dawn Richard, who last week filed a lawsuit that accused Mr. Combs of groping and threatening her.

In the four days after Ms. Richard’s suit was filed, the government said, Mr. Combs called or texted Ms. Harper 58 times; prosecutors called it an example of how he has tried to keep potential witnesses “in his pocket and at his disposal.”

Mr. Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, called that contact “the furthest thing from witness obstruction I can think of,” and noted that Ms. Harper made a statement on social media offering a different interpretation of events that she witnessed.

Anthony Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor who represented a key figure in the Nxivm sex trafficking case against Keith Raniere, said that in the case against Mr. Combs, the government seemed eager to keep him detained in part because there might be witnesses who would be more willing to speak with Mr. Combs in jail.

“The same thing happened in the Nxivm case,” Mr. Capozzolo said. “Once he was locked up and people thought the air of invincibility was shattered, they were able to get even more witnesses.”

Judge Carter’s ruling on Wednesday means that Mr. Combs will return to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a hulking concrete structure with about 1,200 inmates that for years has been plagued by accusations of poor conditions.

“Wherever he is, his resolve is the same. I believe he is innocent,” Mr. Agnifilo said.

David Patton, a former executive director of Federal Defenders of New York, has tracked the problems at M.D.C., as the facility is known, for years, including violence, sexual assault, unsatisfactory medical care and a lack of consistent management. Wardens constantly cycle in and out, he said, rarely lasting more than about nine months.

“They are the worst conditions in the Bureau of Prisons system that I’m aware of,” said Mr. Patton, who is now in private practice at the firm Hecker Fink in New York. “It’s awful, it’s a disgrace.”

In a 15-page letter to Judge Carter requesting bail, Mr. Combs’s lawyers called the M.D.C. “not fit for pre-trial detention” and cited recent reports of an inmate’s murder and four suicides in the past three years.

In response to questions from The New York Times, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons said it “takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody,” and that this year the bureau’s director “appointed an urgent action team to take a holistic look at the challenges at M.D.C. Brooklyn,” which included increasing the permanent staffing and addressing more than 700 backlogged maintenance requests.

According to a five-week rotating food menu circulated by the bureau, M.D.C. offers an assortment of meals like beef stew, chicken stir fry and hamburgers for lunch and dinner, with daily vegetarian options. For breakfast, coffee is offered on weekends only.