The judge ruled that that “no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community” if the music mogul was released.
Sean “Diddy” Combs will not be home for the holidays.
The judge overseeing his sex trafficking and racketeering case ruled on Wednesday that Combs must stay behind bars ahead of his criminal trial this May.
In his ruling Judge Aran Subramanian wrote, that there is “no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community” if the music mogul was granted release.
Combs, 55, is currently in jail at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.
The news comes just days after Combs’ legal team outlined their plans if he were to be released. They said that he would live in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with 24/7 armed security and would only be allowed to call his attorneys and have visitation from pre-approved family members.
But prosecutor Christy Slavik argued that letting Combs out of jail would be detrimental.
“He is paying his way out of custody and continues to flout the rules, he is a risk of flight, a danger to the community, he’s obstructing and trying to subvert the integrity of these proceedings,” Slavik said at Friday’s hearing.
Prosecutors also claimed that Combs has engaged in witness tampering from behind bars by making three-way calls and using other inmates’ cell lines. They also claimed he has tried to taint prospective jurors with a PR campaign, pointing to an Instagram post earlier this month that showed his children speaking with him by phone on his birthday from behind bars.
But Combs’ team has said that this is all within his constitutional rights.
The decision comes just over a week after the judge ruled that prosecutors must get rid of 16 pages of notes that were taken from Combs’ jail cell, which should have been protected under attorney-client privilege.
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NBC News