The rapper remains locked up in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre after his arrest last September.
One of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyers has filed a motion to withdraw from the music mogul’s defense team.
According to People, in a motion for withdraw of counsel filed in New York on Friday, Anthony Ricco said that “under no circumstances can I continue to effectively serve as counsel for Sean Combs.”
In the affidavit, Ricco said he did not want to divulge information protected by attorney-client privilege when explaining why the request was so brief.
P Diddy was arrested in New York in September 2024, and has been charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
He has denied the claims and pleaded not guilty to all charges. If Diddy is convicted, the I’ll Be Missing You rapper could face life behind bars on the racketeering charge and a minimum of 15 years for sex trafficking.
A judge will need to grant Ricco’s motion before he is officially removed from the case.
Combs would still have five other attorneys defending him, including lead counsel Marc Agnifilo.
Ricco’s decision is not expected to cause any delay to the current schedule regarding Combs’ trial set for May.
Last week, lawyers for Combs asked a judge to dismiss one of the charges brought against him in a superseding indictment —transportation to engage in prostitution—claiming “no white person has ever been the target of a remotely similar prosecution.”
The 55-year-old was charged with transportation to engage in prostitution under The Mann Act, which in 1910 made it illegal to transport women for prostitution and human trafficking.
Combs’ attorneys argued in a memorandum filed last Tuesday that the statute has racist origins, and that Combs “has been singled out because he is a powerful Black man, and he is being prosecuted for conduct that regularly goes unpunished.”
