Sean Combs appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday as his lawyers objected to the prosecution’s use of handwritten notes found inside the music mogul’s jail cell, arguing that his rights had been violated when they were turned over to prosecutors.
The dispute stemmed from a recent sweep of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Mr. Combs has been held since September. Prosecutors cited the notes, which they contend exposed prohibited behavior, in a court filing last week in which they argued Mr. Combs should remain incarcerated until his trial, which is scheduled for May.
The text of Mr. Combs’s notes was redacted from the public record. But prosecutors said it showed that he was trying to obstruct their case, by suggesting that he had paid a potential witness to post a statement on social media expressing support for him. Another note, the government said, related to him directing someone to find “dirt” on two alleged victims.
Mr. Combs’s lawyers quickly lodged an objection to the prosecution’s possession of the notes, arguing that it was a violation of attorney-client privilege.
“This has been a complete institutional failure,” Marc Agnifilo, Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer, said at the hearing.
The prosecution has defended its handling of the notes, writing in court papers that the sweep was preplanned and not engineered to target Mr. Combs. The government further said that any recovered material was reviewed by a “filter team” within the U.S. attorney’s office tasked with excluding any privileged materials from prosecutors handling the case.
The notes at issue involve 17 pages that include innocuous writing about family members, phone numbers and inspirational quotes, one of the prosecutors, Christy Slavik, said in court. But there was also material that the government considered relevant to its continuing criminal investigation into Mr. Combs, she said.
The government said in court papers that the materials had been found and photographed by an investigator with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who had “reviewed the defendant’s calls and emails in which the defendant overtly and persistently engaged in conduct that violated B.O.P. rules and regulations.” The materials at issue are photographs of the original notes.
“The government received these materials through a completely appropriate channel,” Ms. Slavik said at the hearing, adding that because the notes were collected through “covert” grand jury proceedings, the defense did not legally have to be alerted about them.
Each side focused on different parts of the notes to help buttress their positions.
At the hearing, Mr. Agnifilo argued that the notes came from a stack of material that Mr. Combs regularly brings with him to meetings with his lawyers. He said they included Mr. Combs recording one of his lawyers’ suggestions for an expert witness for trial, meaning that prosecutors have been given a premature window into their trial strategy.
Reserving judgment on whether the recovery of the notes was a violation of Mr. Combs’s rights, Judge Arun Subramanian ordered the prosecution team to delete the photographs of the notes from its files while he reviews the issue.
Before the hearing, Judge Subramanian approved the defense’s request that Mr. Combs be allowed to attend hearings without his legs shackled, as they had been in the past. Wearing khaki jail clothes, Mr. Combs walked into the courtroom smiling before hugging members of his legal team.
The hearing on Tuesday was the latest showdown between federal prosecutors and Mr. Combs’s lawyers, who have argued since his arrest that he should be released on bail, under proposed conditions that include a $50 million bond and round-the-clock surveillance by security paid for by Mr. Combs himself.
Mr. Combs has already been denied bail twice, and has another hearing scheduled on Friday.
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