{"id":679072,"date":"2025-07-08T16:05:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T13:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/celebrity-metoo-cases-are-proving-tough-to-convict\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T16:05:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T13:05:19","slug":"celebrity-metoo-cases-are-proving-tough-to-convict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/celebrity-metoo-cases-are-proving-tough-to-convict\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity #MeToo Cases Are Proving Tough to Convict"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tThe prosecutor made a bold prediction during her closing argument.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c<\/strong>For 20 years, the defendant got away with his crimes \u2014 that ends in this courtroom,\u201d declared Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey last week in the government\u2019s case versus Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs. \u201cIt is time to hold him accountable \u2026 the defendant is not a God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps not. But Combs is a massive celebrity. And what\u2019s becoming increasingly app<\/a>arent is that celebrity #MeToo cases \u2014 whether criminal or civil \u2014 are intensely difficult to win when up against a big name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Combs being found not guilty of the most serious charges brought against the rap mogul, we\u2019ve seen similar mixed results in other high-profile cases that involved intense media<\/a> attention and a large outpouring of resources in the pursuit of \u201cguilty\u201d verdicts against celebrities accused of sex crimes:<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case against disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein \u2014 whose arrest kicked off the #MeToo movement in 2017 \u2014 has become a mess. Weinstein saw his 2020 New York conviction overturned, received a mistrial on a rape charge and was found not guilty of one count of a criminal sexual act (he was found guilty, however, on another count of the same charge).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKevin Spacey has started to get acting gigs again after a jury in London acquitted the Oscar winner of nine sexual assault charges in 2023 and a federal jury in Manhattan found him not liable in a civil lawsuit in 2022. (One civil case is still pending).<\/p>\n

\n\tThen there\u2019s Bill Cosby, who was successfully prosecuted for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman 2018 \u2014 in his second trial after the first resulted in a mistrial \u2014 and then was let off on a technicality in 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven former\u00a0That \u201870s Show<\/em>\u00a0star Danny Masterson, who was convicted of rape and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in 2023, had to be tried twice after his first trial likewise ended in a mistrial in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo major celebrity cases that fall into the category of civil litigation rather than criminal are also worth mentioning: Johnny Depp in 2022 came out on top of his defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard\u00a0after she accused him of abuse\u00a0(and\u00a0Depp\u00a0was even awarded $10 million in damages for his trouble). And while the lawsuit between\u00a0It Ends With Us<\/em>\u00a0director Justin Baldoni and his co-star Blake Lively has yet to be resolved, it has \u2014 fairly or not \u2014 taken on a similar public opinion vibe to Depp vs. Heard, with Baldoni receiving the bulk of online support after Lively\u00a0accused him of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo some extent, experts say, what we\u2019re seeing across these legal battles is illustrative of how tough any<\/em> case involving sex crimes is to win for accusers. #MeToo was always a cultural movement rather than legal and while it may have bled into the courtroom, it never changed the standards to secure convictions.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is particularly true when the issue revolves around consent \u2014 a theme across many of the above famous cases. In Diddy\u2019s trial, for instance, the defense had Combs\u2019 former girlfriend Cassie Ventura read aloud text messages where she seemed enthusiastic about his sex parties to portray the alleged sex trafficking as the product of an eccentric, but consensual, relationship (with Cassie texting, \u201cI\u2019m always ready to freak off\u201d and \u201cI just want it to be uncontrollable\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s hard for juries to wrap their head around,\u201d says Matthew Galluzzo, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for the New York County DA\u2019s Office. \u201cIt\u2019s confusing. It\u2019s the same thing with people who have complained about Weinstein. They appeared to have, in aftermath of assault, sought him out and continued to have friendly relations with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tExperts point out that it\u2019s not unusual for somebody who was assaulted to not immediately sever a relationship with their abuser, which makes it especially difficult to break free. But such issues demonstrate the limitations of the #MeToo movement, which has largely stalled in court.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a real disconnect between culture that requires credibility en masse and a legal system that insists on accusers coming forward alone and having their voice alone sway the jury,\u201d says Deborah Tuerkheimer, a former Manhattan prosecutor who is now a law professor at Northwestern. \u201cThe burden of proof is so high. That\u2019s where we see continuing tension.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs tough as some of these cases are to win for an accuser, going up against celebrities makes them even more difficult given a famous person\u2019s deep pockets to hire top-tier representation.<\/p>\n

\n\tConsider Combs, who assembled a roster of nine highly regarded bet-my-life lawyers to construct his defense. Leading that team was Marc Agnifilo, a do-it-all attorney with extensive experience litigating complex racketeering cases involving criminal enterprises, like the one Combs faced. Also involved: Teny Geragos, a partner at his firm and daughter of powerhouse litigator Mark Geragos, Brian Steel, who secured a favorable plead deal for Young Thug in the YSL racketeering trial, and Sam Bankman-Fried lawyer Alexandra Shapiro, among others.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith an estimated ten-figure net worth, Combs also had the resources to deploy private investigators to poke holes in narratives advanced by prosecution\u2019s 34 witnesses. One key exchange undermining the government\u2019s case came in the cross-examination of Bryana Bongolan, a friend of Cassie Ventura who testified that Combs held her above a balcony railing at a hotel in Los Angeles before assaulting her. The judge overseeing the trial said Combs\u2019 lawyers scored a \u201creal Perry Mason moment\u201d when they presented a hotel bill indicating that the rap mogul was staying in New York City that week.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne might wonder, then, if such charges are so difficult to prosecute \u2014 and often wouldn\u2019t normally be prosecuted without insurmountable evidence \u2014 why cases were brought against some of these famous figures in the first place.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is both a generous and a cynical read on that one. Let\u2019s start with the nice version: When accusations against a famous person bubble up through the media, the public takes notice. If a prosecutor fully believes the claims to be credible, not bringing charges just because it\u2019s a difficult high-wire case could be an act of moral cowardice. Why let a perpetrator \u2014 who perhaps believes they\u2019re above the law due to their status \u2014 off the hook?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe more cynical version suggests that prosecutors hope they can become minor league celebrities by attaching themselves to a high-profile case that draws major headlines. A big win could be a boon for their career; you\u2019re the harpooner who has speared the whale.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlready, the Combs verdict is fueling criticism that prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is known for being particularly aggressive, overcharged the case. The accusations brought against the rap mogul can technically be considered racketeering, but when jurors hear \u201ccriminal enterprise,\u201d they think about the mafia and the cartel, not crates of baby oil. It was a hard sell.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the thinking of Halim Dhanidina, a former state and court of appeals judge, prosecutors indeed overreached. \u201cPart of that reason is the celebrity and fact that the case is being followed in the media,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you have the opportunity to make a big splash for yourself as a prosecutor as a precursor to something else you want to do in your career, there\u2019s an inherent motivation to be the biggest, baddest lawyer in the courtroom. You want the baby oil case to be a racketeering case because it\u2019s more glamorous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe team prosecuting Combs shored up its ranks only months before the trial by bringing on Maurene Comey \u2014 the daughter of former FBI director James Comey who had secured a conviction against Ghislaine Maxwell \u2014 becoming the fifth lawyer on a case that typically sees two. The trial was estimated to cost taxpayers $10 million between the deep roster of prosecutors and calling dozens of witnesses to testify, some of whom needed to be flown out and housed in New York. With Combs now only facing two prostitution charges, former\u00a0federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani has called it \u201cthe most expensive prostitution trial in American history\u201d in the press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of which begs some questions: What if the high-profile acquittals \u2014 and instances of prosecutors being arguably too aggressive in their pursuit of celebrity cases \u2014 results in jurors in everyday sex crimes cases being more skeptical than they otherwise would be?\u00a0What happens with the #MeToo movement in the courts now? And will the checkered celebrity scorecard leave prosecutors less likely to push forward on similar cases?<\/p>\n

\n\tSome say there\u2019s already been an impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re finding that the cases that fit into the #MeToo movement [were] an overcorrection,\u201d Dhanidina opines. \u201cThe prevailing sense in the culture went from \u2018we always believe an accuser\u2019 to \u2018maybe we too often believe an accuser. We\u2019re returning to equilibrium \u2014 especially when cases involve a well-known celebrity defendant.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The prosecutor made a bold prediction during her closing argument.\u00a0 \u201cFor 20 years, the defendant got away with his crimes \u2014 that ends in this courtroom,\u201d declared Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey last week in the government\u2019s case versus Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs. \u201cIt is time to hold him accountable \u2026 the defendant is not a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":679073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screen-Shot-2025-07-08-at-6.12.56-AM.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[147042],"class_list":["post-679072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-sean-diddy-combs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}