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A new motion filed by Diddy's legal team in federal court urges the judge overseeing his trial to block the testimony of Dr. Dawn Hughes, a forensic clinical psychologist. Hughes is the same psychologist who testified on behalf of Amber Heard in the 2022 Heard vs. Depp trial.
According to an AllHipHop exclusive, Diddy's 25-page filing states that Hughes plans to speak broadly about coercive control, a term frequently used by prosecutors in cases of domestic abuse and trafficking. Hughes is expected to outline the patterns of behaviors allegedly employed by abusers to dominate their victims.
The rapper's motion claims that Hughes is entering the courtroom with "no knowledge of the actual facts in this case." It continues:
"Hughes has apparently not interviewed the alleged victims at all, much less engaged in the sort of psychological diagnostics that her profession demands. As a result, she offers unadorned opinions that can explain the accusers’ behavior—even though she has made no effort to exclude alternate explanations."
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Alex Shapiro, Diddy's attorney, believes that the psychologist is building a narrative rather than providing expert analysis. According to his legal team, Hughes is a professional witness who repeatedly presents the same arguments in trial after trial.
Accusing the government of intending to use her expert testimony improperly, Shapiro said:
"The government wants an expert so that it can waive her testimony in summation like a magic wand to cure the glaring defects in its fact witnesses’ credibility. This will be a continuing refrain—’ as Dr. Hughes told you… as Dr. Hughes explained’—and it will be highly effective. But this is not a proper use of expert testimony and it will not help the jury discover the truth."
Diddy's attorney claims Hughes' testimony will prejudice jurors against his client
In his motion, as reported by AllHipHop, Alex Shapiro argues that Dawn Hughes' testimony serves more to portray Diddy as a violent and controlling man than to rely on credible science. According to the attorney, Hughes' testimony will likely bias jurors against Combs by framing his alleged actions as part of a larger, sinister pattern before any witness takes the stand.
The attorney then details the evidence that the Bad Boy Records owner's legal team has prepared, adding:
"The evidence in this case will show, for example, that Combs financially supported his girlfriends. That does not count as coercion under the legal definition, but it would count under Hughes’s definition.
"Suppose the evidence shows that after a fight, Combs apologized, expressed love, and bought his girlfriend a gift. That would not count as coercion under the legal definition, but it would count under Hughes’s definition."
According to AllHipHop, the new motion also alleges that the prosecution is using the psychologist as an indirect way to imply Diddy's guilt. Their claim is that the prosecution intends to establish a generalized pattern of abusive behavior through Hughes. By doing this, they hope that when more testimonies are delivered, the jurors will connect the dots themselves.
In addition to the Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp trial, Dawn Hughes has also testified for the prosecution in other high-profile cases, including the s*xual assault trials of Danny Masterson and Harvey Weinstein.
