Suge Knight, a longtime adversary of Sean “Diddy” Combs, has encouraged the fallen music mogul to testify at his federal sex-trafficking trial. Knight claims that by doing so, Combs would likely be acquitted because it would help the jury see him as more relatable.
Currently serving a sentence for manslaughter in California, Knight has come to the defense of his old foe during Combs’ prominent trial in Manhattan. Knight expressed his belief that as the proceedings continue, jurors will eventually find the Bad Boy Records founder not guilty.
“I think if he tells his truth, he will indeed walk free,” Knight, the former producer at Death Row Records, shared in a phone interview with CNN on Thursday from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
âIf Puffy goes up there and says, âHey ⦠I did all the drugs, I wasnât in control of my life at the time, or myselfâ â he can humanize his old self and the jury might give him a shot.â
âBut if they keep him sitting down, itâs like heâs scared to face the music,â he continued. âHe should just have his faith in God, put up his pants and go up there and tell his truth.â
It isn’t yet clear if Combs, who has pleaded not guilty, plans to testify in his own defense.
The 55-year-old is accused of using his fame, fortune and businesses to run a sex-trafficking and racketeering scheme in which he controlled and manipulated then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, 38, for over a decade — using violence and threats, and forcing her and others into drug-fueled âfreak-offâ sex marathons that went on for days.
Knight, whose name has been mentioned multiple times in bombshell testimony, admitted in an interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored that his rival did “weird stuff” but that it didn’t mean he was guilty of the crimes.
âHeâs guilty for being a cold, freaky man that wants freaky things done to him,â Knight said.
âIn the Cassie situation, they could not say he was having sex with the man also, because thatâll make him like [it was an] orgy. It wonât be like sex-trafficking. It wonât be like forcing stuff to do,â he continued.
âBut at the end of the day, thereâs no way Puffy should go to prison for the rest of his life.â
Knight, for his part, is serving a 28-year prison sentence for killing 55-year-old Terry Carter when he ran over him with his pickup truck in the parking lot of a burger joint in 2015.
He agreed to pay a $1.5 million settlement to the victim’s family at a court hearing in Los Angeles last month.
Meanwhile, Knight and Combsâ rivalry started way back in the 1990s when Knight was a producer for major California rappers such as Tupac Shakur and Combs was working with The Notorious B.I.G.
Knightâs Death Row Records and Combsâ Bad Boy Records label were at the center of the East-West Coast rap feud, which culminated in the violent deaths of Shakur and Wallace within a matter of months of each other in 1996 and 1997.
