Behind Diddy's Legal Team
Diddy’s arrest last month on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering has raised plenty of questions about the mogul’s future. For now, the fate of Sean Combs rests in the hands of federal prosecutors, and of the three lawyers he has picked to shepherd him through the case.
With Diddy set to appear in court later this week, Complex decided to take a closer look at the three attorneys defending the Bad Boy head: Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos, and Anthony Ricco. Who are they? Why were they chosen? What’s their history with Diddy? And what role might each of them play in his trial?
Who are Diddy's lawyers?
To begin to answer the question, you have to go all the way back to the end of 1999, the last time Diddy found himself in significant criminal legal trouble. He was arrested after a December 29 shooting in Manhattan, and accused of illegal gun possession.
To the rapper’s defense came a then-51-year-old lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, who joined Diddy’s legal team at the request of Johnnie Cochran. Brafman was at that point perhaps best known for successfully defending NYC club owner Peter Gatien against federal drug conspiracy charges in 1998.
The new lawyer did wonders for Diddy, inspiring headlines like “ Ben Brafman Comes to Save Puffy .” Diddy was acquitted of all charges in that case. Relatedly, he took a liking to Brafman, calling the older man “ Uncle Benny .”
Brafman stayed in Diddy’s circle, repping him again in civil cases in 2007 and 2011 . Most recently, Brafman was Diddy’s attorney when the mogul was sued by Cassie—the lawsuit that by many accounts kicked off the federal investigation that culminated in the rapper’s arrest on September 16.
Brafman is not one of Diddy’s attorneys this time out, for reasons that are unclear. But he got the next-best thing: two lawyers from Brafman’s inner circle.
“...Marc Agnifilo has rescued a lot worse.”
Marc Agnifilo is the Diddy attorney our readers may be most familiar with, from his frequent appearances on TMZ. He worked with Brafman for 18 years, before breaking away to start his own firm this past March.
Agnifilo calls Brafman his “ mentor .” “He fought Puffy's battle 25 years ago, and I get to fight it now,” he told Business Insider.
Agnifilo is familiar with complex cases from both sides of the law. Before he was a defense attorney, he worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, heading up their violent crime unit and working on their organized crime “strike force.” It was there that he gained expertise in racketeering statutes—the same laws his client is currently charged with violating.
Under Brafman and on his own, Agnifilo has been a part of a number of high profile cases. He repped NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere—who, like Diddy, was charged with both racketeering and sex trafficking . He also represented former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn when Strauss-Kahn was accused of rape. And he’s stood by the side of Wu-Tang’s least favorite finance bro, Martin Shrkeli.
Agnfilio has the confidence of a number of experts, and of some of his own former clients.
“Diddy indictment is very weak,” Martin Shkreli wrote on X last month . “I think he gets acquitted. My former attorney Marc Agnifilo has rescued a lot worse.”
“He’s quite knowledgeable in the law, but also a great diplomat, and as a former prosecutor he definitely knows how the system works,” Eugene Gourevitch, who Agnifilo represented in a fraud case, told Bloomberg Law . “He knows the levers to pull…He will make the best possible recommendation for his client, whoever the client is.”
Diddy’s TikTok lawyer
https://www.tiktok.com/@misstrialtrg/video/7413534152559217966?refer=embed
When Agnifilo left Brafman’s firm this year to start his own, he took someone with him: Diddy attorney number two, Teny Geragos. She and Agnifilo had worked side-by-side for eight years (“two people walking through hell together” is how Agnifilo put it .)
Geragos is young, an New York University and Loyola Law School grad still in her early 30s and hip enough to be on TikTok . She is also the daughter of a famous lawyer, Mark Geragos—a man who, unsurprisingly, has his own history with Benjamin Brafman. The elder Geragos and Brafman worked together two decades ago defending Michael Jackson from child molestation charges; and Brafman jumped in to defend Mark when the latter got tied up in a different case in 2019.
Mark Geragos’ list of celebrity clients is extensive. In addition to MJ, it includes Chris Brown, Jussie Smollett, Winona Ryder, and Scottie Pippen. His daughter is, per the bio on her firm’s website , “particularly experienced in defending and investigating allegations of sexual misconduct”—experience that is likely to come in handy in Diddy’s case.
The younger Geragos has gotten plenty of notice for talking about Diddy on TikTok . She defended her media strategy to the New York Times.
“We want to be able to respond to allegations where people are forming opinions,” she said. “I see where all of the misinformation spreads. I see it happening on people’s phones and in short one-minute clips. “I don’t see the difference here in doing [TikTok] video versus going on TV.”
The Hollywood Reporter observed that when it comes to the trial, Geragos “will likely take on the delicate task of cross-examining female witnesses” who are accusing Diddy of sexual misconduct.
“Defense teams often presume juries may be sensitive to men questioning women in court about alleged sexual violence, which is why female attorneys are frequently called on for such inquiry,” they noted, citing the role of Donna Rotunno in Harvey Weinstein’s defense.
Who is Anthony Ricco?
That leaves the non-Brafman-associated lawyer on the team, Anthony Ricco.
Ricco might not have a connection to Brafman, but he does have an indirect one to Diddy. He represented former Bad Boy rapper G. Dep back in 2012 when Dep confessed to a decades-old murder .
Ricco is from Harlem (“a hellish place…known as 116th Street and 8th Avenue,” he once wrote ), and is a little more than a decade older than his 54-year-old client. On graduating law school, he clerked for Bruce McMarion Wright, an infamous New York judge who Ricco, looking back, called “distinguished but despised.” Wright was known as “Turn ‘Em Loose Bruce” by the PBA for his controversial bail decisions.
Ricco is best known for his death penalty work. He has handled 45 death penalty cases all over the country. Perhaps the most notable was Corey Arthur, accused in 1998 of killing Jonathan Levin, son of Time Warner’s then-CEO Gerald Levin.
However, longtime New Yorkers may remember Ricco from a different case he was involved in during the mid-aughts. The attorney successfully defended Gescard Isnora, an NYPD detective accused of killing a 23-year-old unarmed Black man, Sean Bell.
New York Magazine’s Chris Smith observed Ricco “dirty up the victim” during Isnora’s 2008 trial.
“Anthony Ricco is one of the city’s most gifted defense attorneys,” Smith wrote. “He also happens to be black and Muslim, and he favors fedoras and eyeglasses straight from the Malcolm X catalogue.”
Ricco’s work at the trial was called “electrifying” by the Daily News.
“I believe that all people are deserving of a fair trial,” he said at the time. “I have defended alleged cop killers. Now I was defending an alleged killer cop. Why is anybody ever opposed to a fair trial?”
Ricco is no stranger to controversial clients. He has repped a co-conspirator in the World Trade Center bombing case (the one in the ‘90s); the man accused of starting the 1991 Crown Heights riots ; and, per one 1998 article , “assorted murderous drug dealers and child abusers.”
He is currently an adjunct professor at Fordham , and also teaches at a special intensive training program for death penalty lawyers at Santa Clara University.
The other lawyers
There are a number of other lawyers in Diddy’s orbit right now as well. Alexandra Shapiro is representing him as he appeals the court’s decision to keep him in jail pending trial.
Shapiro went to Columbia for law school, graduating in 1991; clerked for a Supreme Court justice (the notorious RBG ); and went on to become one of the country’s “ leading appellate lawyers ”—meaning cases like Diddy’s bail decision that are in appeals court. She also wrote a novel about a white-collar case.
Coincidentally, Shapiro is also representing one of Diddy’s new roommates at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. She is repping Bankman-Fried as he appeals his conviction from earlier this year .
In addition to all the criminal attorneys, Diddy has three lawyers handling the civil cases filed against him— though he may soon need more people, as 120 additional lawsuits are likely to be filed against him in the coming months, according to Texas attorney Tony Buzbee.
His three current civil attorneys are Michael Tremonte, Erica Wolff, and Jonathan Davis. Davis has been in Diddy’s orbit for decades —the attorney was in his corner not only for suits over sexual misconduct, but also for completely unrelated cases dating back to the early 2000s .
Looking over the lawyers Diddy has hired to guide him through his federal case, it’s clear that all of them are experienced and qualified, and all have their roles and areas of expertise—Ricco in dealing with unpopular defendants; Geragos in sexual assault and the women who claim to be victims of it, as well as in using social media to get her message out; and Agnifilo in the complicated racketeering statutes that the feds will be using. Time will tell if that’s enough.