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Combs Found Not Guilty of Most Serious Charges, Convicted on Prostitution Charges; House GOP Pressing Ahead With Key Procedural Vote on Trump Agenda; Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty to Murders of Four Idaho College Students. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 02, 2025 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[14:00:32]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Fresh off of being acquitted of the most serious charges, we are now waiting to learn if we're going to see Sean "Diddy" Combs walk out of court today.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Literally as we speak, the judge is deciding if Combs can go home while he awaits his sentencing date or whether he will have to remain behind bars. Just moments ago, letters sent by the prosecution and defense were submitted to the judge and they were released to the public. We also just learned this decision will now come at 5:00 p.m. today. Let's get right to CNN Anchor, Laura Coates live outside the courthouse. Laura, walk us through the details of these letters.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: These letters are so important. Remember, he has been found guilty of two separate counts under the umbrella of the so-called Mann Act, which prohibits transportation for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. Now, this particular charge can result in up to 10 years in prison and they could run consecutively, meaning back to back, because the two different acts that he has been convicted of now were not close in time. They have every right to ask them to be consecutive.

But what the judge is going to be looking at now and deciding whether to release this person is multiple layers. One layer, of course, is the actual charge itself and the severity of the potential sentence that'll be factored in and whether he will decide to even impose jail time. Number two, it's always going to be about whether the person is a flight risk or a threat to the safety of the greater community.

Now, for that purpose, the defense is proposing various conditions of release, pending his sentencing, to suggest that he could comply with, that his track record of compliance under conditions would be useful for the judge in looking at this case. Who will also look at things, for example, as his passport. Where is it? Who will be looking at him? Will there be drug tests as well? Who might he be around? And of course, the overarching one, that one could not engage in any criminal activity whatsoever. These conditions of release could be set by a judge as a way of saying, I want to keep this person under close watch, under my thumb. You might be free to go for now, but you are still pending sentencing. Now, the prosecution wants the judge to look at this and say, we intend to ask for jail time. We want this person to remain in jail. These are still serious charges, albeit not the most serious like RICO that could have carried a lifetime in prison sentence. They're going to also ask the judge to consider a multitude of factors and suggest that his criminal history or lack thereof in terms of a conviction should not be the whole story.

They're going to argue that perhaps it is not comprehensive enough for the judge to consider. And I also note there was a note attached, a letter from one of the witnesses at scene, who testified in this case, Deonte Nash, the stylist and good friend of Cassie Ventura, who took the stand for over a day, talking about his experience and having witnessed violence at the hands of Sean "Diddy" Combs against Cassie Ventura. Remember, he was a witness who said that at one point in time, Diddy came over to Cassie Ventura's apartment, and he tried to jump on his back to prevent her from being harmed.

She was -- she fell onto, I think an edge of a bed, gashing over her eyebrow before heading up to, I think, it was Canada, to be a part of an event there as well. He is saying that he believes that Diddy does present a threat to the society, still at large. This is important because we cannot forget that witnesses took the stand, some were pseudonymed, some have aliases, but they're not known to general public, but they are known to Diddy. So this is a statement I think the judge will look at to figure out how he will assess it.

In any event though, the idea of him being called presumed innocent to now on certain charges not guilty will be top of mind for this particular judge.

KEILAR: All right, Laura, stay right there for us, if you would, while we bring in the Executive Editor for Deadline Hollywood, Dominic Patten here in studio with us. Civil Rights Attorney Areva Martin, Entertainment Journalist Segun Oduolowu is with us as well.

First to you Dominic, I just wonder what you're thinking as we have gotten this outcome that is so good for Diddy, really the best of all of the realistic outcomes, I think we could say, and as we're waiting to see what the judge decides whether Diddy is going to stay in prison as he awaits sentencing.

DOMINIC PATTEN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD: Well, I think it's pretty clear, Brianna. He probably is not going to stay behind bars and will likely be released either today or on the July 4th holiday. This was a stunning defeat for the prosecution.

[14:05:00]

What they got here is really the lowest, or as some have said, the minor charges. And what we're really looking at here, and Laura talked about the letters, even the government have said in their own eight- page letter that they just submitted, they see a maximum using the guidelines of 51 to 63 months here. So we're looking at a couple of years, whether or not these are tacked onto each other or they are on consecutively, of course, that is the judge's discretion. As Laura mentioned, these are two separate people. One of them has to do with Cassie Ventura being transported across state lines. Another one has to do with the woman going under the pseudonym 'Jane', as well as the various male escorts.

But this is wide open for him, and there is very little to argue that he should stay in custody at this point. Now, we have seen over the months that clearly, clearly, the judge was not letting him out on previous attempts at bond, which were at $50 million. With a lot of the same criteria we saw here, the drug testing, the limited to Florida, New York, New Jersey, L.A., et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and co-signed by his mother, which is very interesting actually. But I still think at this junction, the government having lost so much of this, it's clear he's going to walk.

KEILAR: Interesting.

SANCHEZ: Areva, is there anything you see that would have the judge swayed to keep him in custody?

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: I don't think so. I think, again, given that the serious charges he was not found guilty on, if you remove his name, if you remove his fame, his fortune, and the empire that he has built, and you ask the question, if this were any other defendant, what would the judge do? And the judge did ask for the lawyers to submit case laws, so that he could look at precedent so that the decision wouldn't be made based on the celebrity nature of this trial, or the fact that Sean Combs is a celebrity, but justice should be meted out based on the everyday citizen.

What would anyone else without a criminal record, who is likely to submit to all kinds of restrictions, would they be allowed out on bail? And I think the answer to that question is yes. Although the prosecution will make a strong argument for why he should be detained, I think there's enough precedent for his release at this time, even though that's going to be disappointing to so many people who believe the verdicts don't accurately reflect the actions that Sean Combs engaged in over more than a decade.

KEILAR: Segun, this is so much bigger than a legal case, and this has cross-sections of all kinds of folks watching coast to coast. What are you thinking on this day, as we've had this outcome?

SEGUN ODUOLOWU, ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALIST: Well, the ugly truth is that there are no real winners or losers in this. It feels like the government took a hammer to try and swat a fly because we heard testimony after testimony of these monstrous activities, only to come back with the most serious charges being acquit -- him being acquitted for. And if you are on the side that we need to listen to women and respect women when they speak up and protect our women, we have video evidence of this man beating Cassie Ventura in a hallway.

And at the end of the trial, him and his friends are cheering, like that cannot feel good. I've been speaking to producers, music producers that have worked with Diddy and to a man, they all said for his abuse of women, he should be in jail. That -- they were unequivocal about that. But with what the government was throwing at Sean Combs to, Dominic is right, like the government lost here and we the people are the ones that are going to suffer because yeah, I do think that he could engage in these types of activities again.

He does present a bit of a risk because this is who he has always been. There has been anecdotal evidence of these things that Diddy has been doing or has conducted himself for a very long time, Areva spoke to it, for more than a decade, and this is the result that we get? We see a person taken down, but not really for what they were accusing him of. Like, it doesn't feel like justice has been served. And if I'm one of the witnesses that was brave enough to go up there, subpoenaed by the government, so basically against my will, the government subpoenaed Cassie.

Cassie didn't do this necessarily willingly, right? She had already settled with Sean Combs out of court for millions of dollars, subpoenaed by the government, go up there, confront this person that has attacked you and made your life a living hell, this is the result? Rosie O'Donnell said that this doesn't speak well for us believing women. So, Hollywood isn't really on board with this verdict, I don't think a large section of the public is on board with this verdict.

[14:10:00]

And there are fingers to point in every direction and squarely at the government for not really bringing this case home.

SANCHEZ: I do want to point out, as you were speaking, Segun, we got a letter sent by Cassie Ventura's attorney to the judge, essentially suggesting that Combs stay in detention. That Ventura believes that Combs is likely to pose a danger to the victims who testified in the case, including herself, as well as to the community. Areva, what kind of weight does a letter like this hold?

MARTIN: Oh, a tremendous amount of weight. Despite the acquittal of the more serious charges, we heard the most reprehensible testimony possible from Cassie about the repeated beatings that she suffered from Sean Combs. And one of the things the judge is going to have to consider is Jane's testimony. Jane was beaten up by Combs even after he knew he was under federal investigation. So I think the government has a credible argument that even when he knew he was going to be held accountable, that he was going to be charged with serious felonies, he still engaged in violent conduct.

And to Segun's point, no doubt, Sean Diddy Combs was and by all accounts, is a very dangerous man. We've heard about witnesses terrified about testifying, about coming forward. We know that many of those fear, today, a retribution for testifying. Deonte Nash, the stylist, is willing and has come forth to state that he has concerns about his release. So, this is not going to be an easy decision by this judge. He's going to have to weigh the testimony of these witnesses and now, Cassie Ventura, the star witness weighing in saying that she herself is fearful if he is released. KEILAR: Laura, that's a really interesting point there about the potential dangers here. This is of course, a defendant who also was denied bail multiple times, including because of concerns of witness tampering. He has shown a pattern of behavior where he kind of goes outside of the very clear bounds of the court. How might the judge see that, even though he has been acquitted of these very serious charges, which in some other case, might allow a defendant to be free while awaiting sentencing?

COATES: When a jury has spoken, the judge cannot rewrite history and suddenly transform what was a verdict of acquittal on those major counts into what they ought to have done. I say this because there is always a divide between the court of public opinion and what the jurors heard, received and actually ultimately decided. See, one thing that was really fascinating about this case is because of the, frankly, iconic stature that Diddy had achieved throughout the course of his music career, many people knew who he was and had preconceived notions or maybe personal stories and ideas of who he was.

But he wasn't actually charged as a standalone crime of the assault that we saw in that now infamous Intercontinental Hotel video. He wasn't charged in standalone crimes with respect to assault as related to Jane. And that has a very big impact on a jury. As we begin to reflect on what they were asked to decide, it could very well be that this jury completely and totally believed everything that the witnesses had to say about these so-called freak offs and about the violence and about their feelings of having participated or been forced to do so.

But what the jury was asked to do was to evaluate what the prosecution was able to present. It was their job to present a case beyond a reasonable doubt that they could prove each and every element. And I have to tell you, it's more complex than the everyday conversations we will have in private parties and in our homes and with our colleagues. Let me just give you an example for one, on the verdict form for RICO alone. They had to first find whether or not he was guilty of RICO or not, and that was an enterprise, a group of people who engaged in a series of crimes, a pattern within a 10-year period.

And then they had to go through the line of various, what are called, predicate crimes, whether the government had proven the case of kidnapping, of arson, of bribery, of witness tampering, of forced labor, sex trafficking, prostitution, just to name a few. And then they were supposed to reach the conclusions about sex trafficking and the like. We don't know whether they found with respect to all of those different things, because the verdict form just said not guilty for the RICO.

But I want people -- as a prosecutor, I understand it is very difficult for people to accept a judge a jury's decision, but they have spoken. Now, the judge's decision is quite different. He has the decision behind him of whether this person will be ultimately sentenced and how, and whether he'll be released until then.

[14:15:00] But make no mistake about it, the court of public opinion behind me and all around the world, very clear. There is a mixed reaction, but these 12 jurors, they were unanimous.

SANCHEZ: To that point about a mixed reaction, Dominic, Sean Combs is somebody that, as Laura put it, reached an iconic stature, beloved, the way he sort of guided hip hop out of the fallout of the '90s, East Coast, West Coast, battled the death of Biggie Smalls and Tupac, and made himself a name brand -- branded himself onto products, his music business perhaps more known than his music. Right?

What does this mean now that he's able to beat the most serious allegations he's ever faced?

PATTEN: Well, I mean, I think, Boris, you have to look at it sometimes within two contexts here, the context of the man himself and the context within hip hop culture. Within hip hop culture, I think there's going to be some swagger here. There's also going to be some blowback. We've already seen Diddy's longtime rival, 50 Cent, already dissing on him online. So I think that's going to be a part of that, and there's going to be a lot of mixed feelings out of this.

I think, there are some people who always saw Diddy as a little bit of an impersonator, joining up with people like Biggie Smalls gave him credibility. This now shows him in a very different light. I think also though, what you're going to see to the man is, I hate to say this, but in America, you can just ask Bill Clinton, if you say sorry enough, eventually enough, people forgive you.

Being that he can now legitimately say he got off on the majority of these counts from a prosecution who way overreached and underplayed, again, I don't understand why you do RICO, but you only charge one guy. Like maybe you need to look up what RICO is. To that, I think that you are going to see how he plays out the next few years of his career, given or given not whatever the prison sentence might be, I don't think we've seen the end of Sean "Diddy" Combs.

SANCHEZ: Segun, last word to you. Your thoughts on what watching him potentially walk out of the courtroom might mean as a cultural moment?

ODUOLOWU: Yeah. Hip hop is a very forgiving genre, right? It's got some hard and fast rules, as long as you don't snitch or speak to the cops or speak to the Feds, and even then we might, hip hop might look the other way. Diddy basically went up against the federal government and won. And in hip hop parlance, that is, I mean, you're untouchable. 50 even joke that now he's like the John Gotti of hip hop.

What is so, and Dominic, you touched on it, the overreach of the government emboldens hip hop in quite a way to say, like, you came after one of our own and you lost. And Areva said it, we are overlooking the violence that this man is capable of, and I think that should not be forgotten. We've seen it. We've seen him caught in a lie, saying that this was a shakedown by Cassie. He never put his hands on Cassie. When the video comes out and he apologizes, I don't know, but based off what the judge is going to ultimately decide, however many years he receives, how he will rebuild his empire, because a lot of it was on his taste making (ph) ability.

You wanted to be around Diddy, you wanted to go to his white party, you wanted to be on the yacht with him. You wanted to do all the fun things that he embodied or showed. Now, we see that there was a darkness behind that limelight. So, I don't know the brands that are going to come and sidle up to him, which was what built his empire. I don't know the artists that are going to want to be in the studio with him, but I have seen women outside holding signs that said, free R. Kelly. So in music business, anything is possible.

KEILAR: Yeah, and it is a very good point. Segun Oduolowu, thank you so much. Dominic Patten and Areva Martin, we really appreciate your insights. And still to come, we're following key votes underway on President Trump's huge bill, the battle to get House Republicans on board. Plus, we have some new details from the Idaho courtroom where Bryan Kohberger just pleaded guilty in the murders of four University of Idaho students. CNN's Jean Casarez is standing by.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm live in Boise, Idaho. Bryan Kohberger has just pleaded guilty to four counts of first degree murder. I was in that courtroom. I will tell you everything the camera did not show, right after this.

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[14:24:01]

KEILAR: We have breaking news out of Idaho where a short time ago, Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to all five counts in the 2022 murders of four college students. Prosecutors removed the possibility of the death penalty despite objections from some of the victim's families. CNN's Jean Casarez just got out of the courtroom there in Boise. And Jean, this plea deal means that families may never get answers, right, to all of the things that a trial may have provided. But we did learn a lot of details about the evidence that was pointing towards Kohberger's guilt.

CASAREZ: And Bryan Kohberger had to listen to it all. Brianna, the courtroom was packed. It was wall to wall with people. There was law enforcement standing around the courtroom. But so many family members of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, they were there in that courtroom.

[14:25:00]

And when Bryan Kohberger walked in, he made a beeline for Anne Taylor. Looking at her with his eyes, just like that very first time that he went into court, I saw him, and he made a beeline for his father, looking at his father. This time, it was Anne Taylor, and he was so intently looking at her, but he was smiling at her also, as he walked in, completely different demeanor of Bryan Kohberger. When I first saw him, that first court appearance in Pennsylvania, there was a strength, there was a confidence. He appeared to be ready to do this, and it was just very evident.

He sat down next to his attorney, spoke a few words to her, but then very shortly after that, Judge Steven Hippler walked in and sat down and began the proceedings. So his focus bee lined to Judge Hippler. So focused, I mean, he never looked in any other direction, but straight on to the judge. When the judge started talking to him directly, not asking him any questions yet, but saying I am going to ask you questions. I am going to want to see that this was free and voluntarily made.

He's like going like this. His head's going up and down, and he was sort of like rolling a little bit. It never happened again, after that completely stoic. But then he was asked his first question and he actually stood up and answered it and said thank you, sat down. And then when he had to take the oath, he stood up and the judge says, you don't have to stand up. That's very respectful of the court, but you can stay seated.

So then, the judge started to talk about and ask him these questions. Now, the family members of the victims, they were focused. They were looking at him, but they didn't have expressions on their face. They were just intent. There was one family member who was crying. She was crying softly, but she was crying hard, and she had a Kleenex and it kept coming, really through the whole proceeding.

But Bryan Kohberger was focused on simply the judge, and he started being asked the questions, was this freely involuntarily made? Yes, it was. But then the pivotal question is asked, did you commit these murders? And he answered yes. So then, you want to know more. You want to know why he committed the murders? That question was never answered at all. But the prosecutor then went through really the probable cause affidavit, things that we have almost known from the very beginning. Kohberger turns his focus to the prosecutor, doesn't take his eyes off the lead prosecutor, but no expression.

He never agrees with one thing he is saying, but constantly looking at him. Now, while all of this was going on in the courtroom, Kaylee Goncalves' father, the family was in there, he opted to stay outside and he spoke his mind, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE GONCALVES, FATHER OF KAYLEE GONCALVES: We didn't agree on anything. He only negotiated with the murder of our children. That was the only person that he negotiated with. He basically said, your guys' input isn't needed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: It finally gets to the point where the judge has to go count by count, asking Bryan Kohberger, did you commit the intentional premeditated murder of Kaylee Goncalves? And he said yes. Courtroom silent, family watching, no emotion. But we had been told to not have emotion in the courtroom. The media was told no emotion. Family may have been told that too.

He went one by one. And so, he accepted the plea. The judge said that the sentencing -- the judge was a little lighthearted here. I don't know what the family's thought was on that, but he says, I have the whole month of July and August free. The trial was supposed to be during the month of August, jury selection the end of July, and then the trial. So at this point, it is going to be, I believe, July 23rd and 24th, if necessary.

Prosecutor believes it can happen in one day, but there are so many family members and he wants each one of them to be able to speak. But it does not look like there will be any conditions for Bryan Kohberger to speak to the families, to apologize to the families, to say why he did it at all. He can make an allocution before the court. We'll have to see if he speaks, and if he says anything, it will be his own decision, not one that was built into this plea agreement.

KEILAR: Yeah, the prosecutor choking up at some points, although some family members really unhappy with this plea deal. Others, happy to forego the emotion of the trial, but it was certainly unnerving how unemotional we saw Bryan Kohberger. Jean, thank you so much. You've been following this all along. We really appreciate you telling us what happened in the courtroom.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead --