Venezuela's Maduro adds Sean 'Diddy' Combs' lawyer to defense team

NEW YORK, June 4 – Nicolas Maduro has added a lawyer who represented hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs at trial to his defense team, court records showed on Thursday, as the ousted Venezuelan president prepares to fight the U.S. drug trafficking charges he faces.

• Anna Estevao of law firm Harris Trzaskoma was part of the team that secured acquittals for Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, which could have landed him in prison for life.

• Combs was found guilty on two lesser prostitution-related counts and is serving a 50-month prison sentence at a federal lockup in New Jersey. He is appealing his convictions and his sentence.

• Maduro has pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges. He is jailed in Brooklyn ahead of trial.

• Estevao was added to the defense team two days after Harris Trzaskoma announced that Maduro’s Washington-based defense lawyer Barry Pollack was joining the firm. Pollack had previously been with the firm Harris St. Laurent.

• At Combs’ trial, Estevao cross-examined star prosecution witness Casandra Ventura, Combs’ ex-girlfriend. Ventura had accused the Bad Boy Records founder of forcing her to take part in degrading sexual performances.

• Estevao showed jurors emails and text messages, some of which were sexually explicit, from early in Combs’ and Ventura’s  relationship to try to portray her as a willing participant in the drug-fueled performances.

• Maduro is due to appear in federal court in Manhattan on June 30 for a hearing at which his lawyers are expected to discuss the pre-trial motions they plan to make to try to get the charges dismissed.

• Pollack has signaled he is prepared to challenge the legality of what he called Maduro’s “abduction” by the U.S. military during a January 3 raid on his home in Caracas.

• A spokesperson for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, which brought the charges against Combs and Maduro, declined to comment. REUTERS