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Sean “Diddy” Combs’s legal team in his Manhattan Federal Court sex-trafficking trial reads like a who’s-who list of defense attorneys with celebrity clients. [LINK TO CLAUDIA STORY?] Marc Agnifilo (who represents Luigi Mangione), Teny Geragos (NXIVM’s Keith Raniere), Brian Steel (Young Thug), and Xavier Donaldson are among the eight lawyers listed on Diddy’s court docket. There’s also jury consultant Linda Moreno (Elizabeth Holmes) helping with jury selection. Meanwhile, powerhouse defenders Mark Geragos (Menendez brothers) and Tina Glandian (Chris Brown) have been sitting in the gallery watching jury selection. When asked if she was on Diddy’s team, Glandian didn’t respond.
This is a lot of lawyers — a lot of lawyers who typically get paid very well. So how much is all this setting Diddy back? Several legal veterans offered estimates of the cost of his entire legal team, and it is not cheap.
“I expect Diddy to spend eight figures or more than $10 million on defense fees when it’s all said it done. Top-tier criminal defense attorneys in complex federal cases charge retainers of $1 million or more,” said Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor. “Diddy has a small army of lawyers working on his case. That’s expected when his net worth was reportedly $1 billion and his life is on the line.”
How does this all break down? “The trial will last two months, and daily burn for all the lawyers, paralegals, assistants, experts, and jury consultants may exceed $100,000 for each day of trial,” Rahmani said. “That’s not even counting the many months of pretrial motions and preparation, and the inevitable appeal if Diddy is convicted.”
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A source closely connected to numerous top defense attorneys did not give an exact number but agreed the total cost is likely “millions,” offering an estimate similar to Rahmani’s. A high-profile defendant with this kind of legal team can also expect to shell out a minimum $1 million retainer per lead attorney or firm. A top lawyer could run $1,600 an hour with support, while lower-profile lawyers and paralegals might cost $700 to $1,000 per hour each. Hours extend far beyond trial days, including all the court proceedings leading up to trial, client meetings, and writing filings. Roughly add all that up, and you’re looking at a few million at the trial’s end, right? “Something like that,” the source said.
Eric Faddis, a trial attorney and founding partner of Denver, Colorado, law firm Varner Faddis, said that coming up with an estimate is complicated, especially for this kind of case. “Due to the complexity of the RICO case, the multiplicity of the allegations spanning decades, and the high-profile nature of the celebrity defendant, I would say that the defense costs are in the seven figures, at the very least.”
Of course, we won’t know the legal tab unless someone on Team Diddy decides to spill, which almost certainly will not happen.
But we tried. As a group of Diddy’s lawyers was walking out of the courthouse, I asked defense attorney Teny Geragos how much a Diddy defense would run. She smiled and offered a good-natured laugh.
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