It's no secret that Diddy is in for a serious legal battle. Last year, he was arrested and hit with charges related to alleged sex trafficking and racketeering. The Bad Boy founder is currently behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting his trial, which is scheduled to begin in May. The jury selection process is expected to kick off sometime this month.
As the mogul got his legal team together, lawyer Joe Tacopina was offered the opportunity to represent him. Tacopina has previously represented celebrity clients like ASAP Rocky, Meek Mill, Michael Jackson, and even Donald Trump. When it came to Diddy, however, he decided to turn him down. During a recent interview with VladTV, he was asked why exactly this is. According to him, it's not for the reasons some might expect.
Joe Tacopina Diddy
"I didn't turn him down because I don't like him or I don't believe in his case. I think he's got a very defensible case," he explained. "To me, this whole case boils down to an issue of consent. As far as I know, I don't know all the evidence, but it's an issue of consent. Did they consent or did they not? Was a gun put to someone's head? Or did they want to do it because they were getting all the perks associated with being part of a Diddy party and being one of Diddy's entourage?" Tacopina continued, revealing that for him, turning down the case was simply a matter of timing.
"My turning it down is because I [had] Rocky's trial coming up and a host of other things," he revealed. "It was just timing for me." DJ Vlad then asked whether or not Tacopina's decision to turn down Diddy's case had anything to do with his relationship with Jay-Z and Roc Nation. "I do have a great relationship with Jay and Roc Nation, I represent a lot of them," he said. "That would have nothing to do with it. No one at Roc Nation ever told me not to prepresent him, so, that I think was misconstrued and probably taken out of context."
