Donald Trump may be hedging on Sean Combs getting a pardon, but the ex-girlfriend and AWOL government witness who skipped the sex-trafficking trial of the convicted Bad Boy Records founder now thinks Diddy‘s changed, poses no threat, and should be out on a $50 million bond ASAP.
“Our relationship, like many, was not always perfect, we experienced ups and downs, and mistakes were made but he was willing to acknowledge his mistakes and make better decisions in the future,” declares the self revealing Virginia Huynh a.k.a. “Gina” a.k.a. Victim-3 in a letter included with correspondence from Combs’ defense team filed today in federal court.
Cited in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York’s indictment of Combs on racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution as one of the accused primary victims, Victim-3 was scheduled to testify for the feds along with Victim-1 Cassie Ventura and Victim-2 “Jane” in the May 12 starting trial in Manhattan. However, just days before the jury trial in front of Judge Arun Subramanian was beginning, Victim-3 was nowhere to be found and wasn’t responding to prosecutors’ attempts to contact her or her lawyer.
Risking throwing the whole matter into chaos, the former Combs girlfriend’s absence was noted by attorneys and witnesses alike repeatedly over the more than a month of trial. “Gina, though she will not be testifying, is a main character in this trial,” prosecutor Christy Slavik stated at one point of the abuse and assaults Victim-3 allegedly suffered.
Identifying herself publicly now at a pivotal time for Combs, who in early July was only found guilty of two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and is set to be sentenced on October 3, Huynh started seeing the ‘I Need A Girl’ performer in 2014 – – a fact and relationship that caused tensions with both Ventura and “Jane” as sometimes harrowing testimony of drug driven and filmed “freak-off” sex sessions with male escorts, horrible violence by admitted domestic abuser Combs and more laid bare.
Still that alleged maltreatment and exploitation seems cast aside in Huynh’s letter Sunday.
“Over the years that followed he made visible efforts to become a better person and to address the harm he had caused,” she says of the much accused and much sued Combs, advocating for him being sprung from the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he had been in custody since his September 2024 arrest, on a $50 million bond. “By the time our relationship ended, he embodied an energy of love, patience and gentleness that was markedly different from his past behavior. To my knowledge, he has not been violent for many years, and he has been committed to being a father first.”
In a direct blow to prosecutors’ POV and to Judge Subramanian’s own repeated opinion in denying previous bond requests by Combs’ lawyers, Huynh adds: “I am writing because I do not view Mr. Combs as a danger to me or to the community.” At the end of the one-page letter she takes a fairly large leap of faith: “Allowing him to be at home will also support the healing process for all involved.”
In this courtroom sketch, Sean “Diddy” Combs, far left, reacts as the jury foreman reads the July 2, 2025 verdict convicting him of prostitution-related offenses but acquitting him of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Elizabeth Williams via AP
Without direct mention of Victim-3, the once Maurene Comey-led prosecution (Trump’s DOJ fired her suddenly late last month) has already put their difference of opinion and facts in the docket. “The trial record is replete with evidence of the defendant’s acts of violence towards others,” the feds said in a July 31 letter to Judge Subramanian pushing back on the Marc Agnifilo- and Teny Gerago-led defense’s latest move to get their client out.
Again, in correspondence filed before Huynh’s letter Sunday, the SDNY also counter the notion that Combs has changed in recent years.
“More recently, the defendant brutally attacked Jane in June 2024, also in the context of a Freak Off,” they pinpoint of Combs, an abuse episode that would be months after Ventura’s quickly settled lawsuit ($20 million) against him and months after federal officials had raided homes of his on the East and West Coast. “As Jane testified at trial, after she initiated a physical confrontation with the defendant, she repeatedly locked herself in rooms in her home to protect herself from the defendant.”
The defense today waved off prosecutors allegations about “Gina,” the reported June 2024 attack on “Jane” and where Combs himself is at now.
“If any of this was true,” the now eight-lawyer deep defense says in a nuanced but also heavily redacted eight page letter of the abuse and freak-offs that allegedly rained down on Victim-3, “the government would have called this individual, but without credible evidence the Court should not consider this to continue to detain Combs.”
Reiterating the preemptive acknowledgement they used at trial, Agnifilo, Geragos, Alexandra Shapiro, Jason D. Driscoll, Nicole Westmoreland, Xavier Donaldson, Brian Steel and Anna Estevao make sure to affirm Combs has been on the straight and narrow since his arrest and detainment. “At trial, the defense admitted violence in connection with decades-old violence, and an incident of assault for which Combs was first attacked repeatedly in June of 2024,” they said Sunday.
“But Combs has not participated in any violence for the past 11-months, demonstrating to the Court that even in the conditions he is currently subject to, where there is ‘unchecked violence’ surrounding him, he will not commit assault,” the defense went on to say. “He is sober, has been committed to bettering himself with therapy (as established in the trial record) and is committed to doing everything possible to support himself and his family.”
The high profile defense goes on to exclaim: “That Sean Combs has been free of violence of every sort is important to understanding that man he is today. He has shown nothing but respect for the criminal justice system and everyone in it, from his first minute in jail until now. There is no reason to believe he will be violent or threatening to anyone in any manner.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office for the SDNY did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment Sunday on the defense’s latest letter and the correspondence from Huynh.
With just two months to go before the 20-year stint facing Combs is actually sentenced (he won’t get anywhere near that), it seems almost ludicrous for him to be let out at this point, especially with time served clearly to be part of what he gets. Almost, ludicrous but less so because the defense are already asking for a new trial and plan to formally appeal as soon as Judge Subramanian hands down the sentence in October.
till, having rejected bail requests for almost a year and as recently as when Combs was convicted on July 2, Judge Subramanian has said he will entertain the notion one more time — whether today’s letters have any impact beyond public opinion is the wild card — unless Trump really does pardon the “half-innocent” Combs beforehand.
