As part of the federal indictment brought against Sean “Diddy” Combs last week, prosecutors included one particularly shocking detail. Amid the allegations of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse (Combs has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering), they noted that law-enforcement officers had seized “more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant” from Combs’s Miami and Los Angeles residences during raids earlier this year. Now Combs’s attorney is attempting to play off the amount of baby oil as though it isn’t a glaring red flag.
Attorney Marc Agnifilo sat down with TMZ’s Harvey Levin for an upcoming documentary on the Combs indictment. The gossip site shared a clip on Wednesday, in which Agnifilo tried to reframe Combs’s “Freak Offs” — the alleged sexual performances at the center of the Combs indictment, where prosecutors say victims were “abused, threatened, and coerced” into participating — as normal sexual behavior.
“Back when I was a kid in the late ’70s, they were called threesomes,” he told Levin. When Levin asked how that would explain the “1,000 bottles of baby oil,” Agnifilo said he didn’t even know where that number came from. Levin informed him that it came from the U.S. attorney.
“I can’t imagine it’s thousands, and I’m not really sure what the baby oil has to do with anything,” Agnifilo said. When Levin stated that they’re implying it’s a sexual lubricant, Agnifilo played dumb.
“I guess. I don’t know what you need a thousand … one bottle of baby oil goes a long way. I don’t know what you need a thousand for. I mean, he has a big house. He buys in bulk,” he explained. “I think they have Costcos in every place where he has a home. Have you sat in a parking lot at a Costco and seen what people walk out of there with?”
A spokesperson for Costco later told TMZ that they do not sell baby oil at any of their U.S. locations.
Agnifilo’s attempt at spin is particularly galling if you return to Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura’s lawsuit against Combs from November of last year. Her complaint went into great detail about Freak Offs, with her lawyers writing
that the hotel rooms where Freak Offs were held were stocked with “baby oil and Astroglide.” Ventura also alleged that Combs would instruct her to “pour excessive amounts of oil over herself.” This is probably not the best detail for Agnifilo to be glib about.