Meet the forensic psychologist set to testify at each Weinstein and Combs trials
Within the coming weeks, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs will go on trial in separate Manhattan courtrooms. The 2 defendants face totally different expenses, totally different judges and totally different potential punishments.
However the proceedings will share at the least one ingredient in frequent: testimony from a medical and forensic psychologist named Daybreak Hughes.
The upcoming court docket instances won’t be the primary time Hughes has performed a key function in dramatic authorized sagas on the nexus of superstar and energy within the post-#MeToo period. In recent times, Hughes has taken the witness stand in different high-profile sexual misconduct trials that drew nationwide consideration.
When the NXIVM intercourse cult chief Keith Raniere went on trial in 2019, Hughes was readily available to clarify to jurors how serial sexual abusers “gaslight” their victims. Two years later, Hughes testified at R. Kelly’s federal trial, telling jurors that the R&B singer had subjected victims to “psychological entrapment.”
Raniere was discovered responsible of racketeering, intercourse trafficking and possession of kid pornography. R. Kelly was convicted in 2021 on one rely of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, a regulation that bars transporting folks throughout state traces “for any immoral goal.”
Hughes reached a brand new stage of nationwide consciousness after testifying on the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial. She took the stand in Might 2022, throughout the second month of the case, and rendered her skilled judgment in no unsure phrases.
“Ms. Heard was the sufferer of intimate associate violence,” Hughes advised jurors inside a wood-paneled courtroom in Fairfax County, Virginia. She had primarily based that evaluation partly on the almost 30 hours she spent evaluating Heard, Depp’s ex-wife. He vehemently denied her abuse claims.
Heard finally misplaced the defamation case. But the result of the Depp-Heard trial evidently did nothing to decrease Heard’s lawyer’s esteem for Hughes. In an interview, Elaine Charlson Bredehoft described Hughes as “an excellent skilled — in all probability the very best skilled I’ve had in 40 years of apply.”
“She’s extraordinarily detailed. She’s extraordinarily thorough. When she goes in to speak about any side of the case, she’s researched it completely and she or he’s reviewed all of the proof,” Bredehoft added. “She’s capable of discuss to a jury in lay particular person’s phrases … to have the ability to talk a few of these very tough areas like home violence and rape.”
Hughes declined an interview request, saying in an electronic mail that she does “not communicate with the press or media relating to ongoing issues.”
Hughes’ skilled specialties embody interpersonal violence, traumatic stress and nervousness problems, in line with her web site. She retains an impartial apply in New York Metropolis, the place she is a medical assistant professor of psychology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital – Weill Cornell Medical Faculty.
Elizabeth Geddes, a former federal prosecutor who was a part of the authorized crew that secured a conviction towards R. Kelly in Brooklyn in 2021, stated Hughes is expert at explaining to jurors what many perpetrators of sexual abuse have in frequent — in addition to behaviors generally exhibited by victims of sexual misconduct.
“Prosecutors depend on people like Dr. Hughes to assist the jurors perceive sure behaviors that will not come throughout at first look,” similar to abusers’ typical ways for sustaining management over victims and why some victims don’t instantly report assault or harassment to regulation enforcement officers, Geddes stated.
Geddes added that Hughes’ in depth expertise — one thing Geddes tapped as she sought to place R. Kelly behind bars — provides Hughes “a variety of credibility” with juries.
Combs’ attorneys have forcefully resisted prosecutors’ plans to name Hughes as an skilled witness. In a 35-page movement filed earlier this month, the rapper’s crew requested a decide to dam her from taking the stand, arguing partly that her testimony could be “advocacy masquerading as experience” and should be “excluded in its entirety.”
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Combs’ crew’s movement contains the federal prosecutors’ skilled witness disclosure submitting, which says Hughes’ “testimony is predicted to clarify how the overarching dynamic of victimization is an abuse of energy and management the place the perpetrator engages in self-centered conduct to fulfill his personal objectives and needs whatever the wants, needs, and well-being of the sufferer.”
Decide Arun Subramanian, who’s overseeing the Combs case, stated Friday he plans to rule on the scope of Hughes’ testimony subsequent week.
Within the Weinstein case, Decide Curtis Farber dominated that Hughes can present testimony concerning the psychological and traumatic results of rape and sexual assault.
It stays to be seen how Weinstein’s and Combs’ attorneys will try to puncture Hughes’ experience as they defend their shoppers. Weinstein faces one rely of rape within the third diploma and two counts of prison sexual act within the first diploma. Combs faces expenses of intercourse trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy to have interaction in prostitution.
Each males have pleaded not responsible and denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.
In at the least one respect, Hughes is probably going conscious that testifying throughout megawatt trials would possibly come at a price. When she took the stand amid the Depp-Heard case, her WebMD profile was flooded with unfavorable critiques. The social internet was dominated by pro-Depp sentiment on the time, and the critiques accused Hughes of being biased towards males.
She by no means publicly addressed the digital firestorm. The critiques have been taken down after they turned the topic of stories reviews.
