That Time Diddy Prank Called Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyer On Shabbat

Benjamin Brafman and Sean Combs Image by Getty Images/Forward Montage
Benjamin Brafman, the New York criminal defense attorney representing Harvey Weinstein, has had his fair share of famous clients, from mafia members to Martin Shkreli. But only one ever tried to get him to break Shabbat.
At a 2015 conference, Brafman, a religious Jew, told some fellow lawyers about a time when Sean Combs, the rapper, producer and vodka maven, called his house “a thousand times” on a Friday evening. The phone calls occurred, Brafman said, shortly after he agreed to represent Combs alongside legendary criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochrane after Combs had been a nightclub where a shooting had taken place.
In Brafman’s recollection, he had stressed to Combs that he wasn’t available 24/7, and to only call his home on Shabbat if it was a real emergency.
“I said, ‘24/6,’” Brafman said. “Don’t call me Friday night, and if it’s important I’ll give you people to call.”
That Friday night, Brafman’s home phone began ringing off the hook. On Monday, he called Combs to confirm that it had been him. Combs said it was, but not because there had been an emergency.
Brafman recently told reporters that one of the women accusing Weinstein of raping her was in a long term romantic relationship with him.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Opinion Marine Le Pen may be headed to prison — antisemitism and xenophobia still roam freely
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.