Ben Brafman is one of the top criminal lawyers in New York, with a client roster ranging from high-level mobsters to celebrities such as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Michael Jackson. He recently spoke with of The New York Sun.

How often do people approach you for free legal advice?

Every 20 minutes. I think the correct question is, how often am I able to successfully evade the people who approach me for free legal advice.

Do you think our celebrity-obsessed culture makes it harder or easier to defend someone like Sean Combs?

It makes it harder and in an unusual way, at the end of the day, easier.W hat’s interesting is that we’re so obsessed with celebrities that, unfortunately, some criminal cases are not about what a person did or did not do but about who is in the vortex of the controversy. The Sean Combs case was a classic example of a criminal case run amok. If that were a normal case, it would never have become a case or it becomes a one-day trial instead of an eight-week media spectacular. It defies logic why that case was covered as intensely as it was for as long as it was and yet, from a selfish standpoint, it was great for me at the end of the day because he was acquitted.

Does your defense strategy differ when the client is famous?

I think you have to remain focused on what your defense is and how are you going to develop it regardless of who the client is. It is much more difficult to do that when you’re in a high profile case where the entire world is second-guessing everything you do….I think that in many of the high-profile celebrity cases that end up as unmitigated disasters, it’s the media that make it impossible for the lawyers to overcome the prejudices. You get a guy like Scott Peterson for example – I know something about that case because I dealt with Mark Garagos when we were both Michael Jackson’s lawyers – and this is a classic example of a major homicide case with almost no evidence, yet the whole world hates this guy and he’s vilified on every talk show incessantly because you have a dead pregnant white woman and an unborn baby. Those are bad facts to have in a murder case.

What’s your verdict?

My prediction is it’s going to be a hung jury. It’s hard to convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt that you should end somebody’s life when you don’t have any of the classic murder evidence: you don’t have a witness, you don’t have fingerprints, you don’t have forensic evidence, you don’t have a confession, you don’t have tape recordings, you don’t have a weapon, you don’t have a cause of death. You give that to a really good criminal defense lawyer to work with in a non high-profile case and it’s a 10-minute acquittal.

Have you ever been accused of a crime?

No.

Not even back in your yeshiva days?

When I was in school, we were accused of all sorts of things but it never rose to the level of criminal conduct. I would classify it as mischief. We were in a lot of fights, but clearly it was an issue of self-defense. Being a criminal defense lawyer gives you a very different perspective than most people. I am much more careful about my personal issues than most lawyers at my place in life because I see how innocent mistakes can then become much more serious complications….I have a terrific accountant who runs my life for me and I’m a terrific client.

Has fighting the government made you nonpartisan?

I’m a particularly strong advocate on behalf of the state of Israel and while I see glaring faults with both of the presidential candidates, I’m comforted by the Bush position with respect to Israel and frightened by Kerry’s benign neglect of the issue throughout the campaign. As someone who cross-examines people for a living, I could really do a terrific cross on Kerry on foreign policy just based on his own inconsistent statements. I’m not impressed with George Bush, but he is what he is and what you see is what you get. I think he sees the world in two parts, good and evil, and as elementary as that assessment is, I’m not so certain he’s not right given developments in the last couple of years.

As an Orthodox Jew, do you ever look to religious teachings to give you an edge in the courtroom?

One of the principles at the center of Judaism is deal fairly and charitably with people in distress, give yourself to people in need, and give people the benefit of the doubt. When someone gets into legal difficulties, that person can become a pariah in 15 minutes, and at the end of the day, I am a psychiatrist, a rabbi, a priest, a friend and a shoulder to cry on. People say, you hang out with Puffy, you’re in the newspaper, you’re on TV, it must be fun to do what you do. I tell them the truth: 10% of what I do is fun and 90% of what I do is really bone-crunching, hard, sad, difficult, complicated work where the pressure is sometimes beyond description. If I did not keep the Sabbath and didn’t have a sense of humor, I’d either be in a mental institution or out doing something much different.

Would you take a call from Saddam Hussein’s legal team?

I would take the call but I would tell them that I’m not the right guy to represent him. I think he’s entitled to a lawyer, but he shouldn’t have a lawyer who thinks, deep in his heart, that [Saddam] doesn’t deserve to live.