The music mogul Sean Combs helped hip-hop to interrupt by way of as well-liked music, and to turn out to be huge enterprise. He now faces federal prison fees that embody intercourse trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. If convicted of all fees, he may spend the remainder of his life in jail.
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Hector Vivas/Getty Photographs
This report contains mentions of bodily and sexual violence.
Opening arguments within the federal prison trial in opposition to hip-hop tycoon Sean Combs are scheduled to start at present in a Manhattan courtroom. Combs — who is best recognized by nicknames like Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and Diddy — is going through fees of racketeering and intercourse trafficking for alleged crimes that occurred over the course of twenty years. The 55-year-old Combs has pleaded not responsible to all fees, but when he’s discovered responsible, he may spend the remainder of his life in jail.
Who’s Sean Combs?
Combs started his profession within the early Nineties as a hip-hop producer and file label govt. From the early years of that decade into the 2000s, through the heyday of Dangerous Boy Data, the label he co-founded, Comb nurtured the careers of artists like The Infamous B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls), Religion Evans and Mase. In that period, he was a driving drive in enmeshing the hip-hop group with mainstream pop — and made himself the face of Dangerous Boy. After Biggie was murdered in 1997, Combs himself grew to become certainly one of Dangerous Boy’s greatest artists, with hits like “I will Be Lacking You” and “Been Across the World,” and continued to convey hip-hop into the pop music charts.
Quickly, Combs was well-positioned to parlay his success into different fields — and retooled himself right into a multifaceted leisure and life-style model. With property together with a clothes line (Sean John), TV manufacturing (together with the MTV actuality collection “Making the Band”), and a profitable liquor deal (creating the vodka model Ciroc with the liquor conglomerate Diageo). Because the file trade started a steep decline with the rise of streaming companies like Spotify, Combs had already discovered enormous success in these different ventures; by 2022, he had reportedly amassed a fortune of some $1 billion.
By that point, Combs was additionally being celebrated as a hip-hop elder: In 2022 and 2023, he was given lifetime achievement honors at each the BET Awards and the VMAs. In September 2023, the identical month Combs launched a brand new album, Mayor Eric Adams gave him the important thing to town — which Adams later requested to have returned. In November of that yr, the brand new album was nominated for a Grammy, however lower than every week later, Cassie Ventura filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to Combs alleging years of bodily, sexual and emotional abuse (extra on these allegations beneath).
What crimes is Combs accused of committing?
Federal prosecutors within the Southern District of New York have charged Combs with racketeering, intercourse trafficking and transportation to have interaction in prostitution. Within the present indictment, which was issued in April, the federal government alleges that over the course of some 20 years — between 2004 and 2024 — Combs sexually trafficked three ladies, managed them by way of bodily and emotional abuse, paid them and others to maintain quiet, and equipped alleged victims with a bunch of medicine to maintain them compliant. The indictment additionally describes Combs’ alleged “freak offs,” or “FOs” — elaborately deliberate, staged and sometimes videotaped marathons of intercourse and drug use — that play closely into Combs’ present authorized woes in each prison and civil courtroom.
Individually and concurrently to the federal fees, Combs is going through dozens of civil lawsuits that adopted one filed by his ex-girlfriend, the singer and mannequin Cassie; Cassie’s swimsuit was later settled (extra on that beneath). Within the present fits, many accusers say that they had been raped or sexually assaulted after being drugged at certainly one of his lavish events. Others allege that Combs compelled them to take part in or witness the “freak offs.” In the meantime, the opposite co-founder of Dangerous Boy Data, Kirk Burrowes, sued Combs’ mom, Janice Combs, in federal courtroom in February, claiming that she secretly and illegally assumed management of his 25% possession stake in Dangerous Boy, after Sean Combs allegedly coerced him into signing over his share beneath risk of bodily violence. That civil litigation can be ongoing.
Why is the federal government charging Combs with racketeering? Is not {that a} cost often utilized in mob and different organized crime instances?
Sure, but it surely’s turn out to be pretty widespread of late in instances involving well-liked figures within the leisure trade. One related case is the 2021 federal trial in opposition to R&B singer R. Kelly, during which Kelly was convicted of the sexual exploitation of a kid, bribery, racketeering and intercourse trafficking involving 5 victims. In that case, prosecutors efficiently argued to a jury that Kelly’s musical profession and his revenue sustained his crimes in opposition to ladies, ladies and boys, and that Kelly’s staff knew about and enabled his crimes. The 58-year-old Kelly is serving a 31-year sentence in federal jail.
Prosecutors arguing Combs’ case allege that he used his enterprise empire to gas and conceal his prison actions, and that he used his cash, energy, affect and staff to prison ends.
Extra just lately, prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, charged the rapper Younger Thug with racketeering in addition to a number of different gang, gun and drug offenses, accusing his YSL Data of concurrently performing as a recording label and as a prison road gang. Final November, Younger Thug (whose actual identify is Jeffery Williams) pleaded responsible to racketeering and no contest to the opposite fees.
Who is anticipated to testify within the Combs case?
Combs’ former girlfriend, the singer and mannequin Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, is anticipated to be one of many main witnesses for the prosecution. Whereas it’s unclear at this level what number of different alleged victims will seem on the stand, the indictment accuses Combs of getting “abused, threatened and coerced ladies and others round him to satisfy his sexual needs, shield his fame and conceal his conduct.”
Because of a post-#MeToo lookback legislation in New York that allowed a window for alleged survivors of sexual violence a possibility to file civil claims nicely after the statute of limitations had handed, Ventura filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to Combs in November 2023. She alleged that he raped and bodily and emotionally abused her, amongst different accusations. Inside a day of Ventura submitting her swimsuit, she and Combs settled for an undisclosed determine. In Could 2024, CNN aired footage of Combs attacking Ventura in a resort hallway in California, during which he kicked, shoved and dragged her – an incident that was a part of Ventura’s criticism. Two days after CNN aired the video, Combs issued a public apology by way of Instagram, saying: “I take full duty for my actions in that video. I used to be disgusted then once I did it. I am disgusted now.” His video apology has since been faraway from the social media platform.
Prosecutors within the federal case have stated that they intend to introduce video of that incident as proof of their trial. Throughout jury choice for the prison trial, potential jurors had been requested if they’d seen the footage CNN aired, and if their opinions of that video may affect their judgement.
How lengthy is that this trial anticipated to final?
As of now, the courtroom is anticipating the complete trial to final someplace between eight and 10 weeks. Jury choice started on Could 5 and is slated to be finalized on Could 12, earlier than opening arguments start.