Protection attorneys consult with Sean Combs on this courtroom sketch. The jury started deliberations at Combs’ intercourse trafficking trial in New York Metropolis on Monday.
Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
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Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
Because the jury started deliberating within the high-profile federal prison trial of Sean Combs on Monday, a transparent narrative wrestle got here into focus, one that can resolve whether or not or not these jurors at a decrease Manhattan federal courtroom will discover Combs responsible.
The hip-hop mogul is charged with intercourse trafficking, transportation to have interaction in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy. The trial centered on allegations involving two of his former girlfriends, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a girl who testified on the stand below the pseudonym “Jane.” He has pleaded not responsible.
All through the almost two-month proceedings, the federal government painted Combs as violent, domineering and possessive, a tyrannical determine with huge assets who pressured or coerced his companions into unlawful intercourse acts throughout cities and utilizing his companies to orchestrate them. The protection didn’t dispute the home abuse that each ladies and different witnesses testified about; as an alternative, it has countered that the sexual encounters Ventura and Jane had with male intercourse employees below Combs’ path, which he often filmed, had been totally consensual.
In contrast, each ladies testified that they had been coerced into collaborating in these marathon classes, which Combs also known as “freak-offs,” “lodge nights” or “wild king nights.”
Former federal prosecutor and co-founder of West Coast Trial Legal professionals Neama Rahmani tells NPR that the three units of costs towards Combs are fairly disparate in how straightforward or troublesome they might be to show to a jury past an affordable doubt.
“The best, after all, is the prostitution, of the Mann Act violation,” Rahmani says. (The prosecution offered receipts of varied escorts’ journey throughout state strains in addition to their lodge bookings.)
“In all probability essentially the most troublesome is the intercourse trafficking,” Rahmani continues, “not due to the weather, however due to the potential protection of consent in proving power, fraud or coercion. Racketeering, or RICO, is the broadest. And there are various potential RICO predicate acts comparable to bribery, extortion, prostitution, drug distribution and compelled labor. So the jurors, with respect to racketeering, should discover a prison enterprise. They’ll have to search out an illegal settlement [between Combs and multiple former employees], they usually’ll have to search out two or extra racketeering acts. The truth that it is so broad might result in the potential for a consensus on a number of of the better predicate acts.”
“Racketeering conspiracy does have a number of parts,” he says. “The protection spent a number of time saying that there was no enterprise and this was simply Combs doing issues on his personal. These had been all private bills. Then they assault the conspiracy, saying that there was no illegal settlement. Clearly, the federal government placed on six totally different government or private assistants of Diddy, they usually had been actively concerned in organising the motels for the free coffees and procuring a few of the authorized and prescribed drugs. A few of them had been concerned within the extortion and the bribery, regardless that they weren’t referred to as as witnesses.”
In all, 34 witnesses testified towards Combs over six weeks. The primary witness to look on the stand was Ventura, who took the stand pregnant. She alleged that Combs had repeatedly bodily assaulted her, raped her, trafficked her and sought to manage each facet of her private {and professional} life. (Ventura, who dated Combs on-and-off from 2007 to 2018, filed a civil swimsuit towards the mogul in November 2023 that was settled out of courtroom a day later for $20 million, an quantity she confirmed throughout her testimony on this trial.) She painted her relationship with Combs as coercive and abusive, and mentioned {that a} lodge surveillance video from 2016, by which Combs might be seen violently attacking her within the hallway, exhibits her making an attempt to flee a “freak-off.”
Throughout six days of testimony that adopted, “Jane” painted the same image. She alleged that her relationship with Combs, which started in 2021, oscillated between “love bombing” and “sexual exploitation” all the way in which as much as his arrest and indictment in September 2024. Combs launched her to “lodge nights” that might run wherever from 12 and 30 hours. “Jane” mentioned she grew to become financially depending on Combs, and that if she tried to withstand a “lodge evening” he would convey up these funds. “I could not say no to him,” she advised the courtroom.
To construct its case, the prosecution offered greater than 30 different witnesses — together with a number of former staff — and extra proof in an try to indicate that Combs was manipulating these ladies into illegal intercourse acts and in addition utilizing his enterprise empire to cowl up associated crimes that reach to bribery, obstruction of justice and drug distribution.
Because the prosecution’s case drew to a detailed on per week in the past Monday, protection lawyer Marc Agnifilo advised Decide Arun Subramanian that his group wouldn’t name any witnesses, and that it might current proof that Ventura and “Jane” had been keen companions and never victims.
Final Tuesday was a whirlwind day in courtroom, as each the prosecution and protection rested their instances inside hours of each other. The authorities’s case, which lasted six weeks, sought to assemble its argument round trafficking. Prosecutors aimed to influence the jury that Combs used his energy and affect to maneuver Ventura, “Jane” and intercourse employees throughout state strains to have interaction in “freak-offs” — and preserve it clandestine via coercion.
Jurors had been proven receipts, cellphone information and textual content messages referring to a few of these interstate journeys. In addition they heard testimony from brokers of Homeland Safety Investigations who raided Combs’ properties in March 2024 and located weapons, medication and 1000’s of bottles of child oil and lubricant. A number of male intercourse employees had been referred to as to testify, as had been staff who labored cleanup for “freak-offs.” The jury was proven video clips and screengrabs of some “freak-offs,” although this proof was shielded from the remainder of the courtroom, together with the press.
After a lunch break on Tuesday, one legal professional on the protection group, Alexandra Shapiro, moved for acquittal on all 5 costs Combs faces — two counts of intercourse trafficking, two counts of transportation for prostitution and one rely of racketeering conspiracy — saying that the federal government failed to satisfy the burden of proof. Through the change, Combs advised Decide Subramanian that he was “doing a wonderful job.”
The protection — which revealed that Combs wouldn’t take the stand as a part of its case that afternoon — then wrapped up in below half-hour. The proof it offered to the jury appeared set on underscoring a story established throughout opening arguments and bolstered throughout a number of cross-examinations: that the artist and businessman could also be an unsavory character, and even a prison, however that he’s not responsible of the issues he’s presently charged with. The protection argued that his intercourse life was “unconventional” and poisonous, however that his relationships had been consensual and never coercive. In its temporary presentation, the protection shared textual content messages from Ventura to Combs saying she beloved him and entered one other doc as proof declaring minor inconsistencies within the testimony of a number of authorities witnesses. “Sean Combs is a sophisticated man, however this isn’t a sophisticated case,” protection legal professional Teny Geragos advised the jury throughout opening arguments. “You aren’t right here to evaluate him for his sexual preferences.”
On the finish of the week, each groups delivered closing arguments that attempted to bolster their respective framings. In her remarks Thursday, prosecution legal professional Christy Slavik outlined the federal government’s case, portray Combs as a strong determine who used violence and intimidation to get no matter he needed. Protection legal professional Marc Agnifilo didn’t dispute the violence, but additionally sought to reframe Combs and his companions; he referred to as the connection between Combs and Cassie “an ideal trendy love story.” Whereas acknowledging Combs’ “swinger’s way of life” as unconventional, Agnifilo claimed not one of the prosecution’s witnesses had been “a part of an enterprise.”
In a rebuttal from prosecutor Maurene Comey, the legal professional alleged that Combs’ sample of violence amounted to a prison conspiracy spanning twenty years, that he believed himself to be above the legislation and that it’s the courtroom’s accountability to carry him accountable. “In his thoughts, he was untouchable, a god amongst males … and who would stand as much as a god?” she mentioned. After its six-week presentation, the federal government is now asking the jury to take that stand.
Jury deliberations are set to proceed on Tuesday morning.