UPDATE, 2:28 PM: Subsequent week, a New York Metropolis jury of eight males and 4 ladies will start to determine the destiny of Sean “Diddy” Combs within the as soon as mini-mogul’s sex-trafficking trial.
Simply minutes in the past, Choose Arun Subramanian despatched the jurors residence after the protection concluded its closing argument and Assistant U.S. Legal professional Maurene Comey completed her rebuttal with a really to-the-point “discover him responsible.”
Diddy, who was sitting close by within the Manhattan courtroom at present as he has been daily the previous month and a half, faces being behind bars for the remainder of his life if discovered responsible of the racketeering, intercourse trafficking, transportation to interact in prostitution and extra prices he was arrested for final September.
The jurors will get directions from the decide at 9 a.m. ET on Monday. Then, if all goes to plan, the 12 will go behind closed doorways to hammer out a verdict. Until they decide by July 3 (and who’s to say they gained’t?), the jury will then get a number of days off for the July 4 vacation earlier than returning to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse on the week of July 7.
At one level, with the protection not providing up any witnesses and ending its case after lower than half-hour earlier this week, there was hope masquerading as hypothesis that the jury would possibly enter deliberations at present – and actually have a verdict earlier than the weekend. However with closing arguments going till after 5 p.m. ET that went out the window.
Operating the prosecution present the previous a number of weeks for the reason that trial began, AUSA Comey tried to place the pitch of innocence from the Marc Agnifilo-led protection in some real-world perspective. “Being a home abuser just isn’t a protection to intercourse trafficking,” the prosecutor mentioned, trying to defang the opposite facet’s mea culpa of kinds.
“If a part of the abuse is making your accomplice take part in a industrial intercourse act, you’re responsible of intercourse trafficking,” Comey added with clear reference to Cassie Ventura and “Jane,” each of whom testified within the trial.
Although his physique language from Day 1 indicated a excessive degree of engagement, Sean Combs didn’t take the stand and go beneath oath.
PREVIOUSLY, 7:33 A.M.: Sean Combs’ essential lawyer wasted no time at present in his closing argument within the Dangerous Boy Data founder’s sex-trafficking trial making an attempt to brush away claims of rape and racketeering, and decreasing the whole lot to chilly arduous money.
“This isn’t a few crime, that is about cash,” Marc Agnifilo informed the jury Friday, pointing to the rapidly settled ($20 million) November 2023 lawsuit in opposition to Diddy from ex-long-term girlfriend (and prosecution star witness) Cassie Ventura.
“Cassie Ventura sued Sean Combs for $30 million as a result of Sean Combs has $30 million,” the ex- Manhattan assistant district legal professional said this morning of the “All In regards to the Benjamins” performer. “This very investigation got here out of that civil case. No $30 million, no lawsuit. No $30 million, no lawsuit, no legal case. That’s why we’re right here. We’re right here due to cash.”
Initially sidestepping most of the vices and fewer than interesting character traits of Combs that the protection preemptively raised of their opening assertion final month, Agnifilo as an alternative praised his Grammy-winning shopper for constructing “fantastic, subtle, actual companies which have stood the check of time,” With no obvious irony, the seasoned protection lawyer known as Combs a person who “takes care of individuals.”
A view from the decide’s seat inside a federal courtroom much like the room the place the Sean Combs intercourse trafficking trial is being held in Federal District Court docket in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by Jefferson Siegel-Pool/Getty Photos)
However, Ventura (who testified very very pregnant within the first week of the trial) is a “gangster,” in line with the more and more hyperbolic Agnifilo. Within the lawyer’s pitch, as introduced to the jury Friday, the Me & U singer’s avenue cred comes from having a burner telephone to get in contact with short-term love Child Cudi with out Combs figuring out. “She performed him good too,” Agnifilo mentioned, close to testimony rapper Cudi gave again in Might. “She performed them each.”
Legal professional Marc Agnifilo arrives to the federal courthouse in decrease Manhattan on June 18, 2025 (Photograph by John Lamparski/Getty Photos)
Sporting his customary middle-aged man sweater, Diddy sat at present together with his 10-lawyer protection group within the decrease Manhattan courtroom, as he has at virtually each listening to since being arrested final fall and since this legal trial started.
Up in opposition to an ever-increasing docket of civil abuse and assault circumstances in addition to this legal case, the much-accused Combs entered a not responsible plea, rebuked a cope with the feds, and but didn’t testify on his personal behalf throughout this trial. The 55-year outdated Combs is life behind bars if he’s discovered responsible on the racketeering, intercourse trafficking, transportation to interact in prostitution and extra, prices.
Set to begin at 9 a.m. ET, at present’s proceedings had been delayed resulting from a late juror. Surprisingly, such tardiness has solely occurred a few instances earlier than in a trial that has lasted greater than six weeks thus far.
As anticipated, making it about cash in a really completely different approach, the prosecution meticulously went over the case in opposition to Combs in its personal closing argument Thursday.
That presentation adopted the feds earlier this week culling in a late June 24 letter to Choose Arun Subramanian a few of the kidnapping, tried arson, and aiding and abetting allegations in opposition to Combs. The prosecution unhappy the transfer was in an effort to “streamline” issues for the jury. Regardless of the claims of some, the modifications don’t drop the “theories of legal responsibility” outright, however fairly fold them into the bigger entire of the racketeering depend.
Citing the violence, the manipulation, the threats of blackmail and the tight purse strings and naturally the drug-driven and filmed “freak-off” intercourse periods with male escorts, Assistant U.S. Legal professional Christy Slavik on June 26 got here again time and again to the alleged abuse and sexual assaults suffered by Combs’ ex-girlfriends Cassie Ventura and “Jane” and former workers like “Mia.” In a full day of talking on to the jury, Slavik alternated between studying from notes on the lectern in entrance of her and searching straight on the 4 ladies and eight males of the panel. “It’s time to carry him accountable,” the prosecutor mentioned of the “fame, wealth and energy” protected Combs. “It’s time for justice. It’s time to search out the defendant responsible.”
“The defendant doesn’t deny the abuse,” exclaimed AUSA Slavik, including “however over the course of this trial, his crimes have been uncovered” and itemizing off sexual abuse, “bodily, emotional, psychological” abuse. “They only need you to name it ‘home violence’ and to imagine that it has nothing to do with the crimes charged right here,” she went on to say.
“Up till at present, the defendant was capable of get away with these crimes,” Slavik said, “however over the course of this trial, his crimes have been uncovered.”
The U.S. Legal professional’s workplace for the Southern District of New York could have one other kick on the judicial can later at present when they’re given the chance of rebuttal to the protection’s closing argument. The jury is anticipated at this level to start deliberations on June 30, thereby assembly Choose Arun Subramanian’s promise early on within the trial of getting the case wrapped up by the July 4 vacation. How lengthy it takes the jurors to achieve a verdict is in fact TBD.
No phrase from the White Home if Donald Trump is actually mulling a pardon for Diddy or has even taken the time to look into it, as he mentioned he would possibly – which has drastically upset Combs rival 50 Cent.