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Jury set to begin deliberating in Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial
The answer will determine the future of one of the biggest music moguls and cultural figures of the past four decades. If convicted, Combs, 55, would face 15 years to life in prison. read more
For seven weeks, a jury in Manhattan has listened as prosecutors laid out a criminal sex trafficking and racketeering case against rapper Sean 'Diddy' Combs. They heard his ex-girlfriends and other witnesses deliver shocking accounts of violence and drug-fueled sexual marathons.
On Monday, jurors are set to begin deliberating, ultimately deciding whether Combs was running a criminal enterprise, as the government says, or — as his lawyer insists — merely living a swinger lifestyle that included recreational drug use and, regrettably, domestic violence.
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The answer will determine the future of one of the biggest music moguls and cultural figures of the past four decades. If convicted, Combs, 55, would face 15 years to life in prison.
Here's what to know about the case:
What are the charges?
The three-time Grammy Award winner has pleaded not guilty to five felony charges: one count of racketeering conspiracy; two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
Prosecutors say Combs coerced women into abusive sex parties involving hired male sex workers, ensured their compliance with drugs like cocaine and threats to their careers, and silenced victims through blackmail and violence that included kidnapping, arson and beatings.
'He's the leader of a criminal enterprise. He doesn't take no for an answer,' Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik said in her closing arguments on Thursday.
Combs' lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, portrayed the Bad Boys Records founder as the victim of overzealous prosecutors who exaggerated elements of his lifestyle and recreational drug use to bring charges that resulted in what he called a 'fake trial.'
What is racketeering?
The most serious charge, racketeering conspiracy, alleges that Combs ran a criminal enterprise for two decades that relied on bodyguards, household staff, personal assistants and others in his orbit to facilitate and cover up crimes.
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Federal prosecutors brought the charge under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Congress passed the federal law in 1970 with the declared purpose of targeting organized crime, but its use has been more widespread.
To prove the charge, prosecutors must show that an enterprise existed and was involved in a pattern of racketeering activity. In this case, that alleged activity includes kidnapping, arson, bribery and sex trafficking.
Key pieces of evidence
Early in the trial, prosecutors showed jurors 2016 security video of Combs beating and kicking his former longtime girlfriend Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel. Cassie, an R&B singer whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, testified the assault took place as she was trying to leave one of the sexual encounters, which witnesses say he referred to as 'freak-offs' or 'hotel nights.'
Jurors saw numerous explicit clips of such encounters, some involving Cassie and others involving a later girlfriend who was identified only by the the pseudonym 'Jane.'
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Both women took the stand.
Cassie testified over four days that she participated in hundreds of the events with paid sex workers while she and Combs were in a relationship from 2007 until 2018, often feeling like she didn't have a choice. She sued Combs in 2023, alleging years of abuse. He settled within hours, and dozens of similar lawsuits followed.
Jane testified over six days that she was romantically involved with Combs from 2021 until his September arrest at a New York hotel, and that she, too, felt forced to have sex with the hired strangers in multiday sex marathons while Combs watched.
The Associated Press doesn't generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has done.
Testimony also included hours of text message exchanges, some of which involved Combs or other people in his orbit, that were read aloud by a Homeland Security Investigations agent.
In all, 34 people took the stand, all of them called by the prosecution.
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Combs did not testify.
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'Over the last several weeks, you've learned a lot about Sean Combs. He's the leader of a criminal enterprise. He doesn't take no for an answer. And now you know about many crimes the defendant committed with members of his enterprise: Kidnapping of one of the defendant's employees; arson by trying to blow up a car; forced labor, including of an employee the defendant repeatedly sexually assaulted; bribery of a security officer to keep damning evidence against the defendant buried; and of course, the brutal crimes at the heart of this case — sex trafficking,' she said. The arson claim stemmed from evidence that Slavik said showed Combs was behind the firebombing of rapper Kid Cudi's Porsche in 2012. The kidnapping allegation also related to Cudi. Slavik said Combs kidnapped an employee to join him when he broke into Cudi's home after learning the rapper was dating his girlfriend. Attorney Marc Agnifilo in an at-times folksy presentation spared few theatrics in mocking the government's case against Combs as overreach, saying hundreds of agents poured into Combs' residences in Miami and Los Angeles to seize hundreds of bottles of baby oil and Astroglide lubricant. 'I guess it's all worth it because they found the Astroglide. They found it in boxes, boxes of Astroglide taken off the streets. Whew, I feel better already,' he said, before adding: 'The streets of America are safe from the Astroglide!' From the start, Agnifilo tried to portray prosecutors as unjustly targeting Combs after a former girlfriend of nearly 11 years — Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura — sued him in November 2023. She testified for four days in the trial's first week. The lawsuit was settled for $20 million the next day but she touched off a criminal probe with her allegations of being subjected to hundreds of drug-fueled 'freak-offs' in which she alleged she was forced to perform sexually for days with male sex workers while Combs watched, filmed and directed the action. A woman who testified under the pseudonym 'Jane' also testified during the trial that she experienced 'hotel nights' similar to 'freak-off' in a relationship with Combs from 2021 until his arrest. Agnifilo maintained the prosecution was an unjust attack on a prominent and wildly successful Black entrepreneur. 'They took Astroglide and they took baby oil, and that ends up being the evidence in this case, because his businesses are outstanding. There's nothing about the businesses to find. There's nothing about the businesses to make into a criminal case,' he said. Agnifilo tried to cast the case for the jury as an attack on everyone's bedroom and the secrets of one's sex life. 'They go into the man's bedroom. They go into the man's most private life. Where is the crime scene? The crime scene is your private sex life. That's the crime scene,' he said as he stood before jurors, who were largely expressionless as they took occasional notes and watched the closings. The lawyer said it was not uncommon that Combs liked to film sexual events with his girlfriends, calling it 'sort of typical, you know, homemade porn' and adding that 'I don't think by any stretch of the imagination this is the only man in America making homemade porn.' Still, he said, investigators "take yellow crime scene tape, figuratively, and they wrap it around his bedroom. Crime scene — your bedroom, your hotel rooms, where you go with your girlfriends. Crime scenes. A lot of yellow tape.' 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