Sean ‘Diddy' Combs guilty on two charges but acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking
Date: 2025-07-02T15:35:49.000Z
Title: The jury has founded Combs:
Content: Combs faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for transportation to engage in prostitution related to Casandra Ventura and 'Jane'
Full story: Sean Combs found guilty on two of five counts
Key moments from the trial
Seven weeks, 34 witnesses, a media circus: inside the trial
Anna Betts and
Shannon Ho
Wed 2 Jul 2025 17.33 CEST
First published on Wed 2 Jul 2025 16.06 CEST
From
4.21pm CEST
16:21
NOT GUILTY of racketeering conspiracy
NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of Casandra Ventura
NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of 'Jane'
GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution, related to Casandra Ventura
GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution related to 'Jane'
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5.33pm CEST
17:33
Here are some more images of the family emerging from court:
NBC News spoke to Christian Combs, who said his his father was feeling 'Great.'
5.21pm CEST
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Some supporters are putting their fists in the air outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan.
They can be heard chanting 'Let Puffy go!'
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Janice Combs, mother of Sean 'Diddy' Combs, gives a thumbs up after hearing the verdict in her son's sex-trafficking trial:
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More of Combs's supporters are showing up at the courthouse. Lots of smiles and clapping.
5.17pm CEST
17:17
Outside the courthouse, supporters of Combs are saying, 'If you're being abused, come out right away' – seemingly going after Combs's alleged victims for not coming forward about their alleged abuse sooner.
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Patrick Lam, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, was outside the courthouse after the verdict was read in Combs's trial.
'Here to support Sean and his family,' he said. 'Glad they found him not guilty for Rico because prosecutors tried to get whatever they wanted for political reasons.'
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It's packed outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan as press as well as Combs's supporters fill the streets.
People are shouting: 'Not guilty!'
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Andrew Lawrence
Since Combs's arrest last September on federal criminal charges for racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, a number of podcasters and YouTubers have been notably more sympathetic to him than to the witnesses called for the prosecution.
The allegations about Combs's behavior are horrific and include shocking revelations about his drug use, sexual indulgences and hair-trigger temper. But you wouldn't know that from following trial coverage from these faithful evangelists of toxic masculinity.
Combs's former girlfriend and key witness Cassie Ventura, especially, is an object of their derision, and their assessment of her testimony is withering. In their view, Combs is not a man with incredible power and influence who abused and mistreated those in his circle, but the target of a #MeToo-style witch-hunt orchestrated by Ventura.
Before the verdict was announced, the Guardian's Andrew Lawrence wrote about how some commentators on Black masculinity are popular pundits on Sean Combs's case – and explores how they took a clear side:
Updated
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The federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs reached its conclusion on Wednesday, with a jury of 12 New Yorkers finding the music mogul guilty on two charges and not guilty on three charges.
Here were some of the key moments from the seven-week trial:
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In the courtroom, fans of the music mogul and his family are clapping and embracing each other.
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Both sides have been asked to submit letters to the judge regarding whether Combs should continue to be held in federal detention or released on bail.
The parties will convene after the letters are submitted this afternoon.
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The government has said that it will seek the maximum 20-year sentence for Combs.
Each count that he has been found guilty of carries up to 10 years. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge how long Combs serves.
4.33pm CEST
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The defense is asking that the court release Combs from federal detention, where he has been held since his arrest last September.
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Given what the jury has found Combs guilty of, he faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars.
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The judge has thanked the jurors for their 'sacrifice'.
'I want you to know that it is inspiring to all of us. You listened, you worked together, you were here every day, rain or shine. You did so with no reward, other than the reward that comes from answering the call of public service. That should give all of us hope,' Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over this case, said.
Updated
at 4.54pm CEST
4.21pm CEST
16:21
NOT GUILTY of racketeering conspiracy
NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of Casandra Ventura
NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of 'Jane'
GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution, related to Casandra Ventura
GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution related to 'Jane'
Updated
at 4.55pm CEST
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The Guardian
38 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘The film wouldn't even be made today': the story behind Back to the Future at 40
The actor Lea Thompson has had a distinguished screen career but hesitated to share it with her daughters when they were growing up. 'I did not show them most of my stuff because I end up kissing people all the time and it was traumatic to my children,' she recalls. 'Even when they were little the headline was, 'Mom is kissing someone that's not Dad and it's making me cry!'' Thompson's most celebrated role would be especially hard to explain. As Lorraine Baines in Back to the Future, she falls in lust with her own son, Marty McFly, a teenage time traveller from 1985 who plunges into 1955 at the wheel of a DeLorean car. Back to the Future, released 40 years ago on Thursday, is both entirely of its time and entirely timeless. It was a box office summer smash, set a benchmark for time travel movies and was quoted by everyone from President Ronald Reagan to Avengers: Endgame. It is arguably a perfect film, without a duff note or a scene out of place, a fantastic parable as endlessly watchable as It's a Wonderful Life or Groundhog Day. It also, inevitably, reflects the preoccupations of its day. An early sequence features Libyan terrorists from the era of Muammar Gaddafi, a caricature wisely dropped from a stage musical adaptation. In one scene the young George McFly turns peeping tom as he spies on Lorraine getting undressed. To some, the film's ending equates personal fulfilment with Reagan-fuelled materialism. It caught lightning in a bottle in a way that is unrepeatable. 'If you made Back to the Future in 2025 and they went back 30 years, it would be 1995 and nothing would look that different,' Thompson, 64, says by phone from a shoot in Vancouver, Canada. 'The phones would be different but it wouldn't be like the strange difference between the 80s and the 50s and how different the world was.' Bob Gale, co-writer of the screenplay, agrees everything fell into the right place at the right time, including the central partnership between young Marty (Michael J Fox) and white-haired scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). The 74-year-old says from Los Angeles: 'Oh man, the film wouldn't even be made today. We'd go into the studio and they'd say, what's the deal with this relationship between Marty and Doc? They'd start interpreting paedophilia or something. There would be a lot of things they have problems with.' Gale had met the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, at the USC School of Cinema in 1972 and together they sold several TV scripts to Universal Studios, caught the eye of Steven Spielberg and John Milius and collaborated on three films. The pair had always wanted to make a time travel movie but couldn't find the right hook. Then Gale had an epiphany. 'We put a time travel story on the back burner until I found my dad's high school yearbook and boom, that was when the lightning bolt hit me and I said, ha, this would be cool: kid goes back in time and ends up in high school with his dad!' Gale and Zemeckis pitched the script more than 40 times over four years but studios found it too risky or risque. But Spielberg saw its potential and came in as executive producer. After Zemeckis scored a hit with Romancing the Stone in 1984, Universal gave the green light. The character of Doc Brown was inspired by Gale's childhood neighbour, a photographer who showed him the 'magic' of developing pictures in a darkroom, and the educational TV show Mr Wizard which demonstrated scientific principles. Then Lloyd came in and added an interpretation based on part Albert Einstein, part Leopold Stokowski. Thompson was cast as Lorraine after a successful audition. She felt that her background as a ballet and modern dancer gave her a strong awareness of the movement and physicality required to play both versions of Lorraine: one young and airy, the other middle-aged and beaten down by life. 'I was perfectly poised for that character,' she says. 'I understood both the dark and the light of Lorraine McFly and understood the hilarity of being super sexually attracted to your son. I thought that was frickin' hilarious. I understood the subversive comedy of it.' Thompson has previously worked with Eric Stoltz, who was cast in the lead role of Marty at the behest of Sidney Sheinberg, a Universal executive who had nurtured Spielberg and put Jaws into production. But over weeks of filming, starting in November 1984, it became apparent that Stoltz's serious tone was not working. Gale recalls: 'He wasn't giving us the kind of humour that we thought the character should have. He actually thought the movie turned out to be a tragedy because he ends up in a 1985 where a lot of his life is different. People can argue about that: did the memories of his new past ripple into his brain, did he remember both his lives? That's an interesting conversation to have and it gets more interesting the more beer you drink.' Eventually it fell to Zemeckis to inform Stoltz that his services were no longer required. Gale continues: 'He said he thought that possibly Eric was relieved: it was not like a devastating blow to him. This is just hindsight and speculation but maybe Eric's agents thought that it would be a good career move for him to do a movie like this that had Spielberg involved. Who knows?' Stoltz's abrupt departure came as a shock to the rest of the cast. Thompson says: 'It was horrible. He was my friend and obviously a wonderful actor. Everybody wants to think that making a movie is fun and that we're laughing for the 14 hours we're standing in the middle of a street somewhere. 'But it's also scary because you need to feel like you've made a little family for that brief amount of time. So the minute someone gets fired, you're like, oh wait, this is a big business, this is serious, this is millions of dollars being spent.' Stoltz was replaced by the young Canadian actor Michael J Fox, whom Zemeckis and Gale had wanted in the first place, and several scenes had to be reshot. Fox was simultaneously working on the sitcom Family Ties so was often sleep-deprived. But his boundless charm, frazzled energy and comic timing – including ad libs – were the missing piece of the jigsaw. Thompson comments: 'He is gifted but he also worked extremely hard at his shtick like the great comedians of the 20s, 30s and 40s: the falling over, the double take, the spit take, the physical comedy, the working on a bit for hours and hours like the greats, like Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. Michael understood that. 'Being a dancer, I was fascinated and kind of weirdly repelled because it didn't seem like the acting that we were all trying to emulate: the De Niro kind of super reality-based acting that we were in awe of in the 80s, coming out of the great films of the 70s. I feel like Eric Stoltz, who is a brilliant actor, was trying to do more of that. Michael was the face of this new acting, especially comedy acting, which was in a way a throwback and a different energy.' It was this lightness of touch that enabled Fox and Thompson to carry off moments that might otherwise have seemed weird, disturbing and oedipal. When 1950s Lorraine – who has no idea that Marty is her future son – eventually kisses him inside a car, she reports that it is like 'kissing my brother' and the romantic tension dissolves, much to the audience's relief. Thompson says: 'It was a difficult part and it was a very dangerous thread to put through a needle. I have to fall out of love with him just by kissing him and I remember Bob Zemeckis obsessing about that moment. It was also a hard shot to get because it was a vintage car and they couldn't take it apart. Bob was also worried about the moment when I had to fall back in love with George [Marty's father] after he punches Biff. 'For those moments to be so important is part of the beauty of the movie. These are 'small' people; these are not 'great' people; they're not doing 'great' things. These are people who live in a little tiny house in Hill Valley and to make the moments of falling out of love and falling in love so beautiful with that incredible score is fascinating.' Back to the Future was the biggest hit of the year, grossing more than $200m in the US and entering the cultural mainstream. When Doc asks Marty who is president in 1985, Marty replies Ronald Reagan and Brown says in disbelief: 'Ronald Reagan? The actor? Then who's vice-president? Jerry Lewis?' Reagan, a voracious film viewer, was so amused by the joke that he made the projectionist stop and rewind it. He went on to name-check the film and quote its line, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads,' in his 1986 State of the Union address. Thompson, whose daughters are the actors Madelyn Deutch and Zoey Deutch, was amazed by Back to the Future's success. 'But when I look at the movie, I do understand the happy accident of why it's become the movie it's become to generation after generation. The themes are powerful. The execution was amazing. The casting was great. The idea was brilliant. It was a perfect script. Those things don't come together usually.' And if she had her own time machine, where would she go? 'If I could be a man, I might go back to Shakespeare but as a woman you don't want to go anywhere in time. Time has been hard on women. So for me, whenever I'm asked this question, it's not a lighthearted answer. I can only give you a political answer.' The film ends with Doc whisking Marty and girlfriend Jennifer into the DeLorean and taking off into the sky. But Gale points out that the message 'to be continued' was added only for the home video release, as a way to announce a sequel, rather than being in the original theatrical run. Back to the Future Part II, part of which takes place in 2015, brought back most of the main characters including the villain Biff Tannen, who becomes a successful businessman who opens a 27-storey casino and uses his money to gain political influence. Many viewers have drawn a comparison with Donald Trump. Gale explains: 'Biff in the first movie is not based on Donald Trump; Biff is just an archetype bully. When Biff owns a casino, there was a Trump influence in that, absolutely. Trump had to put his name on all of his hotels and his casinos and that's what Biff does too. 'But when people say, oh, Biff was based on Donald Trump, well, no, that wasn't the inspiration for the character. Everybody has a bully in their life and that's who Biff was. There's nothing that resembles Donald Trump in Biff in Part I.' Back to the Future Part III, in which Marty and Doc and thrown back to the old west, was released in 1990. A year later Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the age of 29. He went public with his diagnosis in 1998 and became a prominent advocate for research and awareness. He also continued acting, with roles in shows such as The Good Wife and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in October will publish a Back to the Future memoir entitled Future Boy. Thompson, whose brothers both have Parkinson's, sees Fox twice a year. 'He's endlessly inspiring. He's very smart and he's done the spiritual work, the psychological work on himself to not be bitter about something awful happening to him but also be honest: this sucks.' Time's arrow moves in one direction but Back to the Future found a way to stage a comeback. One night after seeing the Mel Brooks musical The Producers in New York, Zemeckis's wife Leslie suggested that Back to the Future would make a good musical. Gale duly wrote the book and was a producer of the show, which premiered in Manchester in 2020 and has since played in London, New York and around the world. Gale says: 'It was total euphoria. The first time I saw the dress rehearsal with the DeLorean, before we had an audience, I went out of my mind how great it was, and then to see the audience going completely out of their minds with everything was just such a joyous validation. 'I'm so blessed to have a job where I get to make people happy. That's a great thing to be able to do and get paid for that. I don't ever take any of this for granted. I'm having a great time and the idea that Back to the Future is still with us after all these years, as popular as it ever was, is a blessing. I think about it all the time that if we had not put Michael J Fox in the movie, you and I probably wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.' Why, indeed, are we still talking about Back to the Future four decades later? 'Every person in the world wonders, how did I get here, how did my parents meet? The idea that your parents were once children is staggering when you realise it when you're about seven or eight years old. 'Your parents are these godlike creatures, and they're always saying, well, when I was your age, and you're going, what are they talking about, how could they have ever been my age? Then at some point it all comes together. If you have a younger sibling and you're watching them grow up, you realise, oh, my God, my parents were once screw-ups like me!' And if Gale had a time machine, where would he go? 'I don't think I would go to the future because I'd be too scared,' he says. 'We all see what happens when you know too much about the future. My mom, before she was married, was a professional musician, a violinist, and she had a nightclub act in St Louis called Maxine and Her Men. I'd like to travel back in time to 1947 and see my mother performing in a nightclub. That's what I would do.'
Daily Mail
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- Daily Mail
Kerry Katona insists 'I'm focusing on keeping my family safe' as she weighs in on Israel-Iran conflict
Kerry Katona has weighed in on the terrifying Israel-Iran conflict, insisting she's 'focusing on keeping her family safe'. In her weekly New! magazine column, Kerry, 44, admitted she's been 'really afraid' watching the war break out between Israel, Iran and the US. She wrote: 'I've been really afraid about the conflict going on between Iran and Israel, especially with the US getting involved. 'It's such a scary world we live in right now - I feel like it keeps getting worse and worse. Every time I read the news or watch it on TV, something else utterly devastating is happening. 'I try to focus on my family - my priority - and keeping us safe, but what's going on internationally is so concerning.' Israel began a blitz campaign against nuclear, military and civilian sites across Iran, which the US later join, in the so-called 12-day war. The war, which saw Iran retaliate against Israeli and American military and civilian sites, began as US and Iranian diplomats sat down for talks over the Middle Eastern nation's nuclear programme. Amid her fears, Kerry revealed she is 'going under the knife' again after suffering from a side effect following her recent two-stone weight loss. The former Atomic Kitten star, who is a mother of four, explained that her transformation has also caused her breast to shrink in size. Elsewhere in her New! magazine column, she confessed she was finally getting her 'long-awaited boob job'. She penned: 'Ever since losing weight, I feel like I've also lost my old boobs, so I'm excited to have some again. 'I'm going under the knife again this month for my long-awaited boob job. You guys might remember that I was going to get one earlier this year but I ended up having to reschedule due to being in Thailand soon after, because you can't fly for a while after having the procedure.' Kerry then admitted that while she is looking forward to it, she is nervous because she is 'never really good at coping in the lead-up'. Earlier this year, Kerry revealed she has been forced to cancel her long awaited fourth boob job this week over safety concerns. Kerry, who has had three previous augmentations, announced earlier this year that she was planning to go under the knife again after being left tripping over her nipples' following her most recent weight loss. But after retuning from her recent break in Thailand, doctors stopped the procedure going ahead amid concerns it was too soon for surgery after a long-haul flight. She wrote in her OK! column: 'I headed to get my boob job the other day and ended up not being able to get it done, I didn't realise that you can't get surgery after flying and I had just returned from Thailand. 'It's a shame, but I'm glad Pall Mall Cosmetics - where I was booked in - take safety so seriously and put regulations above the procedure.' Adding: 'I could have rebooked it, but I'm going back to Thailand next week so I would have had to cancel my trip and the kids told me to just leave it for now. '[Daughters] Molly, Lilly and Heidi all said: 'Go to Thailand, don't get your boobs done!' 'I think they just don't want me getting any more surgery! I'm going to leave it until summer when I'm less busy.' Kerry is mother to Molly, 21, Lilly-Sue, 20, Heidi, 16, Max, 14, and eight-year-old DJ. Kerry initially planned a breast reduction before making a shock U-turn - after losing weight following her split from fiancé Ryan Mahoney. She recently said that she was imminently going to be going for breast reduction surgery as she bemoaned her 'saggy' breasts before deciding on having a boob job instead. She'd previously complained about her breasts saying: 'Seriously, I lie down and I look like a nine-year-old boy. Take my bra off, I trip over my nipples.' 'It's health and safety. I walk around my house in a hard hat and a visibility jacket. So I decided it's got to be done just for my own health and safety, people. Pall Mall, I'll see you later today guys.' Speaking to Closer, Kerry recently revealed her two-stone weight loss and told how she is in the 'best shape' of her life. She said: 'I'm slimmer now than I was in Atomic Kitten. I'm getting there emotionally, but physically this is the best shape I've ever been in.' She attributed the weight loss to both the fallout from the split, and performing three shows a day during pantomime with Katie Price.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
How $10m case against Diddy collapsed after prosecutors got greedy in botched attempt to treat ‘freak' like a mob boss
SEAN "Diddy" Combs spent 10 months behind bars as he waited to hear his fate inside a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday. Many believed the disgraced music mogul was set to get life in prison over racketeering and sex trafficking charges but when the verdicts were read out Combs fell to his knees in glee. 8 8 8 He managed to escape the most serious charges as he was acquitted on the worst cases after the $10million case against him proved unsuccessful. The New York jury did find the Bad Boy rapper, 55, guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. But with each count carrying just a maximum 10-year prison sentence and no minimum, Combs' legal team sighed a breath of relief in the courtroom. His final sentence is yet to be announced but he is likely to spend a minimal number of years locked up giving his first time offender status. As arguably the trial of the century kicked off earlier this year many had thought Combs had next to no chance of getting off so lightly. The majority of federal cases end in a conviction and with "freak off" revelations, baby oil hauls and disturbing claims all being made public at trial the case seemed simple to most. But as the final judgments were made and Combs mouthed to his family he'll be "home soon", questions emerged around how he escaped a severe punishment. Many now believe the fault lies with the prosecution for aiming too high with their charges. They lobbied for a complicated racketeering case that is typically reserved for the most high profile mob bosses. The burden of proof needed to convict a criminal on such charges will always be tough to reach due to the repercussions of life behind bars. Diddy's $61.5m mansion where feds seized 1,000 bottles of baby oil during raid lies silent in new pics as trial starts- And as the prosecution scrambled to keep the music producer locked up with a myriad of witnesses and claims, the defence simply played down the seriousness of Combs' crimes. Combs' defence had always remained firm in their admission of some form of guilt from the very start of the trial. His lawyer Teny Geragos made an extraordinary admission in her opening statement in court. She described Combs as a domestic abuser with a vicious temper. One of the most shocking pieces of evidence was presented right at the start of the trial. Combs' assault on ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles presented a damning case. He was seen kicking her on the ground in vile CCTV footage which even Geragos labelled 'indefensible, horrible, dehumanising and violent'. But it did little to help the prosecution prove Combs was the ringleader of a sex trafficking operation. 8 8 8 As Geragos put it on the first day: "It is evidence of domestic violence. "But it is not evidence of sex trafficking." As the trial continued, the defence remained adamant that all the pieces of evidence were simply painting a picture of a disturbed individual rather than a calculated criminal. Marc Agnifilo, the mogul's attorney, even said in his eyes Combs was simply living a "swinger's lifestyle". They even managed to twist some of the trial's key pieces of information to benefit their main argument. When images of the countless bottles of baby oil and sexual lubricant were shown in court after a raid on Comb's home Agnifilo remarked that there is nothing illegal about owning such a stash. Another key defensive point was around consent. In order to get a guilty verdict over sex trafficking under US law, a person must have used force, fraud, or coercion in order to traffic a victim for sexual explosion purposes. So for Combs to be found guilty on both charges, the prosecution had to prove both Cassie and second victim known as "Jane" did not give their consent. They had attempted to say Combs compelled both women to take part in orgies through the threats of violence and financial manipulation. Will Diddy go to prison and how much time could he get? By Senior News Reporter, Forrest McFarland SEAN "Diddy" Combs' future still hangs in the balance as the court continues to argue whether he should walk free after dodging his most serious federal charges. After seven weeks of emotional testimony, a jury found the rapper guilty of two lesser charges but acquitted him of the three counts that each could have landed him a life sentence. Combs was found guilty of two counts of transportation for purposes of prostitution, and each charge has a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. However, legal experts have warned that he shouldn't celebrate too soon, as they speculate that the rapper will likely have to spend some time behind bars. "He's looking at 15 plus years under the sentencing guideline on each count, and he gets a multiplier for multiple victims," former federal prosecutor David Weinstein told NewsNation. 'The judge can run them consecutive, and he might, with an additional multiplying factor, find himself bumping up against 10 on each count. 'So, for people to say or think that he's going to get credit time served and walk out of here, I think that's a pipe dream for the defense.' In a submission made after the verdict was announced, Diddy's defense argued that a prison term of 21 to 27 months would be reasonable, and pointed out that he's already served 10 months. But prosecutors believe that he should be punished with a minimum of 51 to 63 months behind bars because of aggravating circumstances, like claims that Diddy was physically abusive. But Mr Agnifilo said the women always had the chance to leave. Speaking on Cassie after she bravely took to the stand while pregnant, the attorney stated: "No one's forcing her to do this. "She's a woman who actually likes sex – good for her." For a racketeering conspiracy charge to stick, prosecutors needed to show Combs had knowing co-conspirators. It was argued that he co-opted his loyal employees - including chief of staff, Kristina Khorram. Several names of alleged accomplices cropped up across the trial but the prosecution never subpoenaed them. Due to them not being called as a witness or ever being questioned, this may have confused the jury and contributed to them finding Combs not guilty. Michael Bachner, a New York-based criminal defence lawyer and former District Attorney, told The Telegraph racketeering is notoriously hard to prove. He said: "There was evidence of people helping him, but I think it was still a stretch for them to prove that this was part of some concerted conspiracy to do it as opposed to just telling people what to do. "It just didn't smell like a RICO case to a lot of people, so that's what I think the government's problem was with it." Mr Agnifilo repeated his bashing of the prosecution as he labelled the case as a "badly, badly exaggerated story" during closing arguments. Another major issue was due to Cassie and Jane both being long term partners of Combs. Tony Buzbee, a US lawyer familiar with Combs' case, said the nature of the relationships may have been a major issue for the jury. He said: "I think the jury struggled with the difficult issue of consent and more broadly whether Mr Combs's conduct appropriately fit within the racketeering statute." 8 8
