Sean ‘Diddy Combs’: jury begin deliberations in sex trafficking trial
The Sean “Diddy” Combs jury has sent an urgent note to the judge ahead of their verdict which will determine if the singer spends life in prison.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs could soon learn his fate as jurors in his bombshell Manhattan trial began deliberating, following nearly two months of sensational testimony.
The panellists, eight men and four women, were sent to the jury room around 11.30am Monday local time (1.30am Tuesday AEST) to begin weighing the five felony charges against the Bad Boys Records founder — in a case alleging he forced women to have sex with male prostitutes in what became known as “freak-offs.”
However, the deliberations hit a snag just an hour after they started - because one juror apparently couldn’t follow the judge’s instructions.
The panel sent a note to Manhattan federal Judge Arun Subramanian at around 12.40pm local time (2.40am AEST) expressing concerns about one of the jurors.
“We have a juror, ‘Juror 25,’ who we believe cannot follow your instructions,” the note said.
The juror in question is a 51-year-old man with a thick European accent.
During jury selection, he revealed he lives in Manhattan with his partner and works as a scientist.
He earned a PhD in molecular biology and neuroscience.
It wasn’t immediately clear exactly what the jury’s note meant and Judge Subramanian said he would send a note back to the jury telling them to keep deliberating.
The jury sent an additional note asking the judge for clarity about the narcotics distribution allegations before concluding deliberations at 7am AEST.
Deliberations will resume at 11pm AEST which is 9am Tuesday local time.
Jurors heard from 34 prosecution witnesses over the last seven weeks of testimony, including Combs’ then-pregnant ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and another former gal pal, who took the stand under the pseudonym “Jane.”
The panel was also presented with mountains of evidence, including hundreds of text messages and hours of sexually explicit footage of the “freak-offs,” which jurors viewed on screens that were blocked off to the press and public.
Prosecutors repeatedly played in open court the infamous video of Combs beating up Ms Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
Combs, 55, has been held at a Brooklyn lockup since his September 2024 arrest and was seated with his lawyers at the defence table throughout the stunning proceedings, with his mother and children sometimes showing up to court in his support.
The disgraced music mogul is charged with two sex-trafficking counts, one racketeering conspiracy count and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
He faces up to life in prison if convicted on just one of the racketeering or sex-trafficking charges.
Ms Ventura testified for four days during the first week of trial about her tumultuous, on-and-off relationship with the I’ll Be Missing You rapper, claiming he regularly roughed her up and pressured her to take part in “freak-offs” while she was on drugs.
She also claimed he threatened to release videos he took of the sex marathons in order to get her to continue participating in the frequent sessions.
Prosecutors alleged that Combs ran a criminal enterprise for 20 years, using his employees to carry out a slew of crimes, like ensuring that he always had an array of drugs on hand for the “freak-offs,” kidnapping a member of his staff, witness tampering and bribery.
The It’s All About the Benjamins rhymer also allegedly broke into rapper Kid Cudi’s home and had his car bombed with a Molotov cocktail after discovering Ventura briefly dated him.
Combs, who did not testify in his own defence, has pleaded not guilty.
His attorneys claim that the women took part in the “freak-offs” consensually.
Manhattan federal Judge Arun Subramanian instructed the jurors on the law before releasing them to start their work.
SEE BELOW FOR A RECAP ON CLOSING ARGUMENTS:
CASSIE AND DIDDY WERE ‘A GREAT MODERN LOVE STORY’ DEFENCE CLAIMS
Combs’ lawyer dismissed star witness Cassie’s rape claims as lies and a “cover-up” for cheating during closing arguments in Manhattan — arguing her abusive 11-year-long relationship with the mogul was “a great modern love story.”
The bombshell sex-trafficking trial of the Bad Boy Records founder will go to the jury for deliberations starting Monday, after seven gruelling weeks of heinous testimony and stunning evidence.
Combs’ lawyer Marc Agnifilo also mocked prosecutors for their mountains of evidence about baby oil and personal lubricant against his rapper client.
They got the baby oil! And they found the personal use drugs!” Agnifilo said.
“Thank goodness for the special response team.”
“They found the Astroglide. They found the baby oil. They found like five pills of Valium. Way to go, fellas!” the lawyer continued.
“Where’s the crime scene? The crime scene is your private sex life,” he added.
Mr Agnifilo pushed a “swingers defence” in closing arguments Friday local time in Manhattan as the bombshell sex-trafficking trial of the Bad Boy Records founder winds down after seven gruelling weeks of shocking testimony and stunning evidence.
“The trial of the evidence is a lifestyle … you want to call it swingers,” Mr Agnifilo said, while pacing around the courtroom well.
“They want to use drugs and threesomes as racketeering … that is the other trial, that is the false trial, that is the exaggerated trial,” Mr Agnifilo said.
Meanwhile, Kanye West — who made a shocking appearance at the trial earlier this month — dropped a surprise album with Diddy’s son Christian “King” Combs, with one track optimistically titled “DIDDY FREE.”
The disgraced hip-hop mogul, 55, is accused of using his fame and fortune to run a decade-long scheme in which he controlled and manipulated his longtime girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, 38, and others using violence and threats to force them into acting out his sick, twisted fantasies with “freak-off” sex marathons that went on for days.
The rapper has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
DOESN’T PASS THE LAUGH TEST
Prosecutor Maureen Comey on Friday blasted the defence’s claim that Sean “Diddy” Combs didn’t hire male escorts for “freak-offs.”
“It doesn’t even pass the laugh test,” the lawyer said of Diddy lawyer Marc Agnifilo’s closing arguments. “Common sense … tells you that when [Combs] flew those escorts out and paid them, it was not for the scintillating conversation. It was for sex.”
Comey said it didn’t matter if the escorts weren’t paid every time because Combs’ intent to pay them and transport them for sex was enough to prove the prostitution claim.
“Maybe some of these escorts would have sex in front of a masked masturbating celebrity for free!” Comey said sarcastically.
One of the male prostitutes testified that the first time he was hired for a “freak-off” with Combs and his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, the hip-hop mogul was wearing a mask and sitting in the corner pleasuring himself.
CASSIE ‘INVENTED RAPE TO COVER UP CHEATING’
Diddy’s lawyer accused Cassie Ventura of lying when she claimed the hip-hop mogul raped her after they split – all to cover up she had cheated on her new boyfriend.
Defence lawyer said Ms Ventura “slipped” by sleeping with the rapper after they broke up in 2018 because of her new romance with Alex Fine – who she went on to marry.
Agnifilo pulled up Ms Ventura’s text to Combs on September 27, 2018 after the alleged rape saying: “I had a lot of fun with you, thank you for the night.”
“You can no longer maintain that a rape took place and then send this text message right after,” Mr Agnifilo argued.
RAPPER ‘COMMITTED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, NOT SEX TRAFFICKING’
Combs viciously beating up his girlfriend Cassie Ventura is “terrible” and even “domestic violence,” but it doesn’t amount to sex trafficking, the rapper’s lawyer told jurors Friday.
Defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo admitted the March 2016 footage captured by surveillance cameras at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles is “very much, very much domestic violence.”
“The video is terrible, it’s nothing but terrible,” the lawyer said.
But Ventura and Combs – who stopped dating in 2018 – “get through it together,” Agnifilo said.
Combs could be seen in the footage shoving, kicking and dragging Ventura in the hotel hallway. The video of the incident has been shown to jurors numerous times throughout trial.
COMBS ‘OBVIOUSLY HAS A DRUG PROBLEM’ BUT HE’S NO DEALER
Combs definitely has a problem with drugs — but that doesn’t make him a drug dealer, his lawyer said during closing arguments.
“He obviously has a drug problem, he obviously has a drug problem, no question,” Mr Agnifilo conceded to the jury shortly before noon Friday.
But Mr Agnifilo insisted the disgraced mogul isn’t the drug dealer that prosecutors have made him out to be during his sex-trafficking trial.
“This is personal-use drugs – that’s what it is,” the lawyer said, adding that Combs used middlemen and associates to get drugs for him because of his fame and status.
“You wouldn’t see Beyonce in CVS,” Mr Agnifilo said.
Drug distribution is an offence included in the racketeering conspiracy charge against Combs.
‘GROSSLY IMPROPER’: JUDGE CHIDES DIDDY’S LAWYER
Judge Arun Subramanian chided Mr Agnifilo for going “a bridge too far” in his closing arguments to jurors.
The judge said it was “grossly improper” when Mr Agnifilo asked jurors to think about the reason that prosecutors brought charges against the rapper.
“It would be improper for you to consider such matters in your deliberations and you should disregard those comments,” Subramanian told jurors after a short break.
When jurors were out of the courtroom, prosecutor Maureen Comey objected to Agnifilo’s comments, saying, “It is not proper to invite the jury to consider the reasons why prosecutors brought a charge.”
“That is word-for-word what Mr. Agnifilo just did.”
The defence lawyer fired back: “I think I’m allowed to be sarcastic. I believe that if a charge is beyond the pale, I can make that point.”
DIDDY WAS AN EARLY ADOPTER OF DEI INITIATIVES
Combs was a supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at his businesses from the start, his lawyer said during Friday’s closing arguments.
“You know diversity, equity and inclusion? He was doing this in 1993 as a 21-year-old,” lawyer Marc Agnifilo told jurors.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs are meant to bring people from more diverse backgrounds into businesses and institutions.
But DEI has drawn the ire of some conservatives and Republicans, including President Donald Trump – who would have the power to commute Combs’ sentence if he’s convicted.
‘SHE’S A 10’: CASSIE ‘LIKED SEX’
Agnifilo said the rapper’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura liked sex, adding, “She’s a 10.”
Agnifilo said Ventura – the hip-hop mogul’s longtime on-and-off girlfriend – wasn’t forced into “freak-offs” because she “actually liked sex.”
“Good for her, she’s beautiful … She’s a 10,” the lawyer said.
CASSIE AND DIDDY ARE ‘A GREAT MODERN LOVE STORY’
Agnifilo claimed that the disgraced mogul’s decade-long relationship with Cassie Ventura – whom he’s caught on camera brutally beating – “kind of a great modern love story.”
“They loved. They loved out loud,” the lawyer said, pacing back and forth in front of the jury box.
“She was always free to leave. She chose to stay because she was in love with him, and he was in love with her,” Agnifilo added.
“They loved. They loved out loud.”
The lawyer also suggested that jurors would “cry” when reading the “beautiful” text messages around Combs and Ventura’s break-up during deliberations.
“If you want to read some beautiful, beautiful language … read the texts. You’ll cry. You will cry. You’ll read evidence with an exhibit sticker on it and you will cry.”
Combs was caught on camera yanking Ventura down by her hair, kicking and punching her in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in March 2016.
Ventura testified that Combs beat her countless other times, forced her to have degrading sex with male escorts, and raped her in 2018 after they broke up.
COMBS ‘TAKES CARE OF PEOPLE’: LAWYER
Combs could be seen pressing his hands together, apparently making the prayer hands gesture, as his lawyers were gearing up for their closing arguments.
The hip-hop mogul, wearing a tan sweater, stood up at the defence table, pressed his hands together and shook them while turning toward his lawyers.
The rapper’s lawyer Mr Agnifilo touted the rapper’s family’s attendance at trial during closing arguments. “His children and mother are here in the second row today,” Mr Agnifilo said of mum Janice Combs and her grandkids.
“You should know that. You should know who he is.”
“The man takes care of people,” the lawyer said. “That’s what he does.”
Mr Agnifilo said the fact that Combs paid his ex-influencer gal pal’s A$15,000-a-month rent wasn’t part of a racketeering scheme but rather part of the fact he was generous and took care of those close to him.
This story originally appeared in The New York Post.
Originally published as Sean ‘Diddy Combs’: jury begin deliberations in sex trafficking trial
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