NEW YORK – On Monday, a jury will start deliberations regarding the case of Sean “Diddy” Combs after having heard vastly different perspectives from prosecutors and the defense attorney about his alleged engagement in sex trafficking activities spanning 20 years.
Prosecutors argued that Combs used coercion, threats, and at times, brutal force on his two former girlfriends to compel them into engaging in sexual acts with male sex workers for his own gratification. They referenced several instances of violence against them as evidence of his domineering control.
The defense lawyer, however, ridiculed the government’s final arguments, cautioning that prosecutors are applying an unprecedented technique to sex-related crimes, potentially criminalizing the consensual swinger lifestyle enjoyed by Combs and his partners, thereby posing a risk to similar lifestyles across America.
Combs, 55, the founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges in the trial, which continues Monday when the judge will read instructions on the law to jurors before they begin deliberations.
Here are key moments from closing argument on Thursday and Friday:
Prosecutors showed they weren’t withdrawing claims against Combs
Prosecutors triggered headlines last week that they had backed off or eliminated claims of arson and kidnapping against Combs when they said they were removing instructions on the law regarding them to be given jurors on Monday in response to the judge’s request to streamline the case for the jury.
“The Government is no longer planning to proceed on these theories of liability so instructions are no longer necessary,” prosecutors wrote in a letter to the judge.
But when Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik launched closings on Thursday, she gave the allegations of arson and kidnapping a starring role in her first sentences, naming them before any others.
“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.
A defense lawyer strikes back, belittling government’s case
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.
Defense personalizes the case for jurors, calling it attack on ‘your bedroom’
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.”
Then, he gave a nod to the 50th anniversary of the movie “Jaws,” resurrecting a classic line from Hollywood history when he said: “We need a bigger roll of crime scene tape, because that’s just not going to be enough.”
Judge agrees defense went too far saying prosecutors targeted Combs
Just after Agnifilo told jurors that it “takes a lot of courage to acquit,” he ripped the government’s case a final time in stark terms, saying the trial was “very different” from any other trial.
“I think that the evidence shows, and you can conclude, that the government targeted Sean Combs,” he said, noting that nobody complained to the government to instigate a probe, but investigators instead began their work a day after Cassie filed her lawsuit.
After the jury left the room at the conclusion of Agnifilo’s four-hour summation, his statement about targeting drew an outcry from the prosecutor, Slavik.
When the jury returned, Judge Judge Arun Subramanian noted the remark Agnifilo had made about targeting Combs and told jurors that “the decision of the government to investigate an individual or the decision of a grand jury to indict an individual is none of your concern.”
In rebuttal, a prosecutor tells jurors that Combs is ‘not a god’
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey got the final word with a rebuttal presentation to jurors, telling them: “The defendant is not a god.”
She said that Combs in his mind “was untouchable.” She noted that one former personal assistant even described him as a “god among men.”
“For 20 years, the defendant got away with his crimes. That ends in this courtroom,” she said. “He is a person. And in this courtroom, he stands equal before the law. Overwhelming evidence proves his guilt. It is time to hold him accountable. Find him guilty.”
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