Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Is Convicted on Prostitution Charge but Acquitted of Far More Serious Racketeering and Sex-Trafficking Charges

The jury in the sex-trafficking trial of the rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs reached a verdict in the five-count indictment on Wednesday, finding the rap producer guilty of a prostitution charge but not guilty of the far more serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.Just before 10:20 a.m., the forewoman proclaimed the verdicts in the courtroom of the Lower Manhattan federal district courthouse. The jury found Mr. Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.On count one, though, the jury found Mr. Combs not guilty of the racketeering conspiracy charge.Racketeering conspiracy requires, first and foremost, the existence of a criminal enterprise, a group of people with a shared purpose who engaged in an illegal scheme or a pattern of unlawful activities over the course of at least 10 years. To find Mr. Combs guilty, federal prosecutors had to prove that he was part of such an enterprise and conspired with one or more people to commit at least two so-called racketeering acts. Prosecutors charged Mr. Combs with eight racketeering acts: kidnapping, arson, bribery, witness tampering, forced labor, sex trafficking, transportation for purposes of prostitution, and acts involving drug distribution. On count two, the jury found Mr. Combs not guilty of sex trafficking with respect to his former longtime girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura. On count three, the jury found Mr. Combs guilty of transportation for the purposes of prostitution, including but not limited to Ms. Ventura and commercial sex workers. On count four, the jury found Mr. Combs not guilty of sex trafficking with respect to another former girlfriend, a woman known to the court only as Jane. Lastly, on count five, the jury found Mr. Combs guilty of transportation for the purposes of prostitution, including but not limited to Jane and commercial sex workers. As the Sun reported, the jury had already reached verdicts on counts two through five in the high-profile case on Tuesday, but the outcome was not disclosed because the eight men and four women could not decide on a verdict on count one, the racketeering conspiracy charge. The presiding district judge, Arun Subramanian, decided to send them back to the deliberation room. First signals of a disagreement among the jurors had already been seen on Monday, when the jury sent a note to the judge, saying that Juror No. 25 — a 51-year-old scientist who lives in Manhattan — could not follow the jury instructions. The judge sent a note back, telling the jurors to resume their deliberations. The high-profile trial of the music producer and onetime billionaire, which took place at a federal district court in Lower Manhattan, began with jury selection on May 5. Mr. Combs, 55, who is also known by his current and former stage names of Diddy, P. Diddy, or Puff Daddy, is credited with shaping the hip-hop music industry of the 1990s. He discovered and developed artists such as the singers Mary J. Blige and Usher and the rapper Notorious B.I.G. He also dated the singer and actress Jennifer Lopez for two years. In 2001, he was found not guilty by a jury after he was charged with firing a gun in a Manhattan nightclub. In recent years, Mr. Combs’s reputation and business empire began to collapse under the weight of lawsuits and media coverage alleging sexual abuse and violence. In September, federal prosecutors indicted and arrested Mr. Combs. He has been locked up at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ever since. During the trial, the jury heard from 34 witnesses, including both of the alleged victims on which the criminal case was built — his ex-girlfriends, Ms. Ventura and Jane — as well as former employees of Mr. Combs, two male escorts, federal agents, and a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and actor, Scott Mescudi, who had a brief affair with Ms. Ventura and is also known by his stage name, Kid Cudi. The jury also read hundreds of text messages between the defendant and his alleged victims and watched more than 40 minutes of explicit video footage, showing Mr. Combs’s ex girlfriends having sex with male escorts. The key allegation at the heart of the case was the sex-trafficking charge. Prosecutors accused Mr. Combs of coercing his two former girlfriends, Ms. Ventura and Jane (separately), into having sex with male prostitutes during drug-fueled, hours-long sex sessions he called “Freak Offs,” while he filmed them, watched and pleasured himself, and occasionally participated. Prosecutors argued that he used coercion tactics like violence, threats, blackmail, and financial dependence to force his girlfriends to submit to the sex sessions.Mr. Combs denied these allegations and pleaded not guilty to all charges, insisting that the sexual encounters were consensual. His defense attorneys argued that Mr. Combs led the lifestyle of a “swinger” and that the women wanted to participate in the Freak Offs. In his closing argument, the lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said that Ms. Ventura, who was in a tumultuous off-and-on again relationship with Mr. Combs between 2007 and 2018, is “a woman who actually likes sex,” which is “good for her.”With respect to the racketeering conspiracy charge, Mr. Agnifilo argued that prosecutors “have charged one of the most serious, complicated, comprehensive statutes on the books.” The charge is based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, also known as the RICO act, which was passed by Congress in 1970 to facilitate the prosecution of organized criminal organizations such as the mafia. In recent years, though, prosecutors have used the racketeering statute to pursue high profile individuals who have nothing to do with the mafia, the Irish mob, or violent urban gangs. In 2021, for example, a jury found the recording artist Robert Sylvester Kelly, also known as R. Kelly, guilty of nine counts of racketeering acts and leading a criminal enterprise that used his music career and associated individuals to recruit and exploit women and minors for sexual purposes. Mr. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. An alleged cult leader, Keith Raniere — who was also represented by Mr. Agnifilo — was convicted of racketeering and other charges in 2019 and sentenced to 120 years in prison.To hold someone accountable on this charge, prosecutors have to prove that he or she was part of a criminal enterprise — simply put, a group of people, who shared a common agenda. In Mr. Combs’s case, prosecutors alleged that he led his “criminal enterprise,” which was directly connected to his business empire, his recording label, his fashion brands, his liquor sales, and more. Other members of this enterprise included his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, his bodyguards, and several of his personal assistants, who conspired with Mr. Combs to commit so-called racketeering acts over the course of two decades, between at least 2004 and 2024, according to prosecutors. In his closing arguments Mr. Agnifilo accused the government, which brought the charges against his client under the Biden administration, of targeting Mr. Combs. The attorney pointed out that there was no complainant in the criminal case, no one had called the police on Mr. Combs and the federal government only began investigating Mr. Combs only after Ms. Ventura had brought a civil lawsuit against him, suggesting that the civil allegations inspired the criminal charges.The explosive lawsuit, which Ms. Ventura filed in November 2023, allegeding years of physical and sexual abuse, was settled in one day for $20 million. Dozens of other lawsuits have followed since, in which individuals, men and women, accuse Mr. Combs of using his power to drug, assault, rape, intimidate, and silence people. He has said the lawsuits are attempts at “a quick payday.” Four months after the swift settlement of Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit, special agents in March 2024 raided Mr. Combs’s estates in Los Angeles and in Miami, seizing, among other things, several guns, rather small amounts of drugs, such as ketamine, more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil, and hundreds of boxes of the sexual lubricant Astroglide. Six months later, last September, Mr. Combs was arrested in the lobby of the luxury Park Hatt hotel in Manhattan and indicted. At the beginning of his summation, Mr. Agnifilo mocked the findings of the raids, saying that “the government executes these search warrants, hundreds of agents, special response team, and I guess it’s all worth it because they found the Astroglide. Whew, I feel better already. Artificial lubricant. … The streets of America are safe from the Astroglide.”But prosecutors argued that there was nothing innocent about these baby oil parties, and that “the defendant never thought that the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud about what he had done to them.” The Freak Offs, which would typically take place in hotel rooms, but also at private residences, all over the country — in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and even abroad — could last several days. The defendant and the women, several witnesses testified, would usually consume drugs, such as ecstasy, ketamine, or MDMA. Both Jane and Ms. Ventura testified that the drugs would help them stay awake and disassociate from the physically challenging performances. Ms. Ventura said that she would sometimes even need IV fluids as part of her recovery process after the Freak Offs. Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Combs did not take no for an answer, and if a woman dared to refuse to participate in these demanding sex sessions he could punish her with violence. The jury heard about numerous incidents during which Mr. Combs physically abused Ms. Ventura. One time he threw her head into a wooden bed frame, and then asked his security guard to take her to a plastic surgeon to stitch the wounds.Such incidents, prosecutors argued, showed that Mr. Combs led a criminal enterprise, where his employees covered up his physical abuse against the women, protecting their “king” at all costs. In another instance, a former employee, Capricorn Clarke, testified that another security guard stood by and watched as Mr. Combs kicked and beat Ms. Ventura, who was curled up on the ground at one of his residences.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Is Convicted on Prostitution Charge but Acquitted of Far More Serious Racketeering and Sex-Trafficking Charges

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