Surprise as Prosecution Drops Kidnapping, Arson, and Sex-Trafficking Charges in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial To ‘Streamline’ Case: Is Their Case in Trouble?

Federal prosecutors dropped several charges in the case against the rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is on trial in federal court in New York, after the defense sought to dismiss all charges on Tuesday. “The Government understands the Court’s desire for streamlined instructions,” prosecutors wrote in a letter filed on Tuesday evening ahead of the charging conference scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, effectively telling the judge they were willing to shorten their sprawling five-count indictment. As the Sun reported, after prosecutors rested their case on Tuesday, Mr. Combs’s defense team filed what’s called a rule 29 motion, asking the judge to dismiss all charges because they believe prosecutors have failed to meet the burden of proof during the lengthy high-profile trial, which heard 34 witnesses and began with jury selection on May 5. The judge reserved his decision on the motion and has not ruled on it yet. His reservation was widely noted by legal observers, as judges usually outright dismiss the defense’s motion to dismiss.In their filing, prosecutors would not acknowledge that the arguments raised by the defense had led them to drop the charges; instead, they wrote that they wanted to simplify the charges and “streamline” them for jury instructions. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted on all charges, he faces life in prison. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Combs of running a “criminal enterprise” that orchestrated three- to four-person sex sessions known as “freak offs” — involving Mr. Combs, his girlfriends, and one or occasionally two male prostitutes. Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Combs coerced his girlfriends into having sex with the male prostitutes while he filmed and directed the encounters and pleasured himself. The racketeering conspiracy charge is based on a law, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was passed by Congress in 1970 to make it easier to prosecute organized criminal organizations such as the mafia. RICO requires proof of at least two predicate acts, two criminal offenses, which must be included in a pattern of criminal activity connected to an enterprise over the course of at least 10 years. Prosecutors removed three of the criminal acts: the first relates to attempted kidnapping under both California and New York law, the second relates to attempted arson under California law, and the third to aiding and abetting sex trafficking.The kidnapping charges stemmed from two seperate victims, as the prosecution has defined them — Mr. Combs’s long time, on-and-off again girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, and one of his former personal assistants, Capricorn Clark. Both women testified during the trial. The arson charge related to the Grammy-winning musician and actor Scott Mescudi, also known as Kid Cudi, who testified that Mr. Combs firebombed his car in January 2012. Mr. Mescudi, who referred to the defendant as a “Marvel supervillain” during his testimony, briefly romanced Ms. Ventura, which he said enraged Mr. Combs. Although he and Ms. Ventura had ended their affair, Mr. Mescudi said someone threw a Molotov cocktail into his Porsche 911 Cabriolet that was parked in his driveway at Los Angeles. He said he got a phone call at 6:30 a.m. from his dog sitter, who said his car was on fire. Mr. Mescudi, who was staying at his “ex-girlfriend’s sister’s house,” immediately drove home and when he arrived he said “the top of my Porsche was cut open and that’s where they inserted the Molotov cocktail.” He saw the bottle on the burned car’s driver’s seat. The jury saw photos of the Porsche, with a hole cut in the convertible’s fabric roof.A defense attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, argued on Tuesday that there was no evidence that Mr. Combs was involved in the car bombing, and that the only proof that law enforcement found was female DNA on the bottle used to make the Molotov cocktail. The defense attorney also argued that there was no proof of the kidnapping charges. “The first incident,” the attorney said of the two separate kidnapping charges, pertains to Capricorn Clark, who “told the story about the lie detector test and how, according to her testimony, for five days straight she was transported by Paul Offord [the head of Mr. Combs’s security team] to a building in Manhattan that was going to be the new office for Mr. Combs’s businesses.” Ms. Clarke, who worked for Mr. Combs between 2004 and 2018 (during that time she was fired and then rehired), told the jury that a few months into her employment, Mr. Combs accused her of stealing three pieces “of very high-end jewelry … a diamond necklace with a cross, a diamond bracelet, and a diamond watch” that had been on loan to Mr. Combs. She testified that Mr. Combs directed his head of security to take her to an empty building, which was still under construction and going to be the new office space for Mr. Combs’s company. She claimed that for five days in a row she was forced to take repeated lie-detector tests in a room to which the head of security, Mr. Offord, had locked the door. On Tuesday, Ms. Shapiro questioned the charge, saying that if Ms. Clarke was in fact restrained without her consent, though there is no proof of that other than her testimony, “there’s no evidence in the record that Mr. Combs knew that this was happening or agreed that a co-conspirator should kidnap her.” “At most, the evidence showed that he knew his jewelry was missing and that she was one of the employees being investigated for the possible theft of the jewelry. But her alleged interactions were entirely with Mr. Offord and the person she claims administers the lie detector test. There’s no evidence whatsoever that if this occurred, that Mr. Combs had any idea it was going on.” The second kidnapping allegation related to Ms. Ventura, who claimed that she was taken to a hotel in Los Angeles and held there for several days, after she was badly beaten by Mr. Combs, so that she could recover from her injuries in private and out of the public eye. But the defense attorney raised the argument, among other points she made, that Ms. Ventura testified that she had not been allowed to stay at Mr. Combs’s house. How can Mr. Combs be accused of kidnapping, the attorney said, if the alleged victim complains that she was “forced” to stay at a hotel instead of staying at his home, “because if she was so scared of him, why did she want to stay at his house?” Prosecutors also cut the aiding and abetting sex-trafficking offense, but said in their letter that they would still charge sex trafficking and forced labor as racketeering activities. On Wednesday afternoon, the attorneys and the judge will finalize the jury instructions. Closing arguments begin on Thursday.

Surprise as Prosecution Drops Kidnapping, Arson, and Sex-Trafficking Charges in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial To ‘Streamline’ Case: Is Their Case in Trouble?

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