NEW YORK — A jury will start deliberations on Monday over the destiny of Sean “Diddy” Combs after listening to wildly differing views from prosecutors and a protection lawyer over whether or not he engaged in intercourse trafficking for 20 years.
Two prosecutors insisted that he had coerced, threatened and typically viciously pressured two ex-girlfriends to have intercourse with male intercourse staff to fulfill his sexual pleasure. They cited a number of acts of violence he carried out towards them as proof that they’d no say.
A protection lawyer then mocked the federal government’s closing argument and warned that prosecutors have been using a novel method to intercourse crimes that risked turning the swinger way of life that Combs and his girlfriends loved into potential crimes for all People.
Combs, 55, the founding father of Unhealthy Boy Leisure, has pleaded not responsible to intercourse trafficking and racketeering conspiracy prices within the trial, which continues Monday when the choose will learn directions on the legislation to jurors earlier than they start deliberations.
Listed below are key moments from closing argument on Thursday and Friday:
Prosecutors triggered headlines final week that they’d backed off or eradicated claims of arson and kidnapping towards Combs once they stated they have been eradicating directions on the legislation relating to them to be given jurors on Monday in response to the choose’s request to streamline the case for the jury.
“The Authorities is now not planning to proceed on these theories of legal responsibility so directions are now not crucial,” prosecutors wrote in a letter to the choose.
However when Assistant U.S. Legal professional Christy Slavik launched closings on Thursday, she gave the allegations of arson and kidnapping a starring position in her first sentences, naming them earlier than any others.
“During the last a number of weeks, you’ve discovered quite a bit about Sean Combs. He’s the chief of a prison enterprise. He doesn’t take no for a solution. And now about many crimes the defendant dedicated with members of his enterprise: Kidnapping of one of many defendant’s staff; arson by making an attempt to explode a automobile; pressured labor, together with of an worker the defendant repeatedly sexually assaulted; bribery of a safety officer to maintain damning proof towards the defendant buried; and naturally, the brutal crimes on the coronary heart of this case — intercourse trafficking,” she stated.
The arson declare stemmed from proof that Slavik stated confirmed Combs was behind the firebombing of rapper Child Cudi’s Porsche in 2012. The kidnapping allegation additionally associated to Cudi. Slavik stated Combs kidnapped an worker to affix him when he broke into Cudi’s house after studying the rapper was courting his girlfriend.
Legal professional Marc Agnifilo in an at-times folksy presentation spared few theatrics in mocking the federal government’s case towards Combs as overreach, saying a whole bunch of brokers poured into Combs’ residences in Miami and Los Angeles to grab a whole bunch of bottles of child oil and Astroglide lubricant.
“I suppose it’s all value it as a result of they discovered the Astroglide. They discovered it in containers, containers of Astroglide taken off the streets. Whew, I really feel higher already,” he stated, earlier than including: “The streets of America are secure from the Astroglide!”
From the beginning, Agnifilo tried to painting prosecutors as unjustly focusing on Combs after a former girlfriend of practically 11 years — Casandra “Cassie” Ventura — sued him in November 2023. She testified for 4 days within the trial’s first week.
The lawsuit was settled for $20 million the subsequent day however she touched off a prison probe together with her allegations of being subjected to a whole bunch of drug-fueled “freak-offs” by which she alleged she was pressured to carry out sexually for days with male intercourse staff whereas Combs watched, filmed and directed the motion.
A lady who testified below the pseudonym “Jane” additionally testified through the trial that she skilled “resort nights” just like “freak-off” in a relationship with Combs from 2021 till his arrest.
Agnifilo maintained the prosecution was an unjust assault on a outstanding and wildly profitable Black entrepreneur.
“They took Astroglide they usually took child oil, and that finally ends up being the proof on this case, as a result of his companies are excellent. There’s nothing in regards to the companies to search out. There’s nothing in regards to the companies to make right into a prison case,” he stated.
Agnifilo tried to forged the case for the jury as an assault on everybody’s bed room and the secrets and techniques of 1’s intercourse life.
“They go into the person’s bed room. They go into the person’s most non-public life. The place is the crime scene? The crime scene is your non-public intercourse life. That’s the crime scene,” he stated as he stood earlier than jurors, who have been largely expressionless as they took occasional notes and watched the closings.
The lawyer stated it was not unusual that Combs preferred to movie sexual occasions together with his girlfriends, calling it “form of typical, , do-it-yourself porn” and including that “I do not assume by any stretch of the creativeness that is the one man in America making do-it-yourself porn.”
Nonetheless, he stated, investigators “take yellow crime scene tape, figuratively, they usually wrap it round his bed room. Crime scene — your bed room, your resort rooms, the place you go together with your girlfriends. Crime scenes. A number of yellow tape.”
Then, he gave a nod to the fiftieth anniversary of the film “Jaws,” resurrecting a basic line from Hollywood historical past when he stated: “We’d like a much bigger roll of crime scene tape, as a result of that’s simply not going to be sufficient.”
Simply after Agnifilo informed jurors that it “takes plenty of braveness to acquit,” he ripped the federal government’s case a ultimate time in stark phrases, saying the trial was “very totally different” from another trial.
“I feel that the proof reveals, and you may conclude, that the federal government focused Sean Combs,” he stated, noting that no one complained to the federal government to instigate a probe, however investigators as a substitute started their work a day after Cassie filed her lawsuit.
After the jury left the room on the conclusion of Agnifilo’s four-hour summation, his assertion about focusing on drew an outcry from the prosecutor, Slavik.
When the jury returned, Decide Decide Arun Subramanian famous the comment Agnifilo had made about focusing on Combs and informed jurors that “the choice of the federal government to research a person or the choice of a grand jury to indict a person is none of your concern.”
Assistant U.S. Legal professional Maurene Comey received the ultimate phrase with a rebuttal presentation to jurors, telling them: “The defendant will not be a god.”
She stated that Combs in his thoughts “was untouchable.” She famous that one former private assistant even described him as a “god amongst males.”
“For 20 years, the defendant received away together with his crimes. That ends on this courtroom,” she stated. “He’s an individual. And on this courtroom, he stands equal earlier than the legislation. Overwhelming proof proves his guilt. It’s time to maintain him accountable. Discover him responsible.”
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