NEW YORK (AP) — 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 generally 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 strategy to intercourse crimes that risked turning the swinger way of life that Combs and his girlfriends loved into potential crimes for all Individuals.
Combs, 55, the founding father of Unhealthy Boy Leisure, has pleaded not responsible to intercourse trafficking and racketeering conspiracy expenses within the trial, which continues Monday when the choose will learn directions on the legislation to jurors earlier than they start deliberations.
Listed here are key moments from closing argument on Thursday and Friday:
Prosecutors confirmed they weren’t withdrawing claims towards Combs
Prosecutors triggered headlines final week that they’d backed off or eradicated claims of arson and kidnapping towards Combs after they stated they have been eradicating directions on the legislation concerning them to be given jurors on Monday in response to the choose’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 choose.
However when Assistant U.S. Lawyer Christy Slavik launched closings on Thursday, she gave the allegations of arson and kidnapping a starring function in her first sentences, naming them earlier than 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 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 hitch him when he broke into Cudi’s dwelling after studying the rapper was relationship his girlfriend.
A protection lawyer strikes again, belittling authorities’s case
Lawyer Marc Agnifilo in an at-times folksy presentation spared few theatrics in mocking the federal government’s case towards Combs as overreach, saying lots of of brokers poured into Combs’ residences in Miami and Los Angeles to grab lots of of bottles of child 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 stated, earlier than including: “The streets of America are safe from the Astroglide!”
From the beginning, Agnifilo tried to painting prosecutors as unjustly concentrating 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 legal probe along with her allegations of being subjected to lots of of drug-fueled “freak-offs” through 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 girl who testified beneath the pseudonym “Jane” additionally testified throughout the trial that she skilled “hotel 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 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 stated.
Protection personalizes the case for jurors, calling it assault on ‘your bedroom’
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 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 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 favored to movie sexual occasions together with his girlfriends, calling it “sort of typical, you know, homemade porn” and including that “I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination this is the only man in America making homemade porn.”
Nonetheless, he stated, investigators “take yellow crime scene tape, figuratively, and so they wrap it round his bed room. Crime scene — your bed room, your lodge rooms, the place you go along with your girlfriends. Crime scenes. Numerous yellow tape.”
Then, he gave a nod to the fiftieth anniversary of the film “Jaws,” resurrecting a traditional line from Hollywood historical past when he stated: “We need a bigger roll of crime scene tape, because that’s just not going to be enough.”
Choose agrees protection went too far saying prosecutors focused Combs
Simply after Agnifilo instructed jurors that it “takes a lot of courage to acquit,” he ripped the federal government’s case a ultimate time in stark phrases, saying the trial was “very completely different” from every other trial.
“I think that the evidence shows, and you can conclude, that the government targeted 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 concentrating on drew an outcry from the prosecutor, Slavik.
When the jury returned, Choose Choose Arun Subramanian famous the comment Agnifilo had made about concentrating on Combs and instructed 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. Lawyer Maurene Comey received the ultimate phrase with a rebuttal presentation to jurors, telling them: “The defendant is not a god.”
She stated that Combs in his thoughts “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 stated. “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.”
