NEW YORK (AP) — The chance that music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs would possibly testify at his federal intercourse trafficking trial all however vanished Tuesday after his lawyer predicted a protection presentation lasting as little as two days and the choose stated jurors could possibly be deliberating subsequent week.
Legal professional Marc Agnifilo instructed Choose Arun Subramanian that the protection presentation may final lower than two days and less than 5, an estimate that might possible not apply if Combs testified. Testimony by two of his former girlfriends consumed two of the trial’s six weeks.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not responsible to intercourse trafficking and racketeering conspiracy expenses. He has been jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn since his September arrest at a Manhattan lodge.
Assistant U.S. Legal professional Maurene Comey stated prosecutors anticipated to relaxation Friday.
Earlier within the trial, Combs’ ex-girlfriends Casandra “ Cassie ” Ventura and a lady who testified beneath the pseudonym “ Jane ” instructed jurors that Combs used threats and financial incentives to coerce them into frequent multi-day intercourse marathons the place Combs watched, directed and generally filmed them partaking with male intercourse staff. Each girls stated they only needed to be with Combs.
On Tuesday, the jury was proven practically 20 minutes of express video recordings of these “freak-off” encounters from 2012 and 2014 as a protection lawyer cross examined a regulation enforcement agent concerning the tapes. Ventura’s relationship with Combs lasted from 2007 to 2018 whereas Jane dated him from 2021 till his arrest final fall.
Because the recordings had been performed, one juror appeared to show away from his video display for more often than not though he saved on earphones carrying the sound to jurors. Spectators had been blocked from seeing or listening to the graphic proof. Different jurors sat again of their seats because the recordings performed on the screens in entrance of them.
A day earlier, prosecutors had proven jurors about two minutes of snippets of the recordings.
In her opening assertion on Might 12, protection lawyer Teny Geragos known as the movies “powerful evidence that the sexual conduct in this case was consensual and not based on coercion.”
“Some of you may find them hard to watch. Not because they are violent, not because they are non-consensual, but because they were never meant to be seen by people outside of that room. They are in one word — intimate. And they were always meant to remain that way,” she stated.
She added: “These videos will feel invasive, but the government has charged him with sex trafficking, and the evidence of the alleged sex trafficking is on these videos. This is why you will have to see them.”
In her opening assertion, Assistant U.S. Legal professional Emily Johnson stated Combs “used lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce, first, Cassie, and later Jane, to have sex with him in front of male escorts. The defendant insisted that the sex occur in a very specific, highly orchestrated way.”
Earlier Tuesday, the irate choose scolded prosecutors and protection attorneys, saying details about a closed courtroom continuing involving a juror final Friday had leaked to a media outlet as a result of “one or more people in this courtroom clearly violated the court’s order.”
Sooner or later, Subramanian stated, he would maintain Comey and Agnifilo answerable for any slipups, and any violations of his orders may end in felony contempt penalties “at the most extreme level.”
“This is the only warning I will give,” he stated.
