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After seven weeks of testimony, Sean Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering charges is now in the hands of the jury.
On Monday morning, Judge Arun Subramanian gave the jurors, comprised of eight men and four women, what are known as “charging instructions,” a set of instructions laying out the case, before they began deliberations. Both the prosecution and the defense rested last week after delivering their closing arguments.
Combs faces five felony charges, including racketeering conspiracy, two counts sex trafficking related to two ex-girlfriends, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied the accusations against him.
During the prosecution’s final address to the jurors last Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik called Combs the “leader of a criminal enterprise.” She said he used violence, silence, and “shame” to coerce women into participating in drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts (known as “freak-offs”) to satisfy Combs’ voyeuristic fantasies.
Slavik said Combs refused to “take no for an answer” and always got what he wanted. She also said the support he received from his inner circle and businesses made him all the “more powerful and more dangerous,” claiming the mogul commanded an “armed and ready” security staff willing to “protect” him against any perceived threats.
During her five-hour presentation, Slavik tied together various threads from numerous witnesses, especially Combs’ ex-girlfriends and accusers, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman who testified pseudonymously under the name “Jane.” Slavik recalled how both women felt “obligated” to participate in, and sometimes facilitate, the sexual encounters to keep Combs happy.
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She said Combs expected “total compliance,” and if he didn’t get it, he would lash out with aggression, especially against Ventura, who detailed numerous instances of domestic violence during her testimony. “She knew that when he was happy, she was safe,” Slavik said. “If the defendant wanted a freak-off, it was going to happen.”
In explaining the charges against Combs to the jury, Slavik said they could convict Combs of racketeering if they determined he and just one other alleged co-conspirator agreed to two of the eight so-called “predicate” acts listed in the indictment (such as bribery, drug distribution, arson, kidnapping, sex trafficking, forced labor, witness tampering, or transportation to engage in prostitution). She also said Combs could be found guilty of sex trafficking if jurors decided that he coerced the women into just one unwanted sex act with a paid male escort.
On Friday, Combs’ defense attorney Marc Agnifilo countered with a fiery, often sarcastic salvo. He decried the government’s case as “fake,” “exaggerated,” and an overreaching effort to criminalize the mogul’s private sex life. He asserted that Combs was simply enjoying a colorful “lifestyle” filled with open relationships with loving girlfriends, hotel threesomes, recreational drug use and regrettable instances of domestic violence.
He further argued that Combs was not a crime boss, but a “self-made, successful, Black entrepreneur” who built “wonderful, sophisticated, real businesses that have stood the test of time.” In his efforts to undercut the government’s case, Agnifilo scoffed at some of the government’s more salacious bits of evidence, such as the boxes of baby oil taken during raids of Combs’ homes last year.
“Thank goodness for the special response team,” Agnifilo quipped. “They found the Astroglide! They found the baby oil! They found like five valium pills. Way to go fellas.” (During a break, one prosecutor called Agnifilo’s commentary “deeply objectionable” and “wholly inappropriate.” Agnifilo replied, “I think I’m allowed to be sarcastic.”)
In rebutting the portion of the case built around Ventura’s testimony, Agnifilo called her relationship with Combs “a great modern love story” and even appeared to get choked up while discussing loving text messages Ventura and Combs exchanged. While Agnifilo didn’t shy away from Combs’ violent outbursts against Ventura — including an infamous security video that showed Combs assaulting Ventura in a hotel — he argued that Ventura willingly participated in, and enjoyed, the freak-offs.
“She’s at a high level,” he argued. “She’s not clutching her pearls.”
Similarly, Agnifilo argued that Jane enjoyed the encounters. He even accused her of “lying” when she testified that Combs choked, kicked, and pushed her during a fight in July 2024 that led to an allegedly forced freak-off.
In urging the jury to acquit Combs, Agnifilo said, “I am asking you to summon that courage and to do what needs to be done. He sits there innocent. Return him to his family, who have been waiting for him.”
Addressing the jury one last time during the rebuttal, prosecutor Maurene Comey said the defense offered “excuse after excuse for inexcusable criminal behavior.”
Combs faces life in prison if convicted on all charges.
From Rolling Stone US
