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After six weeks, more than 30 witnesses, several days of tearful testimony from three alleged sexual-abuse victims, sealed “freak-off” videos, testimony from Kid Cudi, and a courthouse cameo from Kanye West, the Southern District of New York rested its sprawling sex-trafficking and racketeering case against Sean Combs on Tuesday.
Prosecutors confirmed their final witness was Joseph Cerciello, the Homeland Security special agent who answered questions about charts documenting Combs’ “freak-offs” with his ex-girlfriends and a rotating cast of male escorts. When Cerciello was dismissed, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian they were finished, ending speculation that one of Combs’ high-ranking, alleged co-conspirators might be called to the stand. The move set the stage for Combs’ all-star defense team to take the lead. Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said Monday that Combs had no plans to call any live witnesses and would simply introduce exhibits before resting.
After jurors left the courtroom for lunch, defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro asked the judge to step in and simply acquit Combs himself. She argued prosecutors had failed to prove Combs oversaw a racketeering conspiracy. Shapiro said there was only “thin proof” Combs’ employees had any inkling about the true nature of Combs’ freak-offs with his girlfriends, which were also known as “hotel nights” and “king nights.” She argued they simply didn’t know “what went on with Combs and his girlfriends in the hotel room other than they used a lot of baby oil and Astroglide and drank alcohol and maybe did drugs.”
Shapiro said Combs, his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, and a more recent ex-girlfriend, who testified under the pseudonym Jane, personally booked the escorts that they used for their highly choreographed sex marathons. Shapiro argued some evidence showed Combs and Jane went out of their way to hide the escorts from Combs’ staff. “That’s not the way co-conspirators act with each other,” she said, referencing a texts where Combs’ chief of staff Kristina Khorram scolded Combs because she believed he hadn’t been honest with her.
Shapiro conceded some employees may have helped procure drugs for Combs, but she dismissed the amounts as “personal quantities.”
Judge Subramanian reserved any decision on the defense motion to acquit. He then asked Combs if it was his decision to not testify. Combs stood upright and started by complimenting the judge. “I wanted to tell you, thank you. You’re doing an excellent job,” he said. In a voice that seemed a bit husky, Combs answered affirmatively that he had been informed about his rights and had decided not to testify in his own defense. “That is solely my decision,” he said. “It’s my decision, with my lawyers.”
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Recapping two decades of Combs’ life, the government set out to prove to a New York jury how the “larger-than-life,” charming, and successful hip-hop mogul covertly used his billion-dollar empire as an alleged criminal enterprise, whose members engaged in acts of physical violence, threats, witness tampering, kidnapping, forced labor, bribery, and arson.
The alleged enterprise was sustained by a team of loyal, and sometimes terrified staffers. Together, these employees “carefully cultivated and guarded his reputation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily A. Johnson said during opening statements on May 12. “They worked to get the defendant everything he wanted. He sometimes called himself the king, and he expected to be treated like one. He expected his inner circle to cater to his every desire, including his sexual desires.”
The 55-year-old Bad Boy founder has vehemently denied the criminal accusations and pleaded not guilty to five felony charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He faces life in prison if convicted.
The crux of the SDNY’s case revolves around Combs’ alleged freak-offs, a term first introduced by Ventura in her bombshell lawsuit against Combs in November 2023. Prosecutors described freak-offs as highly choreographed, drug-induced sexual marathons with one of Combs’ girlfriends and a male escort. Combs is accused of treating the days-long encounters as his own personal porn set, giving directions to his girlfriend and filming the sex acts.
Even before opening statements, many of the case’s central claims have been public knowledge due to Ventura’s 35-page complaint. Beyond the alleged sexual abuse, Ventura detailed specific events throughout her decade-long relationship with Combs that kept her trapped in the “abusive” dynamic. Prosecutors labeled some of those events as criminal acts, including arson, bribery, physical assault, and drug distribution, among others.
Ventura was the anchor to prosecutors’ case, the 38-year-old taking the stand in the first week due to her pregnancy and imminent delivery date. (Ventura gave birth to her third child, a boy, two weeks after testifying.) She alleged a then-37-year-old Combs pursued and wooed her when she was a 21-year-old signee to his iconic record label in 2007. The two entered into a whirlwind romance before Combs introduced her to his “fantasy,” watching her have sex with other men. Ventura said she came to know the encounters as freak-offs.
Ventura alleged there were times when she tried to push back against Combs. But whenever she did, Ventura alleged Combs would stifle her music career, viciously beat her, kick her out of her own apartment, and threaten to leak explicit videos of her. Instead of focusing on making music, Ventura said her job was “basically a sex worker.”
Another of Combs’ ex-girlfriends, Jane, claimed Combs twisted her love for him and made her feel like a “sex robot.” Jane, who dated Combs from January 2021 until his September arrest, alleged that when she began telling Combs she no longer wanted to have what she knew as “hotel nights,” he’d become agitated and threaten to break up with her.
When Combs began paying $10,000 a month for her rent, Jane claimed he would continually make references to his financial support — a looming reminder that he could yank it away at a moment’s notice. Desperate for Combs’ affection, Jane said she participated in nights of “debauchery” with Combs because she believed she would then get quality time alone with Combs as a reward.
As their relationship deteriorated in the wake of Ventura’s lawsuit, Jane claimed Combs once slapped, punched, kicked, and choked her in June 2024 before allegedly forcing her to take a pill and have sex with a male escort. “Is this coercion?” a taunting Combs allegedly asked Jane as he handed her the drug.
Much of the government’s case revolves around the accusations that Combs sex-trafficked both Ventura and Jane. Prosecutors allege Ventura was sex-trafficked through force and coercion, while Jane was allegedly sex-trafficked through fraud.
As part of the case, prosecutors produced evidence allegedly showing Combs transported male sex workers across state lines for the sole purpose of having sex with his girlfriends. Bank and travel records, as well as testimony from Jane and Ventura, detail at least 20 instances where Combs’ companies paid for certain men to be flown from Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta to various cities, including internationally, where alleged freak-offs occurred sometimes just a few hours later.
Yet the specifics around the male escorts — including live testimony from male escorts Daniel Phillip and Sharay Hayes, a.k.a. the Punisher — was minimal compared to prosecutors’ focus on the racketeering-conspiracy element of their case.
Through dozens of witnesses, including six of Combs’ former assistants, hotel security guards, law enforcement officials, and a former executive at Combs’ company, prosecutors broke down what they claim were the racketeering’s predicate acts of arson, kidnapping, and bribery, among others, step-by-step.
Three of Combs’ personal assistants between 2014 and last September were given immunity to testify how they were tasked in procuring a variety of drugs, including Ecstasy, prescription pills, cocaine, and tusi for Combs and hand-delivering it to him.
Musician Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, said he raced home in December 2011 when Combs’ assistant Capricorn Clark frantically called to inform him that Combs had broken into Mescudi’s Hollywood Hills home after Combs learned of Mescudi’s fleeting romance with Ventura. Weeks later, after dodging Combs’ calls and spending the holidays with Ventura, Mescudi learned that a Molotov cocktail was dropped in the driver’s seat of his burned-out Porsche.
Clark cried as she alleged two kidnappings at the hands of Combs. She said Combs’ security guard brought her to a dilapidated Midtown office building for five consecutive days to administer a lie-detector test after diamond jewelry Combs had on loan went missing in 2004. Clark said an unidentified, chain-smoking, beefy man told her she would be thrown into the East River if she failed the test. Clark said Combs later showed up to her door with a gun and forced her to accompany him to Mescudi’s home. “He just said, ‘Get dressed. We’re going to go kill this n—a,’” Clark recounted.
Former InterContinental Hotel security guard Eddy Garcia testified that Combs’ chief of staff Kristina Khorram hounded him over seeing a copy of the damning security footage of Combs attacking Ventura in a hotel hallway after a freak-off in March 2016. Garcia said he eventually played middle man to receive a $100,000 alleged bribe to deliver Combs the believed lone copy of the footage.
There was also Mia, Combs’ personal assistant, who alleged her boss sometimes made her feel like a best friend but would randomly and sporadically sexually assault her. Unable to look up as she testified, Mia cried as she detailed how she still suffers from PTSD. After leaving Combs’ orbit in 2016, Mia said she received an out-of-the-blue text from Combs’ former longtime security guard, Damion “D-Roc” Butler, days after Ventura’s lawsuit was filed. Over the next three months, D-Roc allegedly tried to put Mia in touch with Combs, offering to send her money.
As prosecutors have rested, the defense now will take center stage. Early in the trial, they indicated to the court that they may need more than a week to present their case. As the trial went on, that timeline shortened, and by Monday, Combs’ lawyers said they would need around one day and would not be presenting any witnesses in Combs’ defense.
If the defense rests its case by Wednesday, closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday, with jurors beginning deliberations as soon as Friday. Judge Subramanian has repeatedly told the jury, with assurances from both the defense and government, that he expects the trial to be wrapped by the July Fourth holiday. Combs’ defense team likely wants to avoid antsy jurors rushing into a decision because of looming holiday plans.
From Rolling Stone US
