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By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs was convicted of prostitution-related offenses but acquitted Wednesday of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put one of hip-hop’s most celebrated figures behind bars for life.
The mixed result still could send Combs, 55, to prison for as long as a decade, and is likely to end his career as a hitmaking music executive, fashion entrepreneur, brand ambassador and reality TV star.
After hearing the verdict, Combs held his hands up in a prayer motion, looking at jury and hugged defense lawyer Teny Geragos. Combs’ relatives and supporters in the audience could barely contain their relief, despite the judge’s admonition to avoid outbursts: When the first “not guilty” was read aloud, someone shouted, “Yeah!”
Combs later continued to pump his right fist subtly, seemingly satisfied that he was acquitted on the most serious charges.
Combs was convicted of flying people around the country, including his girlfriends and paid male sex workers, to engage in sexual encounters, a felony violation of the federal Mann Act.
But the jury of eight men and four women acquitted Combs of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges, related to allegations that he used his money, power and frightening physical force to manipulate his girlfriends into hundreds of drug-fueled sex marathons with the men.
Combs’ defense team argued that the women were willing participants and that none of his violence justified the severity of the charges.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian was weighing whether to free Combs on bail in the wake of the verdict. The judge adjourned the court while he considers the matter.
Combs appeared overwhelmed as court adjourned for at least a few hours. He wiped his face, turning and kneeling at his chair, his head bowed in prayer. In the audience, his relatives stood and applauded as he faced them.
“I’ll be home soon,” he said, and “I love you, baby.”
“I love you, Mom,” he added.
His relatives applauded him and his lawyers as he was led out of court.
Combs has been behind bars since his arrest in September. His lawyers argued that the acquittal on the most serious counts changed the legal landscape enough that he should get bail.
There’s no date yet for sentencing, when the judge will decide on Combs’ punishment for the prostitution conviction.
Verdict follows weeks of harrowing testimony
Federal officials involved in the case responded to the outcome by noting that sex crimes “are all too present in many aspects of our society.”
“New Yorkers and all Americans want this scourge stopped and perpetrators brought to justice,” Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton and Ricky J. Patel, who heads federal Homeland Security Investigations’ New York office, said in a statement.
Jurors deliberated for about 13 hours over three days before announcing their verdict. It came after they said late Tuesday that they had decided on four counts but were stuck on the racketeering one. At that point, the judge told them to keep deliberating and keep the partial verdict under wraps.
Combs did not testify at his trial, which featured 34 witnesses as well as video of the rapper attacking his former girlfriend Cassie, the R&B singer born Casandra Ventura.
Her lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, said in a statement after the verdict that “by coming forward with her experience, Cassie has left an indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice.”
Cassie testified for four days about her turbulent 11-year relationship with Combs, which began after she signed with his Bad Boy record label.
Cassie said Combs became obsessed with voyeuristic encounters, arranged with the help of his staff, that involved sex workers and copious amounts of baby oil. During the sex events, called “freak-offs” or “hotel nights,” Combs would order Cassie to do things with other men that she found humiliating, she testified.
When things didn’t go Combs’ way, he would beat her, she said.
“I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child,” Cassie told Combs after he dragged her down a hotel hallway in 2016.
Another ex-girlfriend, testifying under the pseudonym “Jane,” told the jury she repeatedly told Combs she didn’t want to have sex with the men hired for their trysts.
“I’m not an animal. I need a break,” she told him. Nevertheless, she said she felt “obligated” to comply with his demands, in part because he paid her rent.
Defense calls case an invasion of privacy
The trial’s most famous witness, rapper Kid Cudi, said Combs broke into his home in late 2011 after learning he and Cassie were dating. After his car was firebombed a few weeks later, Cudi — whose real name is Scott Mescudi — said he knew Combs “had something to do” with it. Combs denied it.
Combs’ defense team acknowledged that he could be violent but argued that prosecutors were intruding in his personal life. In his closing remarks to the jury, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said it wasn’t illegal for Combs to make “homemade porn” with his girlfriends.
“They go into the man’s bedroom. They go into the man’s most private life. Where is the crime scene?” Agnifilo said.
While Jane described violence — like a night when Combs choked her, punched her face, leaving welts and a black eye, when she resisted an encounter with a sex worker — she also acknowledged on the witness stand that her feelings are complicated.
She testified that she still loves Combs and had planned to meet him in New York for one last “hotel night” when he was arrested last September.
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has.
Rapper, entrepreneur and criminal defendant
Combs was at the center of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop battles of the 1990s and became one of the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the past three decades, diversifying his interests with the Sean John fashion label, Ciroc vodka, a cable TV channel and a film and TV studio.
Along with his protege Biggie Smalls — the Notorious B.I.G., who was shot and killed in 1997 — Combs worked with artists including Mary J. Blige, Usher and Lil Kim.
In 2001, Combs was at the center of one of the biggest hip-hop trials of its era, stemming from a Manhattan nightclub shooting that injured three people in 1999. Combs was acquitted of charges that he took an illegal gun into the club and tried to bribe his driver to take the fall.
His career recovered quickly that time.
Combs’ reputation may have suffered irreparable damage, though, after Cassie sued him in November 2023, alleging years of sexual and physical abuse. He settled the next day for $20 million, but more lawsuits by other women and men followed.
Most are still pending.
Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, LARRY NEUMEISTER and JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The jury in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial said Tuesday that it has reached a verdict on four of five counts against the hip-hop mogul and was unable to reach a decision on the top charge, racketeering conspiracy.
The judge indicated that he would instruct the jury to continue weighing the charge, echoing the sentiments of prosecutors and Combs’ defense team that just two days into deliberations was too soon to give up on reaching a verdict on all counts.
Judge Arun Subramanian said he received a note at 4:05 p.m. Tuesday indicated that the jury had reached a partial verdict. The note said the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the racketeering conspiracy charge because there were jurors with “unpersuadable views” on both sides.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — The jury deliberating at Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ sex trafficking trial asked Tuesday to review critical testimony from one of the prosecution’s most important witnesses: the hip-hop mogul’s former longtime girlfriend Cassie.
Jurors requested the testimony about 75 minutes into their second day of weighing charges that Combs used his fame, wealth and violence to force two girlfriends into drug-fueled sex marathons with male sex workers known as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”
The panel of eight men and four women asked for Cassie’s account of Combs beating, kicking and dragging her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 — an assault captured on now-infamous security camera footage.
They also asked to see Cassie’s testimony about an incident in which she said Combs accused her of taking drugs from him and kicked her off of their yacht at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2013. On their way back to the U.S., she said, he threatened to release explicit videos of her having sex.
In addition, the jury asked for Cassie and stripper Daniel Phillip’s testimony about her jumping into his lap at a New York City hotel after, as Phillip testified, he suspected Combs had been slapping and slamming her around an adjacent room.
“Her whole entire body was shaking, like she was terrified,” said Phillip, who was at the hotel for a sexual encounter with Cassie sometime between 2012 and 2014.
Phillip testified that he asked Cassie, the R&B singer whose real name is Casandra Ventura, why she was with Combs if he was hitting her and beating her. He said he told her she was in real danger. Cassie, he said, “basically tried to convince me that it was OK, it’s OK. I’m fine, I’ll be OK.”
Phillip and Cassie were among the first witnesses who testified when the trial began last month.
The jury’s testimony request came soon after Combs’ lawyers and prosecutors began the day haggling with Judge Arun Subramanian over a jury question left over from the end of the first day of deliberations on Monday.
Jurors wanted clarification about what qualifies as drug distribution, an aspect of the racketeering conspiracy charge that will help determine whether Combs can be convicted or exonerated on the count.
Subramanian said he would remind jurors of the instructions he gave them on that part of the case before they started deliberating on Monday. Combs’ lawyers had pushed for a more expansive response, but prosecutors argued — and Subramanian agreed — that doing so could end up confusing jurors more.
On Monday, the panel deliberated over five hours without reaching a verdict.
Defense lawyers contend prosecutors are trying to criminalize Combs’ swinger lifestyle and that, if anything, his conduct amounted to domestic violence, not federal felonies.
Combs, 55, could face 15 years in prison to life behind bars if he is convicted of all charges. Combs, as he has through the trial, conferred intently with his lawyers as they discussed responding to the jury’s request. Later, he leaned forward to scrutinize something on the computer screen that sits in front of him.
After pleading not guilty, Combs chose not to testify as his lawyers built their arguments for acquittal mostly through lengthy cross examinations of dozens of witnesses called by prosecutors, including some of Combs’ former employees who took the witness stand reluctantly only after being granted immunity.
When jurors first left the room to begin deliberating on Monday, Combs sat for a while slumped in his chair at the defense table before standing and turning toward three rows of spectators packed with his family and friends.
Those supporters held hands and lowered their heads in prayer, as did Combs, who was several feet from them in the well of the courtroom. After they finished, they together applauded, and so did Combs, still clapping as he turned back toward the front of the room.
Combs also showed off two books he’s reading: “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale and “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor.
Barely an hour into deliberations, the jury foreperson sent a note to the judge, complaining that there was one juror “who we are concerned cannot follow your Honor’s instructions. May I please speak with your Honor or may you please interview him?”
The judge decided instead to send jurors a note reminding them of their duties to deliberate and obligation to follow his instructions on the law.
By day’s end, the jury seemed back on track, sending the note about drug distribution.
