Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex-trafficking trial: All the info you need to know – National
For more than two decades, Sean “Diddy” Combs was known as one of hip-hop’s biggest entrepreneurs, making hits for top talent like Notorious B.I.G. and creating a business empire that included Bad Boy Records, a fashion brand, a TV network, deals with liquor companies and a key role in reality TV show Making The Band.
But now, U.S. prosecutors allege that for 20 years, behind the scenes, Diddy was coercing and abusing women with help from a network of associates who helped silence victims through blackmail and violence.
Diddy has pleaded not guilty and denied all of the allegations. Jury selection for his trial begins on Monday, May 5 at a federal courthouse in Manhattan with testimony set to follow the week of May 12.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the trial.
What he’s on trial for
Diddy faces an indictment that includes descriptions of “Freak Offs,” which are defined in the court doc as “elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.”
Numerous witnesses have come forward to accuse Diddy of terrorizing people into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, according to prosecutors. One indictment alleges that Diddy dangled someone from a balcony.
Although dozens of men and women have alleged in lawsuits that Diddy abused them, this trial will highlight the claims of four women.
One of them is Diddy’s former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, whom the rapper was caught on camera beating and dragging down a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
After CNN aired the video last year, Diddy apologized, saying, “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
Ventura filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Diddy had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape after they met in 2005.
Her lawsuit, which offered the first public account of the “Freak Offs” described in the indictment, was settled in a day. Four months later, federal investigators raided Diddy’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami and confronted him at a private airport in Florida, seizing 96 electronic devices. They also found three AR-15-style rifles with defaced serial numbers.
Diddy was indicted last September. He has been held in a federal jail in Brooklyn after judges ruled that he would be a threat to intimidate witnesses and victims if released.
The 17-page indictment against Diddy accuses him of using employees to facilitate his crimes through acts that included kidnapping, arson and bribery.
Prosecutors will show jurors travel records, text messages and emails, hotel records and videos to supplement testimony and support their claims about what they refer to as “Freak Off activity.”
They claim that women were manipulated into participating in the drug-fuelled sexual performances and to keep the women in line, prosecutors say Diddy used a mix of influence and violence. He offered to boost their entertainment careers if they did what he asked — or cut them off if they didn’t.
The indictment stated that Diddy “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.”
It said he subjected his victims to violence, threats of violence, threats of financial and reputational harm and verbal abuse. The allegations also claim that he “manipulated women to participate in highly orchestrated performances of sexual activity with male commercial sex workers.”
“On multiple occasions, Combs threw both objects and people, as well as hit, dragged, choked and shoved others,” it said. “On one occasion, Combs dangled a victim over an apartment balcony.”
“Like the Freak Offs, these commercial sex acts involving Combs and a female victim were prearranged, sometimes lasted multiple days, were sometimes electronically recorded by Combs and often involved Combs distributing a variety of controlled substances to the victim, in part to keep the victim obedient and compliant,” the court documents alleged.
“In connection with the commercial sex acts, Combs provided the victims with, among other things, monetary payments, career opportunities, and payment of rent and housing expenses.”
The complaint against Diddy said he paid hotel security staff US$100,000 (nearly C$145,166.32) for surveillance footage of his alleged assault of a woman, later revealed as Ventura, in March 2016.
The indictment states that “when Combs’ authority or reputation was threatened by the possibility of negative publicity or legal or law enforcement action against him,” he and his associates “pressured witnesses and victims, including through attempted bribery, to stay silent and not report what they experienced or knew to law enforcement.”
What are the charges?
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Diddy is charged with racketeering conspiracy, two charges of sex trafficking and two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution. If he’s convicted on all counts, he has the potential to remain behind bars for life.
Diddy has continued to deny all of the charges the government has brought against him after his September 2024 arrest and remains incarcerated without bail.
He rejected a plea deal from federal prosecutors on Thursday, May 1.
After asking Diddy to confirm if he was of sound mind and not on any drugs, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing his trial in New York, asked the rapper about the plea deal.
“Have you rejected the government’s offer?” Subramanian asked him.
“Yes, your honour,” Diddy replied.
Maurene Comey, a prosecutor with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, said the rejected deal would have allowed for reduced prison time, but other details of the deal were not shared.
What does Diddy’s legal team say?
Diddy and his lawyers say he is innocent. His legal team claims that Diddy “has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman.”
They also claim that any group sex was consensual. According to his legal team, there was no effort to coerce people into things they didn’t want to do, and nothing that happened amounted to a criminal racket.
Diddy’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, previously said at a bail hearing that Diddy wrote “a very large check” to Ventura after she filed her lawsuit. Agnifilo claimed that the payout motivated others to come forward with “false claims.”
Agnifilo said that Diddy was “not a perfect person” and that there had been drug use and toxic relationships, but he underwent therapy before his arrest.
He said that Ventura and Diddy were in a 10-year relationship that was “very loving at times” and they sometimes chose to bring a third person into their intimacy.
“That was their thing,” he alleged, on April 25. “It was a sought-after, special part of their relationship.”
“There’s a lifestyle, call it swingers or whatever you will, that he thought was appropriate because it was common,” Agnifilo told the court.
When prosecutors added new details to their indictment against Diddy in January, adding four years to the length of his alleged racketeering conspiracy, Agnifilio said the filing had “no new offenses” and claimed that the prosecutions’ theory “remains flawed.”
“The government has added the ridiculous theory that two of Mr. Combs’ former girlfriends were not girlfriends at all but were prostitutes. Mr. Combs is as committed as ever to fighting these charges and winning at trial,” Agnifilo added.
Who are Diddy’s lawyers?
Diddy’s legal team includes Marc Anthony Agnifilo, a criminal defence lawyer, who previously represented NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere and “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli.
Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, speaks to members of media outside court in New York, US, on Tuesday, Sep. 17, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
His legal team also includes Teny Geragos, the daughter of defence lawyer Mark Geragos, whose clients have included celebrities like Michael Jackson, Winona Ryder, Nicole Richie, Chris Brown and more.
Court docs also list five other lawyers for Diddy, including Alexandra Shapiro, Jason Driscoll, Anna Estevao and Brian Steel, who recently represented rapper Young Thug in his racketeering case in Georgia.
In February, a defence lawyer representing Diddy filed a motion to step down as the rapper’s lawyer, according to legal documents.
In the motion filed in New York Federal Court, Anthony Ricco notified the judge of his intent to withdraw and said there are “sufficient reasons” protected by lawyer/client privilege.
“Although I have provided Sean Combs with the high level of legal representation expected by the court, under no circumstances can I continue to effectively serve as counsel for Sean Combs,” he wrote.
He declined to go into the specific details as to why he was leaving Diddy’s legal team, but he did note it followed discussions with Agnifilo.
Ricco said that his motion for withdrawal of counsel “will not result in a delay of the present schedule for the commencement of jury selection and trial, or the present schedules for briefing of pretrial legal issues.”
Who are the prosecutors?
There is a team of eight U.S. lawyers arguing the case for the government, including Emily Johnson, Madison Smyser, Mary Slavik, Meredith Foster and Mitzi Steiner.
The prosecution team also includes Maurene Ryan Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.
Who is the judge?
The judge overseeing Diddy’s trial is Judge Arun Subramanian, who became the first South Asian judge in the Southern District of New York and was nominated by former U.S. President Joe Biden in 2022 and confirmed by the Senate in 2023.
Subramanian is a Columbia Law School graduate, who clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He was a partner at the Manhattan law firm Susman Godfrey, where he previously specialized in commercial and bankruptcy law.
Arun Subramanian, nominee to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, testifies during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen Building on Tuesday, December 13, 2022.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Subramanian has denied the request from Diddy’s counsel to exclude the CNN security camera footage of Diddy attacking Ventura.
The ruling will allow prosecutors to show the jury the video, which Diddy’s lawyers previously claimed was altered and non-admissible in the trial.
Who is going to testify at the trial?
The federal case includes four alleged victims, identified in the indictment as “Victim-1,” “Victim-2,” Victim-3″ and “Victim-4,” according to court documents viewed by Global News. They are all expected to testify against Diddy during the trial.
Ventura is also expected to testify and she could be one of the four victims listed above.
Will the trial be televised?
No, unlike other recent high-profile celebrity trials, Diddy’s court case won’t be broadcast live because federal courtrooms don’t allow electronic recordings inside. Courtroom sketch artists will serve as the public’s eyes in the courtroom during the trial, which is expected to last at least eight weeks.
What’s not going to be included in the trial?
Since October 2024, there have been over 120 lawsuits filed against Diddy, alleging sexual assault, sex trafficking, drugging, rape, and battery among other charges.
Like the others, Diddy has denied all of these accusations against him. None of these will be included in the federal indictment against the rapper.
The most recent lawsuit, filed on April 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, accuses Diddy of taking part in the drugging and sexual assault of a man. Joseph Manzaro is suing the disgraced music mogul for sexually exploiting him in a targeted revenge plot in 2015, according to court documents.
Diddy’s alleged offences against Manzaro include human trafficking, obstruction of justice and witness tampering racketeering and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“Diddy orchestrated and facilitated the abuse, coercion and intimidation of (Manzaro), using his influence, wealth and power to silence and control (Manzaro) and engaged in acts of violence, sexual coercion and psychological manipulation, knowingly causing severe harm while ensuring (Manzaro) remained unable to seek justice,” the lawsuit read.
In a statement, Diddy’s legal team said Manzaro’s lawsuit “demonstrates the depraved lengths plaintiffs will travel to garner headlines in pursuit of a payday.”
Diddy’s past legal troubles
Diddy has been involved in previous legal cases but this is the first time he stands accused by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In 1994, Tupac Shakur was shot in New York, and Diddy and Notorious B.I.G. were accused of having prior knowledge of the attack, which they denied. Shakur was later killed in a 1996 shooting in Las Vegas.
In 1996, Diddy was convicted of criminal mischief after he allegedly threatened a New York Post photographer with a gun. He paid a $1,000 fine.
In 1999, the rapper was booked and charged with two felonies against record executive Steve Stoute, who alleged that Diddy and his bodyguards beat him with their fists, a champagne bottle and a chair. Diddy publicly apologized and Stoute asked for a dismissal of the charges. He ended up pleading guilty to harassment and was sentenced to a day of anger management classes.
(L-R) Steve Stoute, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Nasire ‘Nas’ Jones arrive at Gotha Night Club during Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity at Gotha Night Club on June 21, 2013 in Cannes, France.
Richard Bord/WireImage
The same year, Diddy was arrested on gun possession charges after he and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez, fled a shooting that wounded three people at a New York City nightclub. Witnesses told police that he was among the people shooting in the club.
He was later charged with offering his driver $50,000 to claim ownership of the 9 mm handgun found in his car, but by 2001 he was acquitted. A rapper in Diddy’s entourage named Jamal “Shyne” Barrows was ultimately convicted in the shooting and served almost nine years in prison.
In March 2008, Diddy settled a lawsuit brought by a man who claimed the rapper punched him after a post-Oscar party outside a Hollywood hotel in 2007.
Diddy was arrested in 2015 after a confrontation at UCLA in Los Angeles, where one of his sons played football, after he assaulted someone with a weight-room kettlebell. Diddy said he was defending himself and the assault charges were later dropped.
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If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse or is involved in an abusive situation, please visit the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for help. They are also reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.
— With files from The Associated Press
