A lawyer for Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday told a Manhattan jury that federal prosecutors trying him on sex trafficking and RICO charges had made felonies out of his sexual fetishes and an innocent “swingers’ lifestyle.”
In an animated closing argument, Marc Agnifilo said Combs had never pressured women to participate in days-long, drug-fueled sexual performances, or “freak-offs,” against their will. He lauded his client as a New York native, self-made millionaire, and pioneer in his industry, whom the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office had unfairly targeted in an illegitimate prosecution.
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Agnifilo said. “He was doing this in 1993, as a 24-year-old, by himself.”
John Lamparski/Getty Images
Attorney Marc Agnifilo arrives at Manhattan Federal Court last month. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)
Agnifilo said the jury hadn’t heard from anyone in Combs’ Bad Boy Records empire who considered themselves a member of a criminal syndicate. He said Combs had addiction issues and had assistants get drugs for personal use on occasion, but that it wasn’t their primary job duty.
“There’s not been one single witness in this case … who’s gotten on that stand and said, ‘I knew I was committing a crime, and I was committing a crime intentionally, and I was committing a crime for Mr. Combs,’” Agniflo said.
The attorney said Combs had committed domestic violence — and would have pleaded guilty to it — but that he wasn’t charged with such.
Ahead of the trial, Combs’ defense aggressively fought to bar jurors from seeing damning footage of him pummeling his ex, Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, in a hallway at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles in March 2016. When that failed, they leaned into the incident, acknowledging from the outset of the trial that Combs may come across as a “jerk” but that his violent behavior toward his partners didn’t make him guilty of running a criminal enterprise and trafficking them for sex.
Jurors heard testimony from hotel staffers that Combs and his top assistant persisted in efforts to pay off the security guards for the footage, which ultimately proved successful. Agnifilo said on Friday that the payoff wasn’t intended to stop law enforcement from obtaining the tape but rather to prevent the press from doing so.
“Money is involved, and people want a payday,” Agnifilo said, adding that Ventura similarly didn’t want cops to get involved.
Speaking to testimony and trial evidence showing how Combs desperately sought to make contact with Ventura after she fled the hotel, the defense attorney said he was acting like a “fool” but was just trying to get his girlfriend’s attention.
“She should be angry, there’d be something wrong if she wasn’t angry,” he said.
Although Combs obtained the hotel’s only copy of the explosive footage, jurors heard that a guard at the hotel had secretly filmed it on his cell phone. CNN published it in May 2024, blasting accusations of domestic violence against Combs into public view.
Agnifilo said Ventura had already seen justice for the beatings she endured by Combs, having received a $20 million settlement 24 hours after she sued him in late 2023 and later $10 million from the hotel.
They lawyer said Ventura and Combs’ 11-year relationship was not, as alleged, a story of abuse and sexual exploitation but a romantic love story.
During several days on the stand, the “Me & U” singer described being trapped in a cycle of abuse, degradation, and recovery while she was involved with Combs, who she started dating at 21 years old after being signed to Bad Boy Records a couple of years prior. Jurors saw photos of the singer covered in cuts and bruises from various beatings.
They heard graphic accounts of Combs directing Ventura to engage in dehumanizing sex acts with male escorts at “hundreds” of freak-offs, debauched events she said Combs made her participate in no matter what state she was in — whether healing from his assaults, chronic health issues resulting from the marathon sex sessions, like persistent urinary tract infections, or on her period.
Ventura and the anonymous witness “Jane,” with whom Combs was involved in the years leading up to his arrest, each said they were subjected to Combs’ rabid temper through his fists and that he had threatened to cut them off financially, ruin them professionally, and release humiliating tapes of them with escorts when they sought to assert themselves.
Getty; AP
A pregnant Cassie Ventura testified (right) during her ex Diddy’s trial on May 13. (Getty; AP)
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment, including charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
To find him guilty of the RICO charge — which could result in a life sentence — the jury must find members of his alleged enterprise on at least two occasions committed one of eight overt acts, including kidnapping, bribery, drug distribution, arson, obstruction and other crimes. Prosecutors on Thursday told jurors they had “hundreds” of examples relating to drug distribution alone.
To convict on sex trafficking, the panel must find it occurred in at least one freak-off out of hundreds referenced in trial testimony. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik on Thursday described transportation to engage in prostitution as the most straightforward charge, which doesn’t require the jury to determine there was force, fraud or coercion involved — only that Combs was knowingly involved in moving someone across state lines for sex work.
When they took the stand, Ventura and Jane said he tasked them with sourcing male escorts on the internet for freak-offs and that he paid for the travel across the country and to various Caribbean islands.
This story will be updated.
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