The public knew Sean “Diddy” Combs as a larger-than-life cultural icon and business mogul, but behind the scenes, he was coercing women into drug-fuelled sexual encounters and using violence to keep them in line, a federal prosecutor told a jury Monday during opening statements in Combs' sex trafficking trial.
"This is Sean Combs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told the Manhattan jury as she pointed at Combs, who leaned back in his chair as she spoke. ”... During this trial you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant’s crimes. But he didn’t do it alone. He had an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees who helped him commit crimes and cover them up.”
Those crimes, she said, included: Kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery and obstruction.
On the contrary, Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos said during her opening, the trial of Combs is a misguided overreach by prosecutors, who are trying to turn consenting sex between adults into a prostitution and sex trafficking case.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” Geragos told the eight men and four women on the jury. “There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise,” she added, noting the intense public attention the case has received.
Combs, wearing a white sweater, entered the packed courtroom shortly before 9 a.m., hugged his lawyers and gave a thumbs up to supporters seated behind him. Earlier, the line to get into the courthouse stretched down the block. Combs' mother and some of his children were escorted past the crowd and brought straight into the building.
Combs, 55, pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that could land him in prison for at least 15 years if he is convicted on all charges. He has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his arrest in September.
Lawyers for the three-time Grammy winner say prosecutors are wrongly trying to make a crime out of a party-loving lifestyle that may have been indulgent, but was not illegal.
Prosecutors say Combs coerced women into drugged-up group sexual encounters, then kept them in line through violence. He is accused of choking, hitting, kicking and dragging women, often by the hair.
Johnson started her opening statement by going right to the prosecution’s claim that violence was a critical tool Combs used to make people do his bidding.
She told jurors about a night when Combs allegedly kidnapped an employee and threatened his one-time girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura and who is expected to be a key witness. Combs told Cassie that if she defied him again, he would release video of her having sex with a male escort — video that the prosecutor called “souvenirs of the most humiliating nights of her life," Johnson said.
That was “just the tip of the iceberg,” Johnson said, telling jurors that Cassie was far from the only woman Combs beat and sexually exploited.
“For 20 years, the defendant, with the help of his trusted inner circle, committed crime after crime,” Johnson said. “That’s why we’re here today. That’s what this case is about.”
Central to Combs’ sexual abuse, prosecutors say, were highly orchestrated, drug-fueled sex parties he called “freak offs,” “wild king nights” or “hotel nights.” Combs’ company paid for the parties, held in hotel rooms across the U.S. and overseas, and his employees staged the rooms with his preferred lighting, extra linens and lubricant, Johnson said. Combs compelled women, including Cassie, to take drugs and engage in sexual activity with male escorts while he gratified himself and sometimes recorded them, Johnson said.
Combs would beat Cassie over the smallest slights, such as leaving a “freak off” without his permission or taking too long in the bathroom, Johnson said. Combs threatened to ruin Cassie’s singing career by releasing to the public videos of her engaging in sex with male escorts, the prosecutor said. “Her livelihood depended on keeping him happy,” Johnson said.
Combs sat expressionless as he looked toward Johnson and the jury as the prosecutor described what she said was a pattern of violence, sexual abuse and blackmail.
Cassie is expected to testify early in the trial. She filed a lawsuit in 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape. The lawsuit was settled within hours of its filing, but it touched off a law enforcement investigation and was followed by dozens of lawsuits from people making similar claims.
Prosecutors plan to show jurors security camera footage of Combs beating Cassie in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
Johnson told the jury they will hear the lengths Combs’ inner circle went to help him hide the attack and get what they thought was the only video recording. She said a security guard was given a brown paper bag full of $100,000 in cash while Combs’ bodyguard and chief of staff stood by. “This is far from the only time that the defendant’s inner circle tried to close ranks and do damage control.”
Jurors might also see recordings of the “freak offs.” The indictment said the events sometimes lasted days and participants required IV-drips to recover.
Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo has said that the Bad Boy Records founder was “not a perfect person” and was undergoing therapy, including for drug use, before his arrest.
But he and other lawyers for Combs have argued that any group sex was consensual and any violence was an aberration.
After the video of Combs assaulting Cassie in the hotel aired on CNN last year, Combs apologized and said he took “full responsibility” for his actions. "I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
The Associated Press doesn’t generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has done.
The trial is expected to last at least eight weeks.
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Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
