Jury delivers mixed verdict: guilty on prostitution charges but acquitted on sex-trafficking and RICO
The jury has founded Combs:
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NOT GUILTY of racketeering conspiracy
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NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of Casandra Ventura
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NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of “Jane”
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GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution, related to Casandra Ventura
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GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution related to “Jane”
Key events
Andrew Lawrence
Since Combs’s arrest last September on federal criminal charges for racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, a number of podcasters and YouTubers have been notably more sympathetic to him than to the witnesses called for the prosecution.
The allegations about Combs’s behavior are horrific and include shocking revelations about his drug use, sexual indulgences and hair-trigger temper. But you wouldn’t know that from following trial coverage from these faithful evangelists of toxic masculinity.
Combs’ former girlfriend and key witness Cassie Ventura, especially, is an object of their derision, and their assessment of her testimony is withering. In their view, Combs is not a man with incredible power and influence who abused and mistreated those in his circle, but the target of a #MeToo-style witch-hunt orchestrated by Ventura.
Before the verdict was announced, the Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence wrote about how some commentators on Black masculinity are popular pundits on Sean Combs’s case – and explores how they took a clear side:
The federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs reached its conclusion on Wednesday, with a jury of 12 New Yorkers finding the music mogul guilty on two charges and not guilty on three charges.
Here were some of the key moments from the seven-week trial:
In the courtroom, fans of the music mogul and his family are clapping and embracing each other.
Judge to decide later today whether to release Combs on bail
Both sides have been asked to submit letters to the judge regarding whether Combs should continue to be held in federal detention or released on bail.
The parties will convene after the letters are submitted this afternoon.
The government has said that it will seek the maximum 20-year sentence for Combs.
Each count that he has been found guilty of carries up to 10 years. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge how long Combs serves.
Combs’s defense seeks his release from federal detention
The defense is asking that the court release Combs from federal detention, where he has been held since his arrest last September.
Combs faces up to 20 years in prison
Given what the jury has found Combs guilty of, he faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars.
The judge has thanked the jurors for their “sacrifice”.
“I want you to know that it is inspiring to all of us. You listened, you worked together, you were here every day, rain or shine. You did so with no reward, other than the reward that comes from answering the call of public service. That should give all of us hope,” Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over this case, said.
Jury delivers mixed verdict: guilty on prostitution charges but acquitted on sex-trafficking and RICO
The jury has founded Combs:
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NOT GUILTY of racketeering conspiracy
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NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of Casandra Ventura
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NOT GUILTY of the sex trafficking of “Jane”
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GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution, related to Casandra Ventura
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GUILTY of the transportation to engage in prostitution related to “Jane”
The foreperson will now read the verdict.
The jury is in the courtroom and the foreperson has given the verdict form to the court deputy.
The jurors are now filing into the courtroom.
“We have reached a verdict on all counts” the note from the jury reads.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs enters courtroom ahead of verdict
Sean Combs has just entered the courtroom. His family are also present in court.
The jury has deliberated for just over 13 hours in total.
Key moments from Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ trial
As we await the verdict, here are some key moments from the trial:
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Casandra “Cassie” Ventura gave harrowing details of her time with Sean “Diddy” Combs in her testimony, including when he assaulted her in 2016 in a Los Angeles hotel corridor which was caught on surveillance camera.
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Ventura told the court Combs raped her in 2018 after their breakup. The trial heard Combs told her “he was going to hurt” her and Scott Mescudi, known as the rapper Kid Cudi, when he heard they were dating. Ventura testified that Combs was also violent towards those who worked for him. He would assault some of his employees and attack her friends. In addition to punching people and slamming them into furniture, Ventura said that Combs once dangled one of her friends over a balcony.
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Ventura also said that Combs would regularly threaten to publicize videos of her participating in his “freak-offs”. She testified that once on her birthday, Combs reminded her of the videos after she refused to leave her friends and join him in a freak-off. “I feared for my career, my family … It is horrible and disgusting, no one should do that to anyone,” she said.
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The “freak-offs” could last two to four days sometimes – with no sleep. Drugs would help them stay awake, Ventura testified. Still, she told the court “I was in love and wanted to make him happy” and “I didn’t know what no could turn into.”
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Ventura recalled that Combs had guns in safes in his multiple homes, which alarmed her. She cited one particular incident during which Combs made her carry one of the guns, something he did on multiple occasions, which “terrified” her.
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Dawn Richard, a former member of the pop group Danity Kane, also told the court she witnessed Combs physically abuse Cassie Ventura.
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Kid Cudi testified that Combs broke into his home in 2011 after discovering that he was dating Combs’s former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, and told the court how a molotov cocktail was thrown at his car a few weeks later.
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A former employee of Combs told the trial that he repeatedly threatened her and once forced her to accompany him to the home of Kid Cudi, who Combs allegedly said he was going to “kill”.
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Cassie Ventura’s mother, Regina Ventura, told the court she was “scared about my daughter’s safety” and revealed that she had paid Combs $20,000 “to recoup money he had spent” on her daughter “because he was unhappy she was in a relationship with Kid Cudi”.
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Bryana Bongolan, a longtime friend of Ventura told the trial the hip-hop mogul dangled her from the balcony of a 17th-floor apartment in 2016.
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At one point, Judge Arun Subramanian threatened to remove Combs from court, saying he saw him looking at the jury and “nodding vigorously” during the cross-examination of Bryana Bongolan.
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The judge presiding trial dismissed a juror in June over conflicting statements about his residency.
The defense for Sean “Diddy” Combs maintained that all sexual activity was consensual and part of a “swingers lifestyle”.
They claimed he was being wrongly prosecuted for his private sex life.
Over the course of the seven-week trial, US prosecutors accused Combs of operating his business empire as a criminal enterprise to carry out and conceal crimes including sex-trafficking, kidnapping, arson, bribery, enticement to engage in prostitution, and obstruction of justice. Combs did this, they alleged, with help from employees and close associates.
The government called 34 witnesses to the stand.
A verdict has been reached in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial
The jury in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial has reached a verdict, they said Wednesday morning.
The jury, composed of eight men and four women, have told the court that they have reached a decision in the case after deliberating since Monday.
The deliberations began on Monday, 30 June.
On Tuesday evening, the jury announced that it had reached a partial verdict, and had come to a decision with regards to four of the five counts – two counts of sex trafficking and two counts transportation to engage in prostitution. But, the jury said that they were unable to come to a decision on the racketeering conspiracy charge.
On Wednesday, the jury announced that it had come to decision on that remaining count.
Combs, 55, was arrested last September, and had pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex-trafficking and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He has remained incarcerated without bail in a federal detention facility in Brooklyn since his September arrest.