One day after a prosecutor called Sean Combs the “vicious” leader of a criminal enterprise in the government’s closing arguments, the music mogul’s lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, stood before a jury in lower Manhattan Friday and said his client was simply living a “lifestyle” of swingers, threesomes, and “personal use drugs.”
“Sean Combs has become something that is very, very hard to be. Very hard to be. He is a self-made, successful, Black entrepreneur,” Agnifilo said, according to CNN. Maybe his former employees didn’t always like him, “but they loved him,” the lawyer argued.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty in the high-profile case that traces back to the bombshell sex trafficking and rape lawsuit that his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed against him in November 2023. In his most recent criminal indictment, he was charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted as charged, he faces a minimum of 15 years and up to life in prison.
In her more than five-hour summation Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik told jurors that Combs’ alleged criminal enterprise used a “methodical pattern of violence, coercion and manipulation” to traffic Ventura as well as a more recent ex-girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym “Jane.” Slavik said the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Combs’ inner circle of security staffers and “loyal lieutenants” engaged in crimes including the purported sex trafficking as well as drug distribution, forced labor, arson, kidnapping and witness tampering – all to “satisfy his every desire” and protect his reputation in the process.
But throughout the seven-week trial that included testimony from 34 witnesses, Combs’ deep bench of high-powered lawyers pushed back on the government’s narrative. In her opening statement delivered May 12, defense lawyer Teny Geragos said Combs simply indulged in a “swingers lifestyle” filled with “threesomes” and “kinky sex,” and while those pursuits may not be conventional, they did not amount to sex trafficking.
The defense didn’t shy away from Combs getting physical with Ventura. After the lawyers lost their bid to keep video of Combs’ 2016 assault of Ventura inside a Los Angeles hotel out of the trial altogether, they met it head on, characterizing their client as a “flawed individual” with substance abuse and anger issues. They called it unfortunate that Combs ended up in relationships that were “toxic at times,” but were adamant he didn’t run a decades-long RICO conspiracy that used force, fraud, or coercion to make Ventura and Jane submit to unwanted sex with male escorts that Combs choreographed and recorded while masturbating.
“You will see that these women are strong, capable, and they were in love with him. You will see that breaches of trust, infidelity, and jealousy are what drove the domestic violence you will hear about. You will see that alcohol and drugs played a major role in his temper. The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual, but it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker, or somebody transporting for prostitution,” Geragos said.
After prosecutors deliver their final rebuttal argument Friday, the case is expected to go to the jury after judge’s instructions them on the law. They’re expected to begin their deliberations Monday.
This story is developing
