A choose is weighing potential launch situations Wednesday for Sean “Diddy Combs, hours after he was convicted of prostitution-related offenses however acquitted of extra severe intercourse trafficking and racketeering fees that might have put him behind bars for all times.
The combined outcome got here on the third day of deliberations. It may nonetheless ship Combs, 55, to jail for so long as 20 years, and is prone to finish his profession as a hit-making music government, style entrepreneur, model ambassador and actuality TV star. The foreperson confirmed the decision reached was unanimous.
Prosecutors and protection attorneys had till 1 p.m. to submit their instances.
In the course of the adjournment, a big crowd of supporters gathered exterior the courthouse. A shirtless man was seen dancing, adopted by a girl in a bikini who was having child oil drizzled onto her. It appeared a bit chaotic as Combs’ mom, Janice, returned to the courthouse blowing kisses and waving post-lunch break.
U.S. District Choose Arun Subramanian is weighing whether or not to grant Combs bail within the wake of the decision. He adjourned the court docket whereas he considers whether or not to free Combs on bail. Court docket resumed round 1 p.m.
Prosecutors walked by the scene.
A supply near the music mogul says he plans to stroll out the entrance doorways of the courthouse if launched.
Federal prosecutors, in the meantime, acknowledged the tensions across the case.
“Sex crimes deeply scar victims, and the disturbing reality is that sex crimes are all too present in many aspects of our society. Victims endure gut-wrenching physical and mental abuse, leading to lasting trauma. New Yorkers and all Americans want this scourge stopped and perpetrators brought to justice,” United States Lawyer for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, and Particular Agent in Cost of the New York Discipline Workplace of Homeland Safety Investigations, Ricky J. Patel, mentioned in a joint assertion.
Combs cleared of most severe counts, convicted of two
Combs was convicted of flying folks across the nation, together with his girlfriends and paid male intercourse employees, to have interaction in sexual encounters, a felony violation of the federal Mann Act.
However the jury of eight males and 4 girls acquitted Combs of racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking fees, associated to allegations that he used his cash, energy and scary bodily power to govern his girlfriends into a whole lot of drug-fueled intercourse marathons with the lads.
Combs and his protection group argued that the ladies have been keen members and that none of his violence justified the severity of the costs.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was convicted Wednesday on two counts of violating the Mann Act. The entertainer was acquitted on three fees, together with racketeering and intercourse trafficking.
After the decision was learn, the choose gave the jury steerage on talking concerning the case to the media, to the general public, and extra.
Combs continued to pump his proper fist subtly, seemingly glad that he was acquitted on probably the most severe fees.
Combs, 55, had been behind bars since his arrest in September. His attorneys argued that the acquittal on probably the most severe counts modified the authorized panorama sufficient that he ought to get bail.
He appeared overwhelmed as court docket adjourned for at the very least just a few hours. He wiped his face, turning and kneeling at his chair, his head bowed in prayer. Within the viewers, his family stood and applauded as he confronted them.
“I’ll be home soon,” he said, and “I love you, baby.”
“I like you, Mother,” he added.
His family applauded him and his attorneys as he was led out of court docket.
Combs has been behind bars since his arrest in September. His attorneys argued that the acquittal on probably the most severe counts modified the authorized panorama sufficient that he ought to get bail.
Verdict follows weeks of harrowing testimony
Jurors deliberated for about 13 hours over three days earlier than asserting their verdict. It got here after they mentioned late Tuesday that they’d selected 4 counts however have been caught on the racketeering one. At that time, the choose informed them to maintain deliberating and maintain the partial verdict below wraps.
Combs didn’t testify at his trialtria, which featured 34 witnesses in addition to video of the rapper attacking his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie.
Her lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, mentioned in a press release after the decision that “by coming forward with her experience, Cassie has left an indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice.”
Cassie testified for 4 days about her turbulent 11-year relationship with Combs, which started after she signed together with his Dangerous Boy file label.
Cassie mentioned Combs grew to become obsessive about voyeuristic encounters, organized with the assistance of his employees, that concerned intercourse employees and copious quantities of child oil. In the course of the intercourse occasions, referred to as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights,” Combs would order Cassie to do issues with different males that she discovered humiliating, she testified.
When issues didn’t go Combs’ means, he would beat her, she mentioned.
“I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child,” Cassie informed Combs after he dragged her down a lodge hallway in 2016.
One other ex-girlfriend, testifying below the pseudonym “Jane,” informed the jury she repeatedly informed Combs she didn’t wish to have intercourse with the lads employed for his or her trysts.
“I’m not an animal. I need a break,” she informed him. Nonetheless, she mentioned she felt “obligated” to conform together with his calls for, partially as a result of he paid her lease.
Protection calls case an invasion of privateness
The trial’s most well-known witness, rapper Child Cudi, mentioned Combs broke into his residence in late 2011 after studying he and Cassie have been courting. After his automotive was firebombed just a few weeks later, Cudi — whose actual title is Scott Mescudi — mentioned he knew Combs “had something to do” with it. Combs denied it.
Combs’ protection group acknowledged that he might be violent however argued that prosecutors have been intruding in his private life. In his closing remarks to the jury, protection lawyer Marc Agnifilo mentioned it wasn’t unlawful for Combs to make “homemade porn” together with his girlfriends.
“They go into the man’s bedroom. They go into the man’s most private life. Where is the crime scene?” Agnifilo mentioned.
Whereas Jane described violence — like an evening when Combs choked her, punched her face, leaving welts and a black eye, when she resisted an encounter with a intercourse employee — she additionally acknowledged on the witness stand that her emotions are difficult.
She testified that she nonetheless loves Combs and had deliberate to fulfill him in New York for one final “hotel night” when he was arrested final September.
The AP doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly, as Cassie has.
Rapper, entrepreneur and felony defendant
Combs was on the heart of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop battles of the Nineties and have become probably the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the previous three many years, diversifying his pursuits with the Sean John style label, Ciroc vodka, a cable TV channel and a movie and TV studio.
Alongside together with his protege Biggie Smalls — the Infamous B.I.G., who was shot and killed in 1997 — Combs labored with artists together with Mary J. Blige, Usher and Lil Kim.
In 2001, Combs was on the heart of one of many largest hip-hop trials of its period, stemming from a Manhattan nightclub capturing that injured three folks in 1999. Combs was acquitted of fees that he took an unlawful gun into the membership and tried to bribe his driver to take the autumn.
His profession recovered rapidly that point.
Combs’ status might have suffered irreparable harm, although, after Cassie sued him in November 2023, alleging years of sexual and bodily abuse. He settled the subsequent day for $20 million, however extra lawsuits by different ladies and men adopted.
Most are nonetheless pending.
Sources for victims of sexual assault can be found via the Nationwide Sexual Violence Sources Heart and the Nationwide Sexual Assault Phone Hotline at 800-656-4673.
