Sean “Diddy Combs was convicted of a prostitution-related offense however acquitted Wednesday of intercourse trafficking and racketeering expenses that would have put one in all hip-hop’s most celebrated figures behind bars for all times.
The combined outcome got here on the third day of deliberations. It might nonetheless ship Combs, 55, to jail for so long as a decade, and is prone to finish his profession as a hitmaking music government, style entrepreneur, model ambassador and actuality TV star.
Combs sat together with his head down because the jury headed again into the courtroom.
The verdict comes a day after the panel of eight males and 4 ladies advised U.S. District Choose Arun Subramanian they have been hung up on the racketeering conspiracy cost, which is probably the most sophisticated cost within the trial and carries a possible most sentence of life in jail.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not responsible to federal expenses of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of intercourse trafficking — relating to 2 of his ex-girlfriends — and two counts of transportation to have interaction in prostitution for allegedly arranging to fly intercourse staff throughout state strains.
Combs was discovered not responsible of counts 1, 2 and 4. Beneath we clarify the counts and what they imply.
THE COUNTS EXPLAINED
COUNT ONE: RACKETEERING CONSPIRACY | NOT GUILTY
That is the principle depend and the one which the jury was having problem reaching a verdict for only a day earlier than. The federal racketeering conspiracy, also referred to as RICO.
Racketeering conspiracy is probably the most sophisticated cost within the trial and carries a possible most sentence of life in jail.
The intercourse trafficking cost carries a compulsory minimal sentence of 15 years in jail and a most sentence of life.
The prosecution alleges there was a racketeering conspiracy involving Combs’ private assistants, bodyguards and different workers.
On the subject of the racketeering conspiracy depend, prosecutors aren’t required to show that the alleged prison enterprise was really established, however solely that the accused alongside others conspired or agreed to take part in an enterprise.
The idea of racketeering regulation is that when somebody commits a criminal offense as a part of a gaggle “they’re extra highly effective and harmful,” Assistant U.S. Legal professional Christy Slavik mentioned in the course of the trial. “The defendant was a very powerful man, but he became more powerful and dangerous because of the support of his inner circle and his businesses — the enterprise.”
Combs and his internal circle “committed hundreds of racketeering acts,” she mentioned.
Combs’ legal professionals contend there was no racketeering conspiracy as a result of no workers agreed to affix any conspiracy.
Slavik mentioned that is flawed, and that Combs’ workers repeatedly agreed to commit crimes for him, together with delivering him medication; accompanying him to kidnap his private assistant; and locking Cassie in a resort room after he stomped on her face.
The cost falls underneath RICO — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — which is finest recognized for being utilized in organized crime and drug cartel circumstances.
COUNT TWO: SEX TRAFFICKING OF CASANDRA VENTURA | NOT GUILTY
“Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age,” based on the U.S. Justice Division.
Combs “again and again forced, threatened and manipulated” his ex-girlfriends Cassie and Jane into “having sex with escorts for his own entertainment,” Slavik mentioned in the course of the trial.
The prosecutor mentioned Combs pressured or coerced Cassie, whose actual title is Casandra Ventura, and Jane, who testified underneath a pseudonym, to have interaction in days-long intercourse marathons referred to as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights” with medication, violence, or by threatening monetary hurt or the discharge of video recordings of a few of the a whole bunch of encounters.
“He knew exactly what he was doing. That is sex trafficking,” Slavik advised the jury, including that Combs was “knowingly using force and coercion to get Cassie back to that room where the escort was waiting.”
COUNT THREE: MANN ACT TRANSPORTATION — CASANDRA VENTURA | GUILTY
The third depend pertains to the Mann Act—a federal regulation that criminalizes the transportation of “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, prostitution, or any other immoral purpose.”
Prosecutors say Combs coerced two girlfriends, together with Cassie, into drug-fueled intercourse marathons with male intercourse staff, at varied areas.
Transportation to have interaction in prostitution carries a most sentence of 10 years in jail.
COUNT FOUR: SEX TRAFFICKING OF JANE | NOT GUILTY COUNT FIVE: MANN ACT TRANSPORTATION — JANE | GUILTY
The fourth and fifth counts are the identical because the earlier two however pertain to Diddy’s alleged acts in opposition to a girl whose title was not launched by the court docket and is solely referred to as “Jane.”
Related because the counts involving Cassie, Diddy was discovered not responsible of intercourse trafficking however responsible of the Mann Act on the subject of Jane. As within the third depend — which he was discovered responsible of — transportation to have interaction in prostitution carries a most sentence of 10 years in jail.
