Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is “a complicated man”, but his criminal prosecution is “not a complicated case”, according to his lawyer Teny Geragos speaking at the opening of the musician’s high profile trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges yesterday.
Combs denies those charges of course. According to Geragos, the case against her client is really “about love, jealousy, infidelity and money”, and women making “free choices” in order to gain advantage from Combs’ social status.
Preparing the jury for evidence that will be shown by the prosecution of Combs’ so called ‘freak offs’, and of him violently attacking ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, Geragos insisted that this evidence will “show you a very flawed individual”, but “it will not show you a racketeer”.
The assault of Ventura, captured by security cameras at an LA hotel in 2016, was “inexcusable”, Geragos added, but it is not “evidence of sex-trafficking”.
Needless to say, the prosecution, represented in court by Emily Johnson, does not agree. According to Law360, Johnson told the jury that the evidence they will see as the trial unfolds will expose a 20 year criminal enterprise led by Combs that involved “kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery and obstruction”.
The LA hotel footage shows Combs “brutally” beating Ventura, Johnson added. Afterwards he blackmailed his girlfriend by threatening to publicly release recordings he had made of her having sex.
Combs’ lawyers fought hard but unsuccessfully to stop that footage from being played in court. Recognising how powerful the recording was likely to be as evidence against Combs, the prosecution put the spotlight on the 2016 incident as soon as opening remarks had been delivered, calling a former security guard from the LA hotel as their first witness and then showing the video to the jury.
CNN describes how the footage “shows Ventura in the hotel hallway in front of an elevator putting on a pair of shoes. Combs comes behind her in a towel and yanks her to the floor. He kicks her as she lies on the ground, then grabs her belongings from the ground and drags her back toward their hotel room”.
“Soon after”, it goes on “Ventura comes back out into the hallway and is seen using a hardwired phone on the wall. Combs can be seen pacing in the hallway while still wearing a towel. In the reflection of a mirrored wall, Combs throws a vase that shatters”.
Despite beginning the trial with that dramatic footage, in her opening remarks Johnson was keen to stress to jurors that this was “just the tip of the iceberg”. She told the jury, “Cassie is not the only woman he beat or sexually exploited - he sometimes called himself the king and he expected to be treated like one”.
In order to prove the racketeering charges, the prosecution will also argue that Combs used the “vast resources” of his music and entertainment empire to facilitate and cover up his sexual and physical abuse.
They will allege that he threatened, exploited and otherwise used his employees, forcing them to secure drugs and to organise the ‘freak offs’, multi-day events where women, including Ventura, were allegedly drugged and forced into unwanted sex acts.
According to CNN, Johnson said Combs relied on high-level employees and bodyguards to pursue his criminal conduct. “Together they agreed to commit different crimes”, she added, including “kidnapping, arson, distributing drugs to other people, exploiting employees for labour”.
Combs’ current legal woes - and the downfall of his business empire - began when Ventura sued the musician in November 2023, accusing her ex-partner of sexual and physical assault.
She was prompted to pursue the litigation by New York state’s Adult Survivors Act, which provided a one year window in which victims of alleged sexual offences could file new proceedings relating to past incidents, even when such action would usually be prohibited by the statute of limitations.
That lawsuit was settled within 24 hours, but it motivated numerous other alleged victims to come forward, resulting in a flood of lawsuits. According to the Washington Post, more than 70 sexual assault lawsuits have been filed against Combs since Ventura’s litigation was quickly settled.
As the lawsuits began to pile up, rumours circulated that law enforcement were also investigating alleged crimes connected to the allegations of physical and sexual assault that had been made against the musician. Those rumours were confirmed to be true when, in March 2024, officers raided properties owned by Combs in LA and Miami. He was then arrested and charged in September 2024, and has been in jail ever since, being repeatedly denied bail.
At various points with the civil litigation both Universal Music and Jay-Z have been pulled into the Diddy dramas. One alleged victim said that Universal Music and its CEO Lucian Grainge should be held liable for enabling Combs’ alleged criminal conduct. Another said both Combs and Jay-Z had raped her at a party in 2000.
Both Universal and Jay-Z angrily responded to those claims, denying all the allegations against them, and successfully getting themselves removed from the respective litigation
Given the racketeering charges, and the prosecution’s plan to show how Combs used his business to facilitate his crimes, it is possible that as the case progresses we may see other music industry people or companies caught up in the proceedings.
After the opening statements had been delivered yesterday, the prosecution began calling their initial witnesses. The standout testimonies are expected to be those delivered by Ventura - on the witness stand today - and another unnamed woman who accuses Combs of assault.
The trial will likely last eight to ten weeks.