NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs thought his “fame, wealth and power” put him above the law as he led a criminal enterprise for two decades, using “power, violence and fear” to carry out brutal crimes, a prosecutor told a jury at the music mogul's sex trafficking trial during closing arguments Thursday.
“Over the last several weeks, you’ve learned a lot about Sean Combs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik began. “He’s the leader of a criminal enterprise. He doesn’t take no for an answer. And now you know about many crimes he committed with members of his enterprise.”
She said sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges were supported by proof that over two decades, Combs kidnapped one of his employees, committed arson by trying to blow up a car, engaged in forced labor, bribed a hotel security worker and carried out the “brutal crimes at the heart of this case.”
Combs “again and again forced, threatened and manipulated” former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and an ex-girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” into “having sex with escorts for his own entertainment,” Slavik said, speaking from a lectern in front of jurors.
The prosecutor said Combs forced or coerced Cassie and Jane to engage in the dayslong sexual performances known as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights” with drugs, violence, or by threatening financial harm or to release video recordings he'd made of some of the hundreds of encounters.
“The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” she said. “He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law.”
Slavik said Combs “counted on silence and shame” to enable and prolong his abuse. He used a “small army” of employees, including personal assistants and bodyguards, to harm women and cover it up, she said.
The theory of racketeering law is that “when someone commits crime as part of a group, they’re more powerful and dangerous,” Slavik said. “The defendant was a powerful man, but he became more powerful and dangerous because of his inner circle, his businesses — the enterprise.”
Combs and his inner circle “committed hundreds of racketeering acts,” she said.
As Slavik spoke, Combs sat with his head down, his chair pushed back a few feet from the defense table. Wearing a light-colored sweater over a white button-down shirt and khakis, he sometimes scribbled notes to his lawyers.
Members of Combs’ family, including several of his children, were packed into the courtroom gallery behind him.
Since his arrest at a Manhattan hotel last September, Combs and his lawyers have insisted he is innocent, though they conceded at trial that domestic violence occurred.
Combs “was abusive: physical, emotional, psychological, sexual abuse,” Slavik said. “The defendant doesn’t deny the abuse. They just want to call it ‘domestic violence’ and claim it doesn’t have anything to do with the crimes charged.”
The defense, which will present its closing arguments Friday, built its case for acquittal through lengthy cross-examinations of most of the government's 34 witnesses. Some testified only in response to subpoenas and insisted they didn't want to be there.
Combs’ lawyers contend there was no racketeering conspiracy because no employees agreed to join any conspiracy.
In her closing, Slavik said employees repeatedly agreed to commit crimes for Combs, including delivering him drugs; accompanying him to kidnap his personal assistant, Capricorn Clark; and locking his girlfriend in a hotel room after he stomped on her face.
Repeatedly, the prosecutor returned to the freak-offs, reminding jurors of text messages and testimony that showed that the women didn't want to participate, including one in which Jane told Combs that she felt he gave her no choice but to participate.
“It’s dark, sleazy and makes me feel disgusted with myself. I feel it’s the only reason you have me around and why you pay for the house,” Jane wrote. “I don’t want to feel obligated to perform these nights with you in fear of losing the roof over my head.”
On Friday, jurors again viewed now-infamous security footage of Combs hitting, kicking and dragging Cassie at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016 after she tried to leave a freak-off with a male sex worker.
“He knew exactly what he was doing. That is sex trafficking,” Slavik told the jury, adding that Combs was “knowingly using force and coercion to get Cassie back to that room where the escort was waiting.”
Judge Arun Subramanian told jurors that after a defense closing Friday and a rebuttal by a prosecutor, he would read instructions on the law before they could begin deliberations.
Michael R. Sisak And Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press
