NEW YORK — Hip-hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs as soon as presided like a prince over his White Events within the Hamptons, attracting A-list celebrities, gossip columnists and photographers. However at a trial beginning Monday, prosecutors will solid the entertainer as a felony sexual deviant who exploited his fame to abuse girls at gatherings held far out of public view.
For over 20 years, prosecutors allege, the Dangerous Boy Data founder used the ability and status he’d gained in constructing a hip-hop empire to destroy younger lives.
He faces an indictment that features descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies wherein girls had been pressured to have intercourse with male intercourse employees whereas Combs filmed them.
Quite a few witnesses have come ahead to accuse Combs of terrorizing folks into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, typically by the hair, prosecutors say. As soon as, the indictment alleges, he even dangled somebody from a balcony.
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Combs’ attorneys contend prosecutors are attempting to police consensual sexual exercise.
And whereas Combs, 55, has acknowledged one episode of violence – the caught-on-camera beating of his former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie – his attorneys say different allegations are false.
Jury choice is scheduled to start Monday at a federal courthouse in Manhattan. Testimony will possible begin the next week.
If convicted on all expenses, which embrace racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking, and transporting folks throughout state strains to interact in prostitution, Combs faces a attainable sentence of a long time in jail.
Sean ‘P.’ Diddy’ Combs arrives on the annual Independence Day ‘White Occasion’ on the PlayStation 2 Property in Bridgehampton, New York, July 4, 2004.
AP Photograph/Jennifer Szymaszek, File
Investigation adopted Cassie lawsuit
Though dozens of women and men have alleged in lawsuits that Combs abused them, this trial will spotlight the claims of 4 girls.
Considered one of them is Cassie, who filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, together with beatings and rape after they met in 2005.
The Related Press doesn’t usually title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly, as Cassie, whose authorized title is Casandra Ventura, did.
Her lawsuit, which supplied the primary public account of the Freak Offs described within the indictment, was settled in a day. 4 months later, although, federal investigators raided Combs houses in Los Angeles and Miami and confronted him at a non-public airport in Florida, seizing 96 digital gadgets. Additionally they discovered three AR-15-style rifles with defaced serial numbers.
The three-time Grammy winner was indicted final September. He has since been held in a federal jail in Brooklyn after judges dominated that he can be a risk to intimidate witnesses and victims if launched.
The 17-page indictment in opposition to Combs accuses him of utilizing staff of his enterprise endeavors – together with document labels, a recording studio, an attire line, an alcoholic spirits firm, a advertising company, a tv community and a media firm – to facilitate his crimes via acts that included kidnapping, arson and bribery.
Prosecutors plan to point out jurors journey information, textual content messages and emails, resort information and movies to complement testimony and assist their claims about what they name “Freak Off exercise.”
Jurors may even see safety digital camera video exhibiting Combs punching, kicking after which dragging Cassie within the hallway of a Los Angeles resort in 2016.
After the video aired on CNN final 12 months, Combs apologized, saying, “I take full duty for my actions in that video. I used to be disgusted then once I did it. I am disgusted now.”
Protection says Freak Offs had been consensual
Combs’ legal professional, Marc Agnifilo, mentioned at a bail listening to that Combs wrote “a really massive verify” to Cassie after she filed her lawsuit. The lawyer mentioned the payout motivated others to come back ahead with false claims.
Agnifilo mentioned Combs was “not an ideal particular person” and that there had been drug use and poisonous relationships, however he mentioned the rapper was present process remedy earlier than his arrest.
He mentioned Cassie and Combs had been in a 10-year relationship that was “very loving at occasions” and typically selected to convey a 3rd particular person into their intimacy.
“That was their factor,” he mentioned. “It was a sought-after, particular a part of their relationship.”
The trial will not be Combs’ first. In 2001, he was acquitted of bringing an unlawful handgun right into a crowded Manhattan dance membership the place three folks had been wounded by gunfire. A rapper in Combs’ entourage, Jamal Barrow, who carried out beneath the title Shyne, was convicted within the capturing and served almost 9 years in jail.
At a pretrial convention Thursday, Combs confirmed to a choose that he turned down a plea supply that may have carried a lesser penalty than what he would possibly face if he’s convicted at his upcoming trial.
Simply earlier than he left the courtroom after the listening to, he defiantly shook his fist within the air.
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