NEW YORK (AP) — 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 forged the entertainer as a felony sexual deviant who exploited his fame to abuse ladies at gatherings held far out of public view.
For over twenty years, prosecutors allege, the Unhealthy 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 ladies had been compelled 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.
Combs’ attorneys contend prosecutors try 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 doubtless begin the next week.
If convicted on all costs, which embody racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking, and transporting folks throughout state traces to interact in prostitution, Combs faces a doable sentence of many years in jail.
Though dozens of women and men have alleged in lawsuits that Combs abused them, this trial will spotlight the claims of 4 ladies.
One in every 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 sometimes identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly, as Cassie, whose authorized identify is Casandra Ventura, did.
Her lawsuit, which provided 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 properties in Los Angeles and Miami and confronted him at a personal airport in Florida, seizing 96 digital units. In addition 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 menace 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 file labels, a recording studio, an attire line, an alcoholic spirits firm, a advertising and marketing company, a tv community and a media firm – to facilitate his crimes by 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 also see safety digicam video displaying Combs punching, kicking after which dragging Cassie within the hallway of a Los Angeles resort in 2016.
After the video aired on CNN final yr, Combs apologized, saying, “I take full accountability for my actions in that video. I used to be disgusted then after I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
Combs’ legal professional, Marc Agnifilo, mentioned at a bail listening to that Combs wrote “a really massive examine” to Cassie after she filed her lawsuit. The lawyer mentioned the payout motivated others to return ahead with false claims.
Agnifilo mentioned Combs was “not an ideal individual” 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 carry a 3rd individual 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 identify Shyne, was convicted within the taking pictures and served practically 9 years in jail.
At a pretrial convention Thursday, Combs confirmed to a decide that he turned down a plea provide that might 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.
