Sean « Diddy » Combs’ attorney delivered closing arguments in the hip-hop mogul’s sex-trafficking and racketeering trial on Friday.
Sean « Diddy » Combs’ attorney tried to turn the hip-hop mogul’s indictment inside out in daylong closings Friday — arguing that his client’s violence and drug use do not make him guilty and that the real « winner » of his trial is accuser Cassie Ventura.
« Cassie is nobody’s fool. She is sitting somewhere in the world with $30 million », Combs’ lead defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo told the jury in Combs’ Manhattan federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial.
Agnifilo was referring to the $20 million Combs paid his ex Ventura to settle her 2023 lawsuit against Combs and the $10 million she testified that she was set to get from the Los Angeles hotel where Combs was caught on security footage beating her.
« So if you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to pick Cassie. Cassie, at a certain point, just flat won », Agnifilo said. « And he’s in jail. »
Like Agnifilo’s co-counsel did in opening statements, he leaned into Combs’ violent side, arguing that domestic violence is not sex trafficking.
Agnifilo added, « Anyone who tells me, ‘Yeah, Cassie, she’s a victim, Cassie, she’s naive, Cassie, she couldn’t see what’s coming’, let’s look at the facts. »
Prosecutors have alleged that Combs coerced Ventura and another ex, who testified under the pseudonym « Jane », into sex performances with male escorts. Combs would direct, masturbate to, and often record these marathons — called « freak offs », « hotel nights » or « wild king nights », prosecutors alleged.
A third woman, a former Combs personal assistant who testified as « Mia », told the jury that he sexually abused her at least four times, including a rape she said happened when he crawled into her bed as she slept in the staff bedroom of his Los Angeles mansion.
