Sean «Diddy» Combs is standing trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in a case that has captured widespread attention.
Thursday is day four in the trial of Sean Combs after the jury was seated.
Opening arguments got underway Monday in the highly anticipated trial of hip-hop mogul Sean «Diddy» Combs, who has been accused of sex trafficking by force, transportation to engage in prostitution, and racketeering conspiracy as part of a blockbuster federal indictment originally filed in September 2024. He later faced two additional superseding indictments. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Combs is accused of being the ringleader of an alleged enterprise that «abused, threatened and coerced women» into prolonged, drug-fueled sexual orgies with male prostitutes, which he called «freak offs», and then threatened them into silence. Combs has said that all of the sex was consensual and that while his relationships sometimes involved domestic violence, he wasn’t engaged in trafficking. His lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said Combs was simply part of the swinger lifestyle and that he «vehemently denies the accusations made by the SDNY» and «looks forward to his day in court.»
The jury saw Cassie Ventura’s text messages from the days leading to the premiere of «The Perfect Match», about which she previously testified, and her «freak off» with Sean Combs at the InterContinental Hotel in March 2016.
“Thank you,” Ventura said after defense attorney Anna Estevao said she would spare Ventura from reading the explicit texts aloud.
At the time, Ventura said, Combs was not feeling well. The defense suggested he could have been suffering the effects of drug withdrawal in the days before the assault that was captured by hotel surveillance cameras.
The defense also suggested it was Ventura who pushed the idea of a «freak off» before the movie premiere, pointing to one message in which Ventura told Combs, “Baby I want to f.o. so bad but I don’t want to f— myself up. What am I to do?”
“You proposed a ‘freak off’,” Estevao said.
