By Larry NeumeisterThe Related Press
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 Might 5, prosecutors will solid the entertainer as a prison 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 during which ladies had been compelled to have intercourse with male intercourse staff whereas Combs filmed them.
Quite a few witnesses have come ahead to accuse Combs of terrorizing individuals 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 Might 5 at a federal courthouse in Manhattan. Testimony will seemingly begin the next week.
If convicted on all prices, which embody racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking, and transporting individuals throughout state strains to have interaction in prostitution, Combs faces a attainable sentence of many years in jail.
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 ladies.
Certainly 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 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 could be a menace to intimidate witnesses and victims if launched.
The 17-page indictment towards Combs accuses him of utilizing workers of his enterprise endeavors — together with file 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 data, textual content messages and emails, lodge data and movies to complement testimony and help their claims about what they name “Freak Off exercise.”
Jurors can even see safety digicam video displaying Combs punching, kicking after which dragging Cassie within the hallway of a Los Angeles lodge 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 after I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
Protection says Freak Offs had been consensual
Combs’ lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, mentioned at a bail listening to that Combs wrote “a really giant examine” 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 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 instances” 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 isn’t Combs’ first. In 2001, he was acquitted of bringing an unlawful handgun right into a crowded Manhattan dance membership the place three individuals had been wounded by gunfire. A rapper in Combs’ entourage, Jamal Barrow, who carried out beneath the title Shyne, was convicted within the taking pictures and served almost 9 years in jail.
At a pretrial convention Might 1, Combs confirmed to a choose 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.
