After 34 witnesses and six weeks of cruel and graphic testimony, federal prosecutors relied on Sean Diddy’s comb’s case this week.
His defense team adopted an unexpected strategy: choosing not to introduce a single witness, including hip-hop tycoons.
In doing so, legal experts say they are gambling and sending a message: For all the evidence, the Fed does not prove felony crimes including extortion and sexual trafficking.
From the outset, Didi’s legal team said the allegations were too much for all the tycoon’s flaws and suspicious behavior.
“The burden of proof is 100% of prosecution, so it is not uncommon in a criminal trial, and the defense rests without a single witness,” said former sex crime prosecutor Dmitry Gorin. The defense team believes that “cases based on prosecution are reasonable doubts.” He said jurors are likely to endorse the comb’s innocence plea.
Former federal prosecutor Jeff Chemerinsky said Combs’ lawyers believe the jury is listening to their narrative. “Defensive theories seem to be that Didi does something very terrible, but they don’t fit the elements of the alleged crimes.” He said they did not call up their own witnesses because “they have raised this through cross-examination by government witnesses.”
It is impossible to know how the jury was prosecuted on the case, which included shocking testimony to violence, threats, rewards and other bad behaviors against the comb and his inner circle.
Prosecutors hammered his case home as the debate ended Thursday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik told jurors “relying on silence and shame” to make his abuse and prolong his abuse and use “small team” employees to hurt and cover up women.
She added that the comb “don’t refuse the answer.”
At the heart of the case are three women who describe graphic sexual assaults, including the comb’s disposable lover, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who the defense acknowledged as the prosecutor’s main witness.
It was Ventura, a 2023 lawsuit that sparked the reveal of comb businesses and detailed the sexual, violence and freaks. Witnesses proved that the comb made female ketamine, ecstasy and GHB “stay obedient and compliant” during the show.
His last ex-girlfriend (known only as Jane in court) describes how freaks and compulsive sexual acts continued even after a raid on litigation and homeland security investigations until he was arrested last year. A former employee testified under the pseudonym MIA, who also testified that she had been sexually assaulted.
The federal indictment alleges that Comb and his colleagues seduced two of the women under the pretense of a romantic relationship. The comb allegedly uses force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to cause women to engage in sexual acts with male prostitutes.
“By not calling a single witness, the defense must be satisfied with the case they have established through cross-examination,” said former federal prosecutor and defense attorney Neama Rahami.
Rahami said that while the testimony against the comb was graphic, the defense hoped that the jurors would question why those at the time did not report the behavior to the authorities and remained on the comb track in some cases.
Prosecutors said Combs’ “criminal businesses” threatened and abused women and used members of their businesses to engage in sexual trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation to engage in prostitution, coercion and temptation, to engage in prostitution, crimes of narcotics, bribery and obstacles.
On Wednesday, prosecutors abandoned the attempted kidnapping, attempted to set fire and teach traking charges while trying to simplify the jury’s instructions. These moves won’t change the basic case theory, and prosecutors can still argue that he kidnapped Ventura and former assistant Casida Clark and orchestrated a fire bombing of Kid Cudy’s sports car.
Under the Organisation of Racket Affected and Corrupted Act, known as RICO, there are 35 specific crimes, including murder, bribery and ransomware, federal prosecutors need to show a pattern involving at least two public conduct as part of a criminal enterprise.
People often think of mobs, street gangs, or drug cartels. But any loose connection between two or more people is enough, such as Combs’ entourage, said Rahami.
Prosecutors must also show patterns of extortion or two or more RICO predicate behaviors over a 10-year period.
Legal experts say that this is why evidence of suspected bribery, kidnapping, blockage, witness tampering and prostitution is important in cases of prosecution.
Slavik said in his closing remarks that when someone takes crime as part of a group, the blackmail law applies, and in the case of combs, “the defendant is a powerful man, but because of his inner circle, his business-business-business, he becomes stronger and more dangerous,” she told the jurors.
Jurors will determine whether federal prosecutors have proved the RICO charges.
Ventura, a R&B singer with a long-term relationship with the comb, testified early in the trial.
Ventura told jurors she felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse, a relationship involving 11 years of assault, sexual blackmail and rape.
She said the comb threatened to leak videos of sexual encounters with numerous male sex workers, while being drugged and covered with baby oil while watching and meticulously planning the freak.
Ventura testified that one of the freaks led to the infamous hotel beating. The March evening video showed the comb punching holes and kicking Ventura while on the horns and trying to protect himself in front of the Los Angeles hotel elevator bank. He then dragged her hooded sweatshirt into the hall and headed towards their hotel room.
Another camera captures the comb throws a vase at her from the second angle. Her eyes suffered bruises, and the obesity and bruises displayed by prosecutors are still visible in the film premiere two days later, where she put on sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.
The prosecutor said it was then covered up. Ventura said police visited her apartment. She answered some of their questions but told the jury that she still wanted to protect the comb at the time.
“I won’t say who I’m talking about,” she told the jury. “I didn’t want to hurt him in that way at that moment. So much happened. That’s a lot.”
InterContinental Hotel security guard Eddie Garcia testified that the comb gave him a brown paper bag containing $100,000 in cash video.
Garcia said he met Combs, Combs’ chief of staff Kristina Khorram and a bodyguard after his supervisor agreed to sell the video recording. After Garcia raised concerns about police, he said Combs called Ventura on FaceTime, handed him the phone and told Ventura that she also wanted the video to “disappear”. Afterwards, Garcia said he took the money and separated from his colleagues.
Clark, former comb assistant, recalled the 2011 violence with combs. Clark told jurors that the comb forced her to go with him to the home of musician Cudi from the apartment at the muzzle, in December 2011. Once there, Combs and Clark enter the empty house, and then Cudi’s real name is Scott Mescudi.
To avoid participating in law enforcement, Clark testified, Combs ordered her to call Ventura, who was then Combs’ ex-girlfriend, and said they needed to convince Cudy not to snicker at the police.
Kudy testified that his Porsche later bombed the driveway with a Molotov cocktail.
Ventura’s friend Bryana Bongolan testified that Combs hung her on a 17-story balcony in September 2016 and threw her onto balcony furniture, saying: “I will never forget that he held me on that balcony.”
However, Combs’ attorneys then provided evidence that he was around the country at the time of the alleged incident.
