How the case against Diddy unravelled

Telegraph

3 days ago

Sean 'Diddy' Combs fell to his knees, planted his forearms on the black leather defence chair and started to pray.
With his head bowed, revealing the shock of hair which had turned white during his 10-month stay in federal prison, the music mogul celebrated what was nothing short of a victory.
Moments later he stood up from the royal blue and gold carpet in courtroom 26A and began to clap.
His mother and six of his seven children, who for eight weeks have dutifully crammed into the wooden pews just feet away from Combs, erupted into applause and cheers, with some wiping tears from their eyes.
Combs had been convicted of two of five federal sex crimes. But it was his acquittal on three of the most serious criminal counts that sparked an uproar of jubilation.
Had Combs been convicted of sex trafficking his former girlfriends, which included the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, or racketeering conspiracy, he could have faced life in prison.
Now he will likely spend a minimal time behind bars before returning to his glittering life of luxury and excess.
The odds had appeared to be stacked against. Indeed, the majority of federal cases end in conviction.
And this showbiz trial featured graphic videos of days-long 'freak offs', drug-fuelled parties in which his former partners would have sex with male escorts while he watched.
But the prosecution appeared to bite off more than it could chew with a complicated racketeering crime that was usually used to prosecute mob bosses.
When this trial started nearly two months ago, defence lawyer Teny Geragos made an extraordinary admission in her opening statement: Combs was a domestic abuser with a vicious temper.
The 55-year-old's assault of Ventura at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles, caught on CCTV, was 'indefensible, horrible, dehumanising and violent', she said.
'But it is not evidence of sex trafficking', she added, 'It is evidence of domestic violence.'
It was a bold and unconventional legal strategy, painting her client as a domestic abuser from the outset. But it began the work of disentangling him from the most serious charges.
Much of the evidence against Combs was simply proof of a lurid, 'swinger's lifestyle', said Marc Agnifilo, the mogul's attorney, who is also representing Luigi Mangione and previously defended convicted fraudster Martin Shrekli.
After jurors were shown pictures of hundreds of bottles of baby oil and lubricant, used in Combs's sex parties, Mr Agnifilo let off a sarcastic 'Whoo!', pointing out that the substances are not illegal.
'Thank God for the Special Response team,' he said, of the agents who raided Combs's homes in Miami Beach and Los Angeles. 'They found the Astroglide, they found the baby oil!'
The prosecution had attempted to prove that Combs compelled his girlfriends to take part in the orgies with threats of violence, financial manipulation and even kidnapping.
But time and again Mr Agnifilo said the women had the chance to leave. 'No one's forcing her to do this,' he said of Ventura. 'She's a woman who actually likes sex – good for her.'
He was more scathing about 'Jane', who alleged the threat to cut-off her $10,000 a month rent left her without any choice.
In text messages shared with the jury, Jane wrote to Combs that their relationship had opened a 'Pandora's box'.
'It's hurting me bc I'm so much more than being loved in the dark in hotel rooms, doing things that make me feel disgusted w myself,' she wrote.
'I'm confusing your lust for me as real love…. I don't want to fell obligated to perform these nights w you in fear of losing the roof over my head.'
Under the terms of a 'love contract' she signed with Combs, he agreed to pay her rent for two years – and is currently still doing so, Mr Agnifilo pointed out.
'I hope she's having a nice day,' he said. 'In a house he's paying for.'
'The thrust of the prosecution's case was focused solely on two alleged victims, Cassie and Jane, with whom Sean Combs had long-term relationships,' said Tony Buzbee, a lawyer who is representing some of Combs's further alleged victims in a string of civil suits.
'Perhaps because of the nature of his relationship with those women and the length of those two relationships, I think the jury struggled with the difficult issue of consent and more broadly whether Mr Combs's conduct appropriately fit within the RICO [racketeering] statute.'
During his rambunctious, four-hour long closing argument, Mr Agnifilo saved particular ridicule for the racketeering charge.
'Are you kidding me?' he said, arguing the jury had been presented with 'two trials' over the seven-week case, one involving the actual evidence and the other a 'badly, badly exaggerated story.'
In order to prove a racketeering conspiracy, prosecutors had to show that he had agreed to commit at least two crimes with knowing co-conspirators. They argued that he co-opted loyal employees, including his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, into a variety of criminal acts.
But although the names of Combs's alleged accomplices came up again and again in court, the prosecution did not subpoena them, which may have confused the jury.
Where are these 'co-conspirators', Mr Agnifilo asked? Only his client had been indicted with any crimes, and no witnesses testified to being part of a racketeering enterprise.
Speaking forcefully and pacing across the court room, the attorney dwelled at length on the allegation that Combs had roped his staff into criminal acts against Kid Cudi, a Grammy-winning rapper with whom Ventura had a brief romantic relationship in 2011.
There was no evidence, Mr Agnifilo said, that Combs had anything to do with a Molotov cocktail that was placed inside Kid Cudi's Porsche in 2012.
Ventura testified that he had vowed to blow up the vehicle in the rapper's driveway – but doing so was 'cowardly' and 'not in Combs's style,' Mr Agnifilo said.
Yes, Combs did break into the rapper's house the year before, but that was merely trespassing – not an offence included in the racketeering charge.
Michael Bachner, a New York-based criminal defence lawyer and former District Attorney, told The Telegraph that proving racketeering was always going to be an uphill challenge.
'There was evidence of people helping him, but I think it was still a stretch for them to prove that this was part of some concerted conspiracy to do it as opposed to just telling people what to do.'
'It just didn't smell like a RICO case to a lot of people, so that's what I think the government's problem was with it,' he said.
During the trial, Teny Geragos' father, Marc, another member of the Combs' legal team, was upbraided by the judge for sharing details of the case on his podcast in a fashion that might influence the jury.
In an episode on May 23, co-host Harvey Levin, the TMZ founder and former lawyer, outlined where he felt the prosecution's case was weakest.
'You look at him, you know, [allegedly] fire-bombing Kid Cudi's car, breaking into Kid Cuddy's house… most of it to me does not seem like a racketeering. To me, that is an organisation that has some underlying crime venture like selling drugs or gun-running.'
'What does he take when he breaks into Kid Cudi's house? Does he go for jewellery or drugs? No, he goes for a Christmas present from Chanel. He goes there to see what Cudi was going to give Cassie for Christmas,' Mr Levin said.
'To me, most of this is an out of control, crazy, criminal and jealous boyfriend. And that's not racketeering.'
On Tuesday, the jury came back with a partial verdict – announcing they were still split on the charge of racketeering.
If it's so complicated to understand, Mr Agnifilo had previously said, perhaps it simply did not exist.
In the end, the 12 New Yorkers who decided the fate of Combs appeared to have agreed with him.
'Bad Boy for Life' is the title of one of the rapper's biggest hits. Thanks to their verdict, the bad boy in question has avoided a life in prison.