Wrestling gold medalist medalist Kyle Snyder charged in prostitution sting
FILE - United States' Kyle Snyder, right, celebrates after winning gold against Cuba's Arturo Silot, left, during the men's 97kg wrestling freestyle final bout at the Pan American Games Santiago, Chile, Nov. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Olympic gold medalist Kyle Snyder, one of the most successful wrestlers in U.S. history, was arrested in a prostitution sting, according to police in Columbus.
Snyder, 29, was charged with engaging in prostitution after he was arrested on Friday, according to court records, which did not list an attorney for him. Messages seeking comment from Snyder were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
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Snyder became the youngest American wrestler to win Olympic gold at age 20 during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, and he followed that up with a silver at the Tokyo Games. He lost in the bronze-medal match at last year's Olympics in Paris.
He was a three-time NCAA champion at Ohio State and has won three world championships.
Just last week, the Real American Freestyle wrestling league announced it had added Snyder to it's lineup.
The league, with pro wrestling icon Hulk Hogan as the commissioner, is slated to hold its first event Aug. 30 in Cleveland.
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Jane wrote a frustrated note to Combs but never sent it Irritated with the imbalance of their relationship, Jane poured her thoughts into the Notes app on her phone in November 2021, drafting a message to Combs but never sending it. 'I don't know what you're calling me for, but I'm sorry I don't want to do drugs for days and days and have you use me to fulfill your freaky, wild desires in hotel rooms,' Jane wrote in the unsent missive. Jane said she was tired of waiting for Combs to fulfill promises he'd made to her, such as date nights, togetherness, quality time and doing things she wanted to do — not the 'hotel nights' that had come to dominate their relationship. Jurors hear audio of Jane confronting Diddy about another woman In November 2021, Jane confronted Combs about cheating on her after she saw Instagram posts from a woman who was at his Miami-area estate. In an audio recording played in court, Combs explained that the woman had come to his house to work out. 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'If he said, 'I can't want to see what you have for me,' or something along those lines, I knew what task was being asked of me.' Jane felt obligated to continue doing 'hotel nights' for Combs Jane recalled another occasion where she told Combs she wasn't interested in sexual encounters with other men. On a trip to New York in 2023, she said she told him, 'I didn't want to do it anymore, these nights with these men.' Combs didn't listen, she said, and they proceeded with the encounter. Jane said she objected again in a subsequent conversation and Combs told her she didn't have to engage in such sexual encounters anymore. But Jane said she felt obligated. Just a few months earlier, she had moved into a home that was paid for by Combs. Jane told jurors she was apprehensive about going to New York in the first place because she worried Combs was trying to set up a 'hotel night.' 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It was 'just hours and hours of that,' Jane said. Combs held sex marathons just weeks before his arrest, Janes says Combs was continuing to have so-called 'freak-off' sex marathons as federal investigators were closing in on arresting him last year, Jane testified Friday. Jane said she was involved in sexual encounters with male sex workers at Combs' Miami-area estate as late as last August, just weeks before his arrest at a Manhattan hotel. Jane estimated there were about five such encounters between February 2024 and his arrest last September. None of them were in hotels, a frequent venue for activities she dubbed 'debauchery' and 'hotel nights.' Federal agents raided Combs' home on ritzy Star Island, along with his home in Los Angeles, in March 2024. Prosecutor focuses on allegations of sex trafficking and forced labor Prosecutor Maurene Comey has been deftly mixing in questions for Jane that cut to the heart of the case, including charges of sex trafficking and forced labor. As Jane was describing her many 'hotel nights' with Combs and paid sex workers, Comey asked her, 'who did the most work' during those encounters. 'It was all me, from just start to finish,' Jane testified. When asking Jane about recruiting a sex worker, Comey underscored the geographic scope of the alleged crimes. Jane testified that she'd booked flights to Los Angeles and New York for the Atlanta-based sex worker. One of Combs' charges is interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution. Later, Comey asked Jane about transporting drugs across state lines for Combs. Jane says she was Combs' drug mule on at least two occasions Jane described how she nervously smuggled pills in her checked luggage on commercial flights from Los Angeles to Miami. Jane said both times Combs asked her to 'pick up a package' at his Los Angeles mansion and bring it with her when she visited him at his Miami-area estate. Jane testified that she wasn't comfortable with the request, but Combs' chief of staff Kristina 'K.K.' Khorram told her: 'It's fine, I do it all the time.' Jane said she delivered the drugs to Combs and ended up using some of the drugs with him. Jane says Combs pressured her to continue having sex, even after vomiting Combs pledged to get clean from drugs in 2023, Jane said, but first wanted to have another of their 'hotel nights,' dubbing it a 'sobriety party.' Jane testified that she typically took drugs to get through the encounters, but abstained that night in a Beverly Hills hotel room as Combs ingested ecstasy and cocaine. After having back-to-back sex with two sex workers, she said, she felt sick and vomited in the bathroom. Jane said Combs came in and told her: 'That's good. You'll feel better now that you've thrown up. So let's go.' Jane then went back to the party and had sex with a third man, she said, telling jurors she was 'repulsed' and 'deeply regretted' doing it. 'I hated it so much,' she said. Prosecutor zeroes in on the control Combs had over Jane One of the prosecution's central arguments is that Combs coerced women to submit to his sexual fantasies by using his fortune to make them reliant on him. To bolster that claim, Prosecutor Maurene Comey had Jane read aloud texts in which she complained to Combs that it seemed that 'hotel nights' were 'the only reason you have me around and pay for the house.' She said in the messages that she was 'doing things that make me disgusted with myself.' Still, she expressed her love for Combs, saying in the messages that 'my heart is really in this and it's breaking.' By September 2023, Combs had been paying Jane's rent for about five months. Comey asked Jane what she feared would happen if she stopped doing hotel nights. 'That he would take it away, that Sean would take the house away,' Jane responded. It was then that Comey asked her how Combs responded to her messages. 'He said: 'Girl stop,'' Jane answered. Combs taps his fingers as Jane sobs As Jane broke into sobs talking about how she 'just really wanted my partner to get sober' when she tried to do a 'hotel night' without drugs in October 2023, Combs tapped his fingers against one of his legs, occasionally glancing toward the jury or his lawyers and away from Jane. Jane texted Combs that she wanted to stop having 'hotel nights' Jane tried to put an end to so-called 'hotel nights,' texting Combs in 2023 that she longed to return to the early days of their relationship, before the drug-fueled encounters started to dominate their time together. Jane told Combs that she felt obligated to perform for him and that she regretted ever getting involved in the encounters, writing: 'ever since I opened Pandora's box, I haven't been able to close it.' 'I don't want to keep feeling like that,' she wrote, telling Combs that she wanted them to 'talk like adults and figure out where we're going from here.' Combs responded: 'Girl, stop.' Jane sometimes leaned into Combs' fantasies even though she 'didn't like them' Jane acknowledged sending sexually explicit text messages to Combs between their hotel encounters, telling jurors she wanted to convey her love and interest in having sex with him — not strangers. At times, she said, she did lean into his fantasies, sending graphic messages describing what she said she wanted to do with sex workers while Combs watched. On the witness stand Friday, she said she sent those messages because she wanted to make him happy. In reality, she said, she wanted the encounters to stop. 'I didn't like them,' she said. 'I was realizing this was becoming the dynamic of what we were.' Jane says Diddy stopped condom use during 'hotel nights' Jane testified that Combs intervened to stop a man she identified as Don from using a condom, even after she requested it. The moment was captured in audio played for the jury. She said it happened during their first 'hotel night,' which Combs had arranged, and that he blocked condom use again in a later encounter. Jane testified that Combs 'guilt tripped me out of it. It wasn't something he wanted to see.' Prosecutors play audio of 'hotel night' encounter. Later, Jane breaks down sobbing Prosecutors played an audio tape in which Jane asked a man to wear a condom who was about to have sex with her. It was the first time jurors in the trial, now in its fourth week, heard any recording from what Jane has called 'hotel nights' and what Cassie called 'freak-offs.' During hotel nights, a male sex worker would have sex with Jane while Combs watched, according to testimony. Later in the testimony Friday morning, Jane broke into sobs as she described crying on two occasions during 'hotel nights' with Combs. In tears, Jane says Diddy ignored her resistance to group sex Jane wept as she told jurors how Combs ignored her 'subtle cues' that she wanted to stop engaging in sex acts during their drug-fueled 'hotel nights.' She said she'd tell him she was tired or hungry or make gestures and facial expressions indicating that she didn't want to continue. Combs, she said, would tell her to keep going and 'finish strong.' Asked by a prosecutor why she didn't tell him directly that she wanted to stop, Jane said, 'I just, I don't know,' as she cried loudly. Jane's second day of testimony starts with sexual topics Comey, the prosecutor, questioned Jane about sexual subjects right from the start on Friday, beginning with a trip Jane said she took with Combs to Las Vegas in 2023 when they had a 'hotel night' with an 'entertainer.' The prosecutor asked Jane if Combs ever used the word 'freak' with her. Jane said he would say 'he wants his freak.' She said she understood that to mean 'he wanted me to be wild and sexual.' Jane's description of 'hotel nights' has closely paralleled Cassie's earlier testimony about 'freak-offs' she had with male sex workers, under Combs' direction. Jane returns to the courtroom Jane is back to resume her direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey. The jury has entered the room. Combs, wearing a dark sweater on Friday, is conversing with his lawyers and writing notes. The judge gave prosecutors a small victory prior to the resumption of testimony when he ruled that statements Jane made that cast a disparaging light on the sexual performances she endured during her three years of dating Combs can be used during her examination. Defense lawyers had argued they should be inadmissible. But the judge said the opening statement by the defense opened the way for admission of the exhibits because the defense asserted that Jane was a willing participant and that sexual activities were all consensual. Judge meets with attorneys before jury arrives As he has throughout the trial, Judge Arun Subramanian is meeting with prosecutors and defense lawyers in the courtroom on Friday before the jury is brought in so disputes about evidence can be settled. The judge also discussed efforts to improve the ability of Combs to communicate with his lawyers from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he has been held since his September arrest. The Associated Press
