Sean ‘Diddy' Combs used ‘fame, wealth and power' to create twisted criminal ‘kingdom,' feds charge at close of bombshell trial
Sean 'Diddy' Combs is a crime boss who abused his status as a powerful hip-hop mogul to force his ex-lovers into humiliating, drug-fueled sexual escapades, the feds charged at the close of a bombshell Manhattan trial Thursday.
Federal prosecutors painted the disgraced Bad Boy Records founder as a terrifying tycoon who used his fame and fortune — and his circle of trusted employees — to cover up his alleged monstrous acts for decades.
'He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law — but over the course of this trial, his crimes have been exposed,' Assistant US Attorney Christy Slavik told jurors in closing statements.
5 Assistant US Attorney Christy Slavik makes her closing arguments at Sean 'Diddy' Combs sex-trafficking trial on June 26, 2025.
REUTERS
The feds spent more than four hours painstakingly detailing evidence of Combs' alleged slew of crimes — urging the jury to convict him of sex-trafficking and racketeering charges that could land him behind bars for life.
Slavik described for jurors how Combs allegedly handed a security guard $100,000 in a brown paper bag in a failed bid to coverup the infamous footage of him brutally assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel.
Combs also plotted to set rapper Kid Cudi's Porsche on fire in a jealous rage, prosecutors said.
And he trafficked Ventura and another ex-lover — who testified using the alias 'Jane' — by forcing them into 'freak-off' sex sessions with male escorts, after beating them and threatening to release explicit tapes of them, Slavik said.
'The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,' she said. 'Dozens of witnesses agreed – he doesn't take no for an answer.'
5 Combs making a gesture to the courtroom audience on June 26, 2025.
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
The jailed 'I'll Be Missing You' rapper's trusted inner circle — including his 'loyal lieutenant,' chief of staff Khristina Khorram — allegedly 'aided and abetted' his schemes, while his security guards were 'armed and ready' at his side for some of Combs' 'most violent acts.'
'It's his kingdom — everyone is there to serve him,' Slavik said.
Combs, who has been held without bail at a Brooklyn lockup since his September 2024 arrest, didn't betray much emotion as he sat at the defense table during the closing argument, dressed in a baby blue sweater.
He pushed his chair a few feet away from the table and occasionally shot a look over at the jury of eight men and four women that will decide his fate.
But Combs slumped his shoulders and stared down at his hands, with his head bowed, when the prosecutor mentioned Ventura's emotional trial testimony that he had raped her in 2018 after their break-up.
The R&B singer was among more than 30 witnesses who testified against Combs over the course of the seven-week trial.
To convict on the racketeering rap, jurors will need to find that Combs was the kingpin of a crew that plotted at least two alleged crimes. They'll have several choices: the car arson, sex trafficking of Ventura and Jane and the alleged bribe to the security guard.
5 Prosecutors argued that Combs used his fame to create a criminal 'kingdom.'
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
Prosecutors said Combs should be found guilty on each of the two sex-trafficking counts — which carry a minimum 15-year prison sentence — even if only one of the countless sex sessions described by Ventura and Jane was coerced.
The March 2016 hotel episode caught on camera — where Combs was seen shoving, kicking and trying to dragging Ventura back to their room after she tried to leave a freak-off early — was just one example of a forced or coerced sex-trafficking incident, Slavik said.
'This is what happened when Cassie said no,' she told jurors, while playing the sickening footage.
5 Surveillance footage of Combs assaulting Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
U.S. Attorneys SDNY
Ventura and Jane also both testified that Combs threatened to release tapes of the degrading sex sessions if they did not comply with his demands.
'He held these sex tapes over her head as collateral,' Slavik said, speaking about Ventura. 'The freak-offs themselves became a way to coerce her into doing freak-offs.'
The embattled entrepreneur, who has pleaded not guilty, maintains that the freak-off encounters were consensual.
5 Combs bowed his head in court when the prosecution brought up his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura's testimony about him allegedly raping her.
WireImage
His three 18-year-old daughters, who had not been seen at his trial for weeks, returned Thursday and sat sitting in the third row of the gallery behind him, alongside Combs' mother and other supporters.
Combs' defense attorneys are set to deliver their own closing statements Friday.
— Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer
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