Sean 'Diddy' Combs’ lawyer mocks sex trafficking case in closing, calls
charges 'badly exaggerated'
[June 28, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs' lawyer implored a jury on Friday to
acquit the hip-hop mogul, arguing overzealous federal prosecutors
twisted his drug use and swinger lifestyle into a sex trafficking and
racketeering case that could put him behind bars for life.
“He is none of these things. He is innocent,” defense attorney Marc
Agnifilo said, glancing at Combs during a four-hour closing argument.
"He sits there innocent. Return him to his family who have been waiting
for him.”
Jurors are expected to begin deliberating Monday.
Agnifilo repeatedly mocked the government’s case, peppering his
presentation with folksy quips and bawdy observations. He said
prosecutors “badly exaggerated” the charges, and he belittled federal
agents who seized baby oil and lubricant in raids last year at Combs’
Los Angeles and Miami-area homes.
“Way to go, fellas,” the defense lawyer said.
Agnifilo accused the government of targeting Combs, irritating
prosecutors and the judge, and questioned why no one else was charged in
what the prosecution alleges was a racketeering conspiracy involving
Combs’ personal assistants, bodyguards and other employees. Judge Arun
Subramanian instructed jurors not to consider why or how the government
obtained an indictment.
In a rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey said Agnifilo spent
“a whole lot of energy” trying to distract from Combs’ “inexcusable
criminal behavior.”
“Make no mistake," Comey told jurors, "this trial was about how in Sean
Combs’ world, ‘no’ was never an option.”
Agnifilo called Combs’ prosecution a “fake trial" and ridiculed the
notion that the “I'll Be Missing You” singer engaged in racketeering.
“Are you kidding me?” Agnifilo asked. “Did any witness get on that
witness stand and say, ‘Yes, I was part of a racketeering enterprise — I
engaged in racketeering?’” No, those accusations were a figment of the
prosecution’s imagination, he argued.
Combs, in a sweater and khakis, watched Agnifilo with rapt attention
after looking down and slouching during Thursday’s prosecution closing.
He didn't testify during the seven-week trial, and his lawyers called no
witnesses of their own.
Combs’ family, including six of his children and his mother, sat behind
him. When the day was finished, Combs hugged one of his lawyers and
smiled as he conversed with others. As the jury filed out of the
courtroom for the last time this week, Combs watched them, but the
jurors didn't look his way.
Combs’ ex-girlfriends R&B singer Cassie and a woman testifying under the
pseudonym “Jane” told jurors that Combs coerced them into participating
in “freak-offs” or “hotel nights” — drug-fueled sex marathons with male
sex workers while Combs watched, directed, masturbated and sometimes
filmed them.
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Attorney Marc Agnifilo arrives to the courthouse in New York,
Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
 Agnifilo argued prosecutors had
invaded Combs’ most intimate personal affairs, warning jurors:
“Where's the crime scene? The crime scene is your private sex life."
He also mocked the prosecution’s assertion that Combs and his
underlings engaged in hundreds of racketeering acts, as well as the
government’s suggestion that many of the sex marathons at the heart
of the case were crimes.
If that’s so, he said, “we need a bigger roll of crime scene tape,”
a reference to a famous line from the movie “Jaws.”
Agnifilo argued there's another factor at play in the allegations
that women have lobbed against him: the prospect of draining him of
his wealth through lawsuits.
“This isn’t about a crime. This is about money. It's about money,"
Agnifilo said.
Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, sued Combs in November
2023 over abuse allegations. He settled with her the next day for
$20 million, but the allegations prompted federal law enforcement to
open the criminal investigation that led to his arrest. Dozens of
other lawsuits followed.
“If you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to
pick Cassie,” Agnifilo said.
Agnifilo reiterated that the defense “owns” the fact that Combs was
violent but argued that behavior does not justify the grave charges
against him.
Combs and Cassie had a “loving, beautiful relationship,” albeit a
“complicated” one, Agnifilo said.
“If racketeering conspiracy had an opposite, it would be their
relationship." Agnifilo said. "They were truly, deeply in love with
each other, for real."
Echoing prosecutor Christy Slavik’s closing argument on Thursday,
Agnifilo showed jurors part of the now-infamous security camera
footage of Combs attacking Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
Agnifilo acknowledged that the video clearly shows domestic
violence, but he disputed the prosecution’s theory that the assault
was evidence of sex trafficking by force. He insisted Combs may have
been angry not that Cassie was trying to flee a “freak-off,” but
that she was taking his cellphone.
In her rebuttal, Comey said: “Being a domestic abuser is not a
defense to sex trafficking.”
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