Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial to delve into the seediest side of rap's 'bad
boy'
[May 03, 2025]
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — Hip-hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs once presided like
a prince over his White Parties in the Hamptons, attracting A-list
celebrities, gossip columnists and photographers. But at a trial
starting Monday, prosecutors will cast the entertainer as a criminal
sexual deviant who exploited his fame to abuse women at gatherings held
far out of public view.
For over two decades, prosecutors allege, the Bad Boy Records founder
used the power and prestige he’d gained in building a hip-hop empire to
destroy young lives.
He faces an indictment that includes descriptions of “Freak Offs,”
drugged-up orgies in which women were forced to have sex with male sex
workers while Combs filmed them.
Numerous witnesses have come forward to accuse Combs of terrorizing
people into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them,
often by the hair, prosecutors say. Once, the indictment alleges, he
even dangled someone from a balcony.
Combs' lawyers contend prosecutors are trying to police consensual
sexual activity.
And while Combs, 55, has acknowledged one episode of violence — the
caught-on-camera beating of his former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie —
his lawyers say other allegations are false.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday at a federal courthouse in
Manhattan. Testimony will likely start the following week.
If convicted on all charges, which include racketeering conspiracy, sex
trafficking, and transporting people across state lines to engage in
prostitution, Combs faces a possible sentence of decades in prison.
Investigation followed Cassie lawsuit
Although dozens of men and women have alleged in lawsuits that Combs
abused them, this trial will highlight the claims of four women.
One of them is Cassie, who filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Combs had
subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape after they
met in 2005.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have
been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose
legal name is Casandra Ventura, did.
Her lawsuit, which offered the first public account of the Freak Offs
described in the indictment, was settled in a day. Four months later,
though, federal investigators raided Combs homes in Los Angeles and
Miami and confronted him at a private airport in Florida, seizing 96
electronic devices. They also found three AR-15-style rifles with
defaced serial numbers.
The three-time Grammy winner was indicted last September. He has since
been held in a federal jail in Brooklyn after judges ruled that he would
be a threat to intimidate witnesses and victims if released.
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Sean 'P.' Diddy' Combs arrives at the annual Independence Day 'White
Party' at the PlayStation 2 Estate in Bridgehampton, New York, July
4, 2004. (AP Photo/Jennifer Szymaszek, File)
 The 17-page indictment against Combs
accuses him of using employees of his business endeavors — including
record labels, a recording studio, an apparel line, an alcoholic
spirits company, a marketing agency, a television network and a
media company — to facilitate his crimes through acts that included
kidnapping, arson and bribery.
Prosecutors plan to show jurors travel records, text messages and
emails, hotel records and videos to supplement testimony and support
their claims about what they call “Freak Off activity.”
Jurors will also see security camera video showing Combs punching,
kicking and then dragging Cassie in the hallway of a Los Angeles
hotel in 2016.
After the video aired on CNN last year, Combs apologized, saying, “I
take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was
disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now."
Defense says Freak Offs were consensual
Combs' attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said at a bail hearing that Combs
wrote “a very large check” to Cassie after she filed her lawsuit.
The lawyer said the payout motivated others to come forward with
false claims.
Agnifilo said Combs was “not a perfect person” and that there had
been drug use and toxic relationships, but he said the rapper was
undergoing therapy before his arrest.
He said Cassie and Combs were in a 10-year relationship that was
“very loving at times” and sometimes chose to bring a third person
into their intimacy.
“That was their thing,” he said. “It was a sought-after, special
part of their relationship.”
The trial is not Combs’ first. In 2001, he was acquitted of bringing
an illegal handgun into a crowded Manhattan dance club where three
people were wounded by gunfire. A rapper in Combs’ entourage, Jamal
Barrow, who performed under the name Shyne, was convicted in the
shooting and served nearly nine years in prison.
At a pretrial conference Thursday, Combs confirmed to a judge that
he turned down a plea offer that would have carried a lesser penalty
than what he might face if he is convicted at his upcoming trial.
Just before he left the courtroom after the hearing, he defiantly
shook his fist in the air.
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