Following a prestigious seven-week trial in New York, music executive Sean “Diddy” Combs was found not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking on Wednesday. He was also found guilty of a lesser prostitution charge.
Combs was found guilty of two prostitution-related charges by the jury, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, after 13 hours of deliberation spread over three days.
Combs, 55, applauded the verdict as it was read out.
As they left the courtroom, he greeted one of his attorneys and thanked the eight-man, four-woman jury members.
Before dismissing the jury, Judge Arun Subramanian also thanked them for their service.
He said, “You listened, you worked together, you were here every day, rain or shine.” You answered the call of the public service with no reward other than the reward of your actions.
A jury had reached the verdict at the conclusion of a trial against Combs, who had been accused of being the head of a foretold criminal organization that had ordered loyal employees and bodyguards to commit numerous offenses against their will.
For example, there were alleged crimes against women, including drug distribution, kidnapping, bribery, witness tampering, obstruction, and arson.
Jurors had to establish that Combs had organized a criminal enterprise and that it had committed at least two of the crimes in order to convict him of racketeering.
Late on Tuesday, jurors announced a partial verdict and claimed they were in a deadlock over the racketeering charge despite receiving an order from Judge Subramanian to continue.
Combs, who was once one of the most influential figures in the music industry, had vehemently refuted every charge.
‘Untouchable’
After the judge gave them nearly three hours of legal advice on how to apply the mountain of evidence and testimony in the case, jurors began deliberating on Monday.
Thousands of pages of phone, financial, and audiovisual records were present at times, along with disturbing testimony.
Casandra Ventura, a singer, and a woman who gave evidence under the pseudonym Jane, were accused of trafficking sex with Combs.
Both had long-term relationships with the hip-hop powerhouse and entrepreneur, and they both went into engrossing detail about coercive sex.
Both of them claimed that they felt compelled to engage in Combs-directed sexual marathons with hired men.
Combs’ attorneys argued that the sex was mutual. They acknowledged that his relationships were complicated by domestic violence; one harrowing instance of him beating and dragging Ventura was captured on security footage, which was widely shared.
(Photo by Leonardo Munoz/AFP)
That was disturbing, the defense claimed, but it did not constitute sex trafficking.
In their final argument, Combs’ team was attacked by prosecutors, who they claimed had “controduced the facts endlessly.”
