Sean “Diddy” Combs finally got a chance to present his side of the story in federal court — and it only took about 15 minutes.
The government rested its case in the mogul’s sex trafficking and racketeering trial on Tuesday (June 24). Not long afterwards, the defense got its opportunity to present witnesses.
Except, they didn’t. Despite hinting at different times in the legal process that they would introduce a variety of witnesses (who we detailed here), Diddy’s legal team decided to forego testimony altogether.
Combs told Judge Arun Subramanian that, as had been previously reported, he would not be testifying on his own behalf. But he did take advantage of this rare chance to speak, addressing the judge directly.
“I want to tell you, thank you,” Combs said to Subramanian. “You’re doing an excellent job.”
After that exchange, attorney Anna Estevao presented the defense case. That consisted almost entirely of her reading a number of text exchanges between Cassie Ventura and Diddy to the jury. The text threads dated from between 2012 and 2017.
Some of them were from either right before or right after a freak off, the sexual encounters involving Cassie, Diddy, and male escorts that are at the heart of the case. One text, from June 29, 2012 — which was, according to the government’s exhaustive chart, the date of a possible freak off — showed Cassie responding, “I know!!” to Diddy’s message of, “We’re gonna have so much fun today.”
Another, from August 2012, around the time of another possible freak off, showed Ventura saying, “I’ll get all the pics together this week.”
A thread from March 2017 involved Diddy asking, “You think you can fo [freak off] without getting high?” and Cassie responding, “Yeah.”
The following month, Ventura told Combs that she wanted to “be your little freak.”
And in May 2017, she texted Combs, “lol I just bought baby oil at the story bc I couldn’t help myself.” [Baby oil, as has been widely reported, was used liberally during the freak offs.]
In addition to the texts, Estevao read into the record a long stipulation that enumerated discrepancies between aspects of what several of the government witnesses testified to, and what notes taken by the government during some of their meetings said. As was pointed out during the trial, the witnesses never reviewed the notes of the meetings, so there is no way of determining independently if the government’s notes of the meeting are accurate.
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled to begin on Thursday, and the jury is expected to start deliberating next Monday.
