After years of lurid accusations against Sean “Diddy” Combs, the rap mogul’s acquittal on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges came as a surprise to much of the world. So how did Combs manage to defeat the most severe counts in his bombshell criminal trial?
While a New York jury found Combs guilty on Wednesday (July 2) of transporting girlfriends and male escorts across state lines for drug-fueled sex marathons, they were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this conduct amounted to sex-trafficking or occurred as part of a criminal enterprise. The partial acquittal is a major victory for Combs, as it tees up a far shorter potential prison sentence.
Jury deliberations are secret, so we can’t know for sure what tipped the scales on the verdict. But legal experts tell Billboard that it may have been a stretch for prosecutors to indict Combs under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal “RICO” statute often deployed against mobsters and cartels.
“The government overreached,” says David Ring, a lawyer who specializes in sexual abuse cases. “They wanted a RICO conviction so they could then go seize Comb’s assets under RICO forfeiture laws. That’s not going to happen now.”
To win on RICO, prosecutors would have had to prove that Combs and his underlings operated a wide-ranging criminal syndicate. The government’s evidence, it seems, was not enough to convince the jury that Combs’ business ventures represented this type of racketeering enterprise.
Jennifer Beidel, a defense lawyer who previously worked as a federal prosecutor in the office that brought Combs’ case, hypothesizes that jurors may have been dubious of the RICO charges due to what she called the “two empty seats.” She’s referring to the lack of testimony from Combs’ chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, and his longtime security guard, D-Roc.
Prosecutors described both Khorram and D-Roc throughout the trial as participants in Combs’ alleged crimes, but neither one faced charges or appeared in court as a cooperating witness. Since RICO is a conspiracy charge, prosecutors typically secure guilty pleas from at least one accomplice and have them admit their crimes on the witness stand to prove that they broke the law as a group.
“RICO without a cooperator — I would at least call that a pretty creative charging decision,” says Beidel.
Beidel says prosecutors probably had a better shot with the sex-trafficking charges against Combs, since there was some testimony and video evidence that could point to singer Cassie Ventura and an anonymous woman known as “Jane” being coerced into Combs’ dayslong sex parties. But these counts, too, faced tall hurdles due to other testimony and text messages that showed both women consenting to at least some of the sexual encounters with Combs.
“We have to take from the result that the jury did not find that there was sufficient evidence of coercion,” Beidel explains.
Strong lawyering by the defense team was obviously a contributing factor in Combs’ acquittal. Beyond shrewd cross-examination and a focus on the evidence that supported their position, New York Law School criminal defense professor Anna Cominsky says Combs’ attorneys were smart to draw a bright line between domestic abuse and the crimes at issue in the trial.
Defense lawyers admitted from the very first day of trial that Combs was physically abusive towards Ventura. They owned that this was ugly behavior, but emphasized repeatedly that Combs was not charged with domestic abuse and that his conduct was not equivalent to trafficking or racketeering.
“The defense did a good job of owning the bad facts,” observes Cominsky. “By taking ownership of those bad facts, owning the domestic abuse component, that gives them instant credibility with respect to the jury.”
That said, Combs’ acknowledgment of domestic violence has already come back to bite him. Judge Arun Subramanian cited this confession in rejecting Combs’ request to be let out on bail following the guilty verdict, and it could very well be a factor for the judge when he decides the rapper’s sentence in a few months.
“That definitely shows you the judge’s attitude towards his domestic violence,” says Beidel of the bail denial. “The judge definitely thinks he’s still a danger to the community.”
