Sean “Diddy” Combs thought his “fame, wealth and power” put him above the legislation as he led a legal enterprise for twenty years, utilizing “power, violence and fear” to hold out brutal crimes, a prosecutor informed a jury on the music mogul’s intercourse trafficking trial throughout closing arguments Thursday.
“Over the last several weeks, you’ve learned a lot about Sean Combs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik started. “He’s the leader of a criminal enterprise. He doesn’t take no for an answer. And now you know about many crimes he committed with members of his enterprise.”
She stated expenses of intercourse trafficking and racketeering conspiracy have been supported by proof that over twenty years, Combs kidnapped certainly one of his workers, dedicated arson by making an attempt to explode a automobile, engaged in compelled labor, bribed a safety officer and carried out the “brutal crimes at the heart of this case.”
Combs “again and again forced, threatened and manipulated” former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and an ex-girlfriend who testified below the pseudonym “Jane” into “having sex with escorts for his own entertainment,” Slavik stated, talking from a lectern positioned between jurors and the tables the place prosecutors and protection legal professionals sat.
“The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” she stated. “He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law.”
Slavik stated Combs “counted on silence and shame” to allow and delay his abuse. He used a “small army” of workers — an interior circle that included private assistants and bodyguards — to hurt girls and canopy it up, she stated.
The concept of racketeering legislation is that “when someone commits crime as part of a group, they’re more powerful and dangerous,” Slavik stated. “The defendant was a powerful man, but he became more powerful and dangerous because of his inner circle, his businesses — the enterprise.”
Combs and his interior circle “committed hundreds of racketeering acts,” she stated.
As Slavik spoke, jurors noticed photographs of key figures in Combs’ orbit, in addition to excerpts from associated testimony within the trial transcript and slides to categorize proof.
One slide listed crimes prosecutors allege as a part of the racketeering conspiracy, together with drug distribution, kidnapping, arson and witness tampering. Another slide listed medication resembling cocaine, meth, ketamine, Oxycodone and MDMA, that Combs’ aides stated they procured for him, or that federal brokers stated they discovered final 12 months in raids of Combs’ properties.
Combs sat along with his head down, his chair pushed again a couple of ft from the protection desk, as Slavik spoke. He was carrying a light-colored sweater over a white button-down shirt and khakis.
Since his arrest at a Manhattan resort final September, prosecutors have stated Combs coerced and abused girls for years as he used his “power and prestige” as a music star to enlist a community of associates and workers to assist him whereas he silenced victims by way of blackmail and violence.
They’ve stated the Bad Boy Records founder induced feminine victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male intercourse employees in occasions dubbed “Freak-Offs.”
Defense legal professionals have argued that Combs was concerned in home violence however dedicated no federal crimes.
They constructed their case for acquittal by way of prolonged cross-examinations of many of the authorities’s 34 witnesses. Some witnesses testified solely in response to subpoenas and made it clear to the jury that they did not wish to be there.
Combs’ legal professionals contend there was no racketeering conspiracy as a result of none of his workers agreed to be a part of any conspiracy.
But in her closing, Slavik stated workers repeatedly agreed to commit crimes for Combs, resembling delivering him medication; accompanying him to kidnap his private assistant, Capricorn Clark; and locking his girlfriend in a resort room after he stomped on her face.
Before Slavik started her closing, Judge Arun Subramanian informed the jury they’d hear a closing argument from a protection lawyer on Friday and a rebuttal by a prosecutor earlier than he instructs them on the legislation and permits them to start deliberating as early as late afternoon.
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