NEW YORK (AP) — The public knew Sean “Diddy” Combs as a larger-than-life music and business mogul, but in private he used violence and threats to coerce women into drug-fueled sexual encounters that he recorded, a prosecutor said Monday in opening statements at Combs' sex trafficking trial.
“This is Sean Combs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told the jury, pointing at Combs, who leaned back in his chair in a Manhattan courtroom. ”During this trial you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant’s crimes."
Those crimes, she said, included kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery and obstruction.
Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos, though, described the closely watched trial as a misguided overreach by prosecutors, saying that although her client could be violent, the government was trying to turn sex between consenting adults into a prostitution and sex trafficking case. The judge said he expects the trial to take eight weeks.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” Geragos told the jury of eight men and four women. “There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise.”
Geragos conceded that Combs' violent outbursts, often fueled by alcohol, jealousy and drugs, might have warranted domestic violence charges, but not sex trafficking and racketeering counts. She told jurors they might think Combs is a “jerk” and might not condone his “kinky sex,” but “he’s not charged with being a jerk."
Witnesses allege observing violence from Combs
Prosecutors seized on Combs’ violence as they questioned their first witness and showed jurors a key piece of evidence: a now-infamous video without audio of him kicking and dragging the R&B singer Cassie, his longtime girlfriend, at a Los Angeles hotel in March 2016.
Combs shook his head slowly side to side as the footage played. Jurors ended up seeing it four times as former hotel security officer Israel Florez testified, including once as Combs’ lawyer tried to poke holes in his recollection.
After CNN aired the video last year, Combs apologized and said he was “disgusted” by his actions.
Florez testified that he encountered Combs near the sixth floor elevators while responding to a security call for a “woman in distress." Combs, wearing only a white towel, was slouching in a chair “with a blank stare ... like a devilish stare, just looking at me,” Florez told jurors.
Florez, who is now a Los Angeles police officer, said that as he was escorting Cassie and Combs to their room, she indicated she wanted to leave and Combs told her, “You’re not going to leave.” Florez said he told Combs, “If she wants to leave, she’s going to leave.”
Cassie left, and Florez said Combs, while holding a stack of money with a $100 bill on top, told him, “Don’t tell nobody.” Florez said he considered it a bribe and told Combs, “I don’t want your money. Just go back into your room.”
Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, is expected to testify Tuesday.
The second witness, Daniel Phillip, said he was a professional stripper who was paid $700 to $6,000 to have sex with Cassie while Combs watched and gave instructions, with the first encounter in 2012.
Phillip told jurors that he stopped meeting with the couple after he saw Combs throw a bottle at her and then drag her by her hair into a bedroom as she screamed.
On cross examination, defense attorney Xavier Donaldson tried to attack Phillip’s credibility, mocking Phillip’s former employer, a male review show company whose slogan promised “the ultimate ladies night experience.”
Combs watched Monday's proceedings attentively. He hugged his lawyers and gave a thumbs-up to family and friends as he entered the courtroom. He also blew a kiss to his mother and mouthed, “Hi mom, I love you,” as she arrived for the start of testimony.
Some of Combs’ children also attended, including three daughters who left the courtroom when the testimony turned lurid.
The case has drawn intense public interest, and the line to get into the courthouse stretched down the block. As Combs' family and lawyers left court Monday, some people were already lining up to snag a seat for Tuesday.
The allegations against Combs
Combs, 55, pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that could result in a 15-year-to-life prison sentence if he is convicted. Since his September arrest, he's been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
Judge Arun Subramanian has granted Combs permission to wear regular clothes in court, instead of jail garb. On Monday, he sported a gray sweater and a white button-down shirt. Because hair dye isn't allowed in jail, his normally jet black mane is now mostly gray.
Lawyers for the three-time Grammy winner say prosecutors are wrongly trying to make a crime out of a party-loving lifestyle that may have been indulgent, but not illegal.
Prosecutors say Combs coerced women into drugged-up group sexual encounters he called “freak-offs,” “wild king nights” or “hotel nights,” then kept them in line by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair.
In her opening, Johnson said Cassie was far from the only woman Combs beat and sexually exploited.
The prosecutor said Combs last year brutally beat another woman — identified only as Jane — when she confronted him about enduring years of freak-offs in dark hotel rooms while he took other paramours on date nights and trips around the globe.
The sex parties are central to Combs' sexual abuse, prosecutors say. Combs’ company paid for the parties, held in hotel rooms across the U.S. and overseas, and his employees staged the rooms with his preferred lighting, extra linens and lubricant, Johnson said. Combs compelled women, including Cassie, to take drugs and engage in sexual activity with male escorts while he gratified himself and sometimes recorded them, Johnson said.
Combs would beat Cassie over the smallest slights, such as leaving a freak-off without his permission or taking too long in the bathroom, Johnson said. Combs threatened to ruin Cassie’s singing career by publicly releasing videos of her sexually involved with male escorts, the prosecutor said. “Her livelihood depended on keeping him happy,” Johnson said.
Cassie sued Combs in 2023, and the lawsuit was settled within hours, but it touched off a law enforcement investigation and was followed by dozens of lawsuits making similar claims.
Geragos claimed Combs’ accusers were motivated by money. She told jurors that Cassie demanded $30 million when she sued him, and another witness will acknowledge demanding $22 million in a breach of contract lawsuit.
She also conceded that Combs is extremely jealous and “has a bad temper,” telling the jury that he sometimes got angry and lashed out when he drank alcohol or “did the wrong drugs.” But, she said, “Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”
The Associated Press doesn’t generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has done.
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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Casandra Ventura's first name, which had been misspelled “Cassandra.”
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Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
Michael R. Sisak And Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press
