This report mentions physical and sexual violence.
After two months in a Manhattan courtroom, the federal trial of hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, also known as Diddy or Puff Daddy, has come to an uneasy close. On Thursday, Combs received a mixed verdict from the jury: not guilty on the more serious charges, one count of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking; guilty on two lesser counts, of transportation to engage in prostitution. With the trial over, it feels as if the nearly two-year saga around Combs has reached a temporary impasse, as those who tuned in to its twists and turns wonder what comes next.
Though the verdict is ultimately a win for the defense, Combs' image has been forever changed. The man who took rap corporate, routinely one of the top earners in hip-hop, had already taken a hit to his diverse business interests from the snowballing civil lawsuits that preceded the federal trial — beginning with a head-turning November 2023 suit by Casandra "Cassie" Ventura, his former girlfriend and industry protégé. Combs stepped down as chairman of the media company Revolt TV that month, and sold his stake the following June. In December 2023, 18 brands severed ties with Combs' e-commerce venture, Empower Global. That same month, as a longstanding partnership with the liquor brand Diageo was eroding, the company's lawyers wrote, "Mr. Combs is well-aware that these lawsuits make it impossible for him to continue to be the 'face' of anything."
There has also been significant damage to his personal brand. A proposed Hulu reality series was scrapped. Howard University revoked his honorary degree. He had to return the key to the city of New York, just months after receiving it. Combs' homes were raided by Homeland Security officials in March 2024. That May, a 2016 hotel surveillance video of him and Ventura, showing him hitting and kicking her and attempting to drag her down a hallway, leaked to the public. In a since-deleted video apology, Combs said, "I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. ... I was disgusted then when I did it. I'm disgusted now." More lawsuits poured in after his arrest in September 2024. Before Ventura's suit became news, Combs had scored a Grammy nomination for an R&B album, was valued at over $1 billion, and was in the middle of a move to adopt "Love" as his new stage name. That attempted reinvention was nullified by descriptions of the allegations, and the fallout in the following months felt immeasurable.
Even without guilty verdicts on the counts of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, the trial has furthered that damage. The more salacious aspects of "freak-offs" that made it into public view — the solicitation of male sex workers, events furnished with copious amounts of baby oil and lubricant — will sadly remain the headline for many onlookers, but beyond those details are patterns of violence too disturbing to be disregarded. The Ventura lawsuit that set the stage for this federal indictment alleged rape and physical abuse, and the hotel surveillance video corroborated the latter; those images remain in the public consciousness. Ventura has entered her story into public record, as have others like the former Combs employees Capricorn Clark and a woman testifying as "Mia." The picture these witnesses painted of Combs gels with previous depictions of the rap mogul as a hot-blooded, win-at-all-costs wheeler-dealer, which until now had lived mostly in the realm of rumor. During closing arguments, prosecutor Maurene Comey said of Combs, "In his mind, he was untouchable, a god among men."
Still, the case can also be seen as a lesson in the public's murky understanding of consent, and the ways that the stories of alleged victims can be undermined. The prosecution built its case around two key witnesses, Ventura and a woman testifying under the pseudonym "Jane," both ex-girlfriends of Combs. It argued that he coerced the women into traveling across state lines to participate in illegal sex acts with sex workers — the "freak-offs" that Combs also referred to as "hotel nights" or "wild king nights," marathon sessions that could last 30 hours — and that he leveraged his business interests to cover up those crimes. Prosecutor Christy Slavik said Combs used "violence, power and fear to get what he wanted." But hinging the entire case on two former partners may have opened the door for the defense to argue that these relationships, while toxic, were not coercive.
In closing arguments, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo painted Ventura and Jane as the true schemers. "Cassie is nobody's fool," he said. "She's sitting somewhere in the world today with $30 million. He's in jail. It's like a slaughter." Agnifilo was referencing Ventura's lawsuit against Combs, which was settled in just one day for $20 million, and another from the owner of the hotel where Combs was videotaped assaulting Ventura in 2016, for which she received another $10 million. Agnifilo also attacked Jane's credibility, saying she was looking to benefit materially from her relationship with Combs and that he was still paying for her home and legal costs.
At no point did the defense dispute the domestic violence claims levied by the witnesses — in fact, it often owned those accusations of abuse. Instead, its primary strategy was establishing Combs as not guilty of the specific major crimes for which he was on trial, arguing that the government had not met the burden of proof for establishing a criminal enterprise. And while the evidence for transportation to engage in prostitution — one count for each key witness — was laid out rather plainly, the prosecution's failure to name other co-conspirators or alleged victims to bolster its claims of trafficking and conspiracy appears to have hurt its case.
This judgement allows for a potential misreading of Combs' culpability more broadly going forward. He has not been charged criminally for everything he has been accused of (in many cases because of the statute of limitations.) Instead, the government argued that several instances of unprosecutable violence amounted to a larger criminal operation, a stance it struggled to prove. Some will take the jury's verdict as absolution for Combs' overarching actions. In actuality, the prosecution simply failed to conclusively show he was a ringleader masterminding organized crime. The allegations in the many civil lawsuits against him were not on trial here, and as a result were not proven or disproven, but many will conflate the two and treat this verdict as a vindication — especially considering Ventura was at the center of both the civil avalanche and the federal proceedings.
All of which leaves things in a nebulous place, with the mixed verdict lacking in any sense of finality. That said, the trial remains an unignorable blemish on one of the defining careers in hip-hop history, with Combs' reputation as a magnate and entertainer undeniably tainted. The legacy of "freak-offs" will certainly change the connotation of a Diddy Party forever, and the holes in the case will likely be filled with more conspiratorial discourse online. While Combs has settled with Ventura, dozens of civil lawsuits loom, and he still faces prison time for the two federal charges on which he was found guilty.
Still, in the course of his long career, Sean Combs has shown a consistent resilience to scandal, and a knack for strategic rebranding. It's too early to tell, but the not-guilty verdicts on conspiracy and trafficking may yet leave the door open for a return.
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