By Olaitan Ibrahim
Sean “Diddy” Combs’s federal sex trafficking trial began Monday with opening statements and searing testimony from witnesses who detailed alleged violence, paid sex acts and coercion by the music mogul.
Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to five criminal counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, entered the courtroom at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, embraced his attorneys and greeted his family seated in the row behind him with a smile. He faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted on all counts.
After jurors were selected and sworn in by Judge Arun Subramanian, proceedings continued with witness testimony from former hotel security guard Israel Florez and sex worker Daniel Phillip, who detailed their interactions with Combs. The jury was also shown surveillance footage of Combs dragging and beating his then-girlfriend Cassie — whose legal name is Casandra Ventura — at a hotel in 2016. During opening statements, prosecutors described Combs’s alleged “freak offs” — drug- and sex-fueled parties — and the “high-ranking” employees tied to his alleged crimes. They also outlined how victims, including Ventura and another former romantic partner identified only as “Jane,” were forced or coerced into sex acts at these events. “They will describe freak offs for you in painstaking detail,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told the jury — along with “some of the most painful and personal experiences of their lives.” Johnson told the jury that some of the evidence would be disturbing and described how enablers among Combs’s employees facilitated his crimes and helped to control his victims.
The prosecutor conceded that Combs and Ventura had a rocky relationship ridden with jealously and infidelity. “But only one of them had power, only one had control,” Johnson said. Combs’s defense attorney Teny Geragos told jurors that “Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case.” She described him as “extremely jealous” and said “violence did take place,” but said that it was unrelated to the charges he is facing. Combs has denied all of the allegations against him. Geragos also brought up Ventura, who is expected to take the stand this week. “What Combs did to Cassie on this videotape is indefensible,” she said. “It is not evidence of sex trafficking. It is evidence of domestic violence.”
Geragos’s remarks underscored the defense’s central position: “The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual,” she said, but not someone guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking or prostitution.
The lawyer also argued that Combs’s accusers chose to remain in his orbit, saying the case was “about voluntary adult choices” and involved “capable, strong adult women.”
“They made free choices every single day for years,” Geragos argued. Among the first witnesses the prosecution called Monday afternoon was Florez, a former security guard at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles where Combs was caught on camera assaulting Ventura in 2016. On the stand, Florez, who is now an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, testified that he was offered a bribe by Combs after intervening in the rapper’s attack on Ventura. According to Florez, Combs presented a “stack of money” and told the officer not to tell anyone about what he saw. “I don’t want your money,” Florez said he told Combs.
In court, jurors were shown a phone recording Florez said he took of the hotel surveillance footage. A second video shown to jurors depicted Florez trying to calm down Combs while the rapper can be seen shouting at Ventura from down the hallway. The officer said he saw Ventura with a bruised eye and first arrived at the floor where the pair fought to see her cowering in a corner and covering her face.
The videos, which are now part of evidence, were shown to jurors after Subramanian ruled last month that some footage of the assault could be admitted, rejecting Combs’s bid to exclude it. CNN first obtained and published video of the incident last year. At the time, Combs released an apology video and called his attack on Ventura as his “rock bottom.” Combs’s lawyer Brian Steel conducted a lengthy cross-examination of Florez, repeatedly asking the officer why he didn’t include certain details in his report. Steel also seemed to suggest that Combs was not offering money as a bribe, but to pay for property damage. The government’s second witness, Phillip, testified that Ventura paid him multiple times to have sex with her in the presence of Combs. During one encounter, Phillip said he witnessed Combs physically assault Ventura as she screamed and got dragged into a bedroom. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Ventura wailed, according to the witness.
“She was screaming, and I could hear what sounded like him slapping her,” Phillip testified.
According to Phillip, Combs filmed a couple of sexual encounters between Phillip and Ventura on a cellphone and a camcorder. He told jurors that these sessions with the couple, between 2012 and 2014, could last anywhere from an hour to 10 hours. He also recalled an instance when Combs took down Phillip’s driver’s license information — “just for insurance, just in case,” he said Combs told him. Phillip said he understood that to be a threat.