“This is Sean Combs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Ann Johnson told a Manhattan jury Monday in the courtroom on the opening day of Combs’ sex-trafficking trial.
Cutting to the chase about the sordid allegations of rape, abuse and assault against the rapper and Bad Boy Records founder, Johnson in the prosecution’s opening argument listed off “crime after crime” of “kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery” and more that the feds claim Combs committed over the span of two decades.
“He called himself the king, and he expected to be treated like one,” she said, referencing Combs’ alleged crimes like beating then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and “flinging her around like a rag doll.” Johnson said the actions were facilitated by his “inner circle and vast resources of his business empire.”
Predicted to last eight weeks, the criminal trial of the much-accused Diddy follows his arrest last September on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and more. The high-profile trial created a borderline madhouse outside the Lower Manhattan federal courthouse this morning, with hundreds of members of the media and public lining up to be in either the courtroom or one of the overflow rooms. It led to the schedule 8:30 a.m. ET start of the proceedings to be pushed back more than an hour.
When all was said and done, the jury wasn’t sworn in and seated until 10:20 a.m.
In the prosecution’s opening remarks, Johnson returned again and again to Combs’ insistence on sex performances and orchestrated quote “freak-offs” with male prostitutes and women in his life, focusing on Combs’ decades-long relationship with Ventura.
Ventura is set to testify in the coming days. To that point, Johnson today promised the jury the witness would describe how she initially loved Combs. But, “if Cassie didn’t do what the defendant wanted, the consequences were severe.” Along with persistent alleged violence and assaults, Ventura was forced to let a male prostitute urinate in her mouth, and live in fear of videos of the freak-offs being made public to destroy her career.
“Her livelihood and safety depended on keeping him happy,” Johnson said, admitting that Ventura sometimes fought back and sometimes had affairs of her own.
The defense, with Attorney Tenny Geragos guiding the opening statement, had a very different approach and tone regarding what this case is really all about.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not as complicated case,” Geragos said, emphasizing that her client is innocent and being harangued for having a non-traditional sex life with other consenting adults.
“Sean Combs has a bad temper and sometimes he gets out of control,” Geragos added in an attempt to get ahead of allegations of violence and re-characterize it as domestic violence, saying her client did not engage in sex trafficking and other charges. “We take full responsibility for the domestic violence. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”
In contrast to Johnson’s emphatic remarks, comma, Geragos was circumspec and measured in her own presentation. At the core, the lawyer put Combs’ and Ventura’s behavior and domestic violence down to jealousy and drugs.
Geragos added, “We will not shy away from the things Mr. Comb did,” but also noting they were not going to not allow the prosecution to indulge in what he did not do despite their claims, saying “He has a bit of a different sex life … ” a drug user.”
Turning to the 2016 La Hotel video that was obtained and broadcast by CNN last year, Geragos shifted tactics for the defense, calling the scenes of a half-naked Combs chasing Ventura down the hall “dehumanizing.” It’s a stark contrast to more recent attempts by the defense to discredit the footage.
“The video is overwhelming evidence of domestic violence … but it is not evidence of sex trafficking,” Geragos told the jury. Instead, she put the violence seen on the security footage down to a “a fight over a phone” and the “toxic relationship between two people who loved each other.”
Ventura “made the choice to stay with him” for 11 years,” the lawyer said. Geragos also said that Ventura made the choice to break up with Combs in 2018 after reaching a breaking point with him over an affair he was having with another woman. That breakup came also around the time that Combs’ other long term relationship, with Kim Porter, the mother of several of his children, died suddenly from pneumonia.
Before opening statements Monday, both the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and Combs’ ever-expanding defense team went through the process of finalizing the jury, comprised of 12 jurors and six alternates. Lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo criticized the government for striking seven potential Black jurors, but Judge Arun Subramanian rejected the assertion upon explanation from ADA Maurene Comey.
The prosecution’s continued inability to locate pivotal witness Victim-3 was not addressed during this morning’s session, but sources says it remains a point of extreme contention between the parties.
Opening statements have concluded and the trial is on lunch break before the prosecution calls its first witness.
