Sean Combs mouthed “thanks” to the jurors, his fingers clasped in prayer. The intricacies of their deliberations shall be revealed in a while, within the requisite tv interviews, however, as of Wednesday morning, what mattered was that Combs had been acquitted of the racketeering and sex-trafficking fees that will have put him away for all times. The diminishment in fame, the standing as pariah or laughingstock, the looming sentencing for the lesser fees (two counts of transportation to interact in prostitution, amazingly, his first conviction)—he would work his troubles right into a narrative of redemption. As one in every of Combs’s associates stated in a Profile of the mogul that ran on this journal greater than 20 years in the past: “Puffy will at all times come again. He’s like nature.”
On the second day of jury choice within the case of U.S. v. Sean Combs, Arun Subramanian, a federal choose for the Southern District of New York, referred to as for a closed-door assembly with a protection lawyer concerned within the case. Subramanian, who’s in his forties, and appointed to the court docket by Joe Biden, exudes a type of good-natured adaptability; he’s a disciplinarian, however an inexpensive one. And but his endurance had already been examined by the sixty-seven-year-old Mark Geragos, protection lawyer to the celebs, who was serving as an unofficial adviser to Combs’s authorized group.
“That is ridiculous,” Subramanian instructed Geragos. “I believe referring to the prosecution on this case as a six-pack of white ladies is outrageous.”
Geragos is a seasoned practitioner who gladly performs the churl if the efficiency will assist sway public opinion. (In his youthful years, whereas representing Michael Jackson in a child-molestation trial, he instructed Jackson’s accusers that he would “land on you want a hammer.”) The “six-pack” remark was not one which he had made within the courtroom; relatively, it was a part of a rant he delivered on “2 Indignant Males,” the podcast that he co-hosts alongside Harvey Levin, the founding father of TMZ. On air, Geragos belittled the federal prosecutors who had been tasked with arguing the federal government’s case, which was that Combs, some of the well-known leisure moguls on the planet, was responsible of intercourse trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to interact in prostitution. He additionally complained {that a} extensively circulated video, exhibiting safety footage of Combs carrying nothing greater than a towel round his waist, putting Casandra Ventura as she tried to flee from him within the hallway of the InterContinental Lodge in Los Angeles, constituted a “character assassination.” (The phrase is a favourite of his; he additionally used it when representing Hunter Biden throughout his tax case.)
Made conscious of the podcast, the “white ladies” federal prosecutors argued to Subramanian that Geragos’s habits endangered the jury-selection course of. Subramanian sided with the federal government—creating exactly the quasi-alliance that Geragos had meant to assemble, the stunt having been a approach to launder his aggrievement into the document: “I believe if you’ve received a Black man who’s being prosecuted and the shopper looks like he’s being focused, it’s an commentary.” After getting chastised by the choose, Geragos promised to maintain issues respectful from then on. Subramanian warned Geragos that he’d be listening to his podcast. “So long as you subscribe, I’m all for it,” Geragos replied.
Of the various tales instructed about Combs inside and outdoors the courtroom at 500 Pearl Road, in downtown Manhattan, the high-tech lynching plot works the least. This can be a man who’s on view solely in jail—he spent 9 months on the Metropolitan Detention Middle, main as much as the trial—and within the courtroom. Federal circumstances forbid cameras. Combs, who seems thinner and older than we bear in mind—his hair has turned white, as dye is just not allowed inside jail—exists primarily in court docket sketches, performed by Jane Rosenberg, the portraitist of Harvey Weinstein and John Gotti. In the future, throughout a break within the proceedings, Combs requested Rosenberg to melt him, as he felt her fashion made him appear to be a koala.
Combs, a human Bacchus, has devoted greater than thirty of his fifty-five years to the ruthless constructing of a life-style empire, starting with music manufacturing and artist administration at his document label, Unhealthy Boy, after which venturing into vogue, alcohol, media, tv, and, finally, the promotion of himself. The boy from Mount Vernon, New York, made greater than good—an icon of cultivated dwelling to rival Martha Stewart. Wasn’t it Combs who pioneered the relentless self-advertising that has grow to be commonplace at this time, licensing his title and his picture to manufacturers that match his commonplace? Those that defend Combs, those that really feel detached towards him, those that are satisfied of his guilt, can all justify their reasoning via the actual fact of his proud megalomania, his relentless broadcast of his personal title.
Or names. The aliases abound. The indictment towards Combs lists 5—Puff Daddy and P. Diddy amongst them—however it’s the “Diddy” moniker that has risen above the remaining and caught within the protection, within the each day dialog. It’s his most well-known title, sure, however it additionally rings, usefully, with a way of peril and puerility.
The Diddy federal trial is the outgrowth of a civil swimsuit filed, in 2023, by Ventura towards Combs. Each a former girlfriend and a former worker of Combs’s, Ventura, a model-dancer-singer from Connecticut, met him in 2005, on the age of 19. He was thirty-seven. Combs signed Ventura to his label, Unhealthy Boy Data. Then he promoted her to lover and muse, throwing her on his suit-clad arm, in the course of some fifteen years, as if she have been jewellery enfleshed. This was no love match—Combs nonetheless publicly pined for his former girlfriend Kim Porter, the mom of nearly all of his kids, and he nonetheless lived within the shadow of the music-royalty dynamic that he as soon as had with Jennifer Lopez. However a enjoyable, mutually helpful daddy-baby relationship, we thought—or maybe didn’t assume, as their pairing stirred little intrigue. The top of their relationship, although, did set off gossip alarms. Ventura moved on with Alex Fantastic, the bodily coach who first labored with Combs after which Ventura to assist her preserve her look. What modified? Why fall in love with “the assistance”?
The civil swimsuit unveiled the thriller. Ventura described years of coercion, sexual abuse, rape, and bodily battering at Combs’s fingers. His business-maverick persona might convey mercilessness, however a tolerable quantity. The Ventura swimsuit steered sadism. Combs compelled her to take medication and have intercourse with male intercourse staff, she claimed, all for his voyeuristic pleasure. He exhausted her; he used her as a type of plastic doll. Maybe extra surprising than the swimsuit was the pace with which Ventura settled it, inside twenty-four hours. She had filed the swimsuit in New York State beneath the Grownup Survivor Act, an extension of the statute of limitations for sexual-abuse civil fits. The laws, which has lapsed, was a #MeToo reform signed into regulation by Governor Kathy Hochul. Notably, Ventura didn’t take her allegations towards Combs to the press—a coöperative technique that requires the memoir-ish truth-telling of the sufferer, and the neutral investigation of a journalist. The choice to bypass tradition, in a way, and go straight to the regulation factors to the facility of her adversary, a dwelling metaphor for the tradition itself.
The resort safety footage was leaked to CNN in Could, 2024. Combs posted an apology video to Instagram, deploying remedy communicate, however the injury was performed. The narrative everybody makes use of is that of the autumn from energy. Authorities raids of the mansions in Los Angeles and Star Island producing pictures of a small armory and, extra disturbingly, many bottles of child oil; the foolish rumor of the flight abroad; the spectacle of his arrest in New York Metropolis, in September, 2024; the deluge of civil fits, the deluge of alleged victims, each approaching the triple digits. In Billings, Montana, Reciprocity Industries—“a software program growth firm with specialist experience in authorized and tv promoting and name heart companies,” in accordance with its web site—arrange cubicles for staff who droned into their headsets: “Had been you or your family members sexually abused by Sean (Love) Combs, often known as Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy?” In March, two months earlier than the trial started, the Instances reported that the hotline had acquired twenty-six thousand calls. An environment of opportunism and conspiracy coalesced, fed by shock jocks, TikTok psychologists, and citizen-journalist bloggers, who’ve grow to be characters within the saga, and by Combs himself.
On the morning of Could 12, 2025, eight males and 4 ladies crammed the jury field. Subramanian promised them that he would transfer the trial alongside rapidly. Combs is reported to have confronted them, showing professorial, in a sweater, his fingers clasped over a pocket book. The demographic information in celeb legal trials is some extent of obsession, given the stratum of the star defendant: Who’re Combs’s friends? Apparently, they’re between thirty and seventy-four years outdated. Professions embody structure, nursing, biology, funding evaluation, and therapeutic massage remedy. The therapeutic massage therapist was debated over, the protection providing a priority that his experience in physique work may affect his view of bodily trauma. There have been debates over race, too. Marc Agnifilo, one in every of Combs’s protection legal professionals, accused the federal government of purposefully putting Black jurors. Subramanian staved off the identity-politics hysteria. In the long run, the specified rainbow: the ultimate panel included one Asian individual, two who have been recognized as “Hispanic,” 4 whites, and 5 Blacks, which might diminish to 4, by mid-June, after Subramanian dismissed Juror No. 6, who he believed had shaded his testimony to get a seat.
Emily Johnson, a U.S. Legal professional, took fifty minutes to ship her opening assertion. She sought to kill the celeb within the jury’s thoughts: “To the general public, he was Puff Daddy, or Diddy. A cultural icon, a businessman—bigger than life. However there was one other facet to him, a facet that ran a legal enterprise.” The RICO statutes (named for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) conjure the Mafia, a extremely orchestrated and extremely mythologized community that carries out dastardly crimes. Easy methods to body the bon vivant as a felon? The vernacular of Combs’s actions comes throughout as kinky, not instantly nefarious. Throughout the trial, jurors watched clips of what Combs has described as “freak-offs,” voyeuristic periods by which he would allegedly power ladies, who have been beneath the affect of medicine, to have intercourse with different males in his presence. When allegations of arson, rape, and abuse have been launched, notably as described by two key witnesses, Ventura and a girl who testified beneath the pseudonym of Jane, the jury felt the gravity. However the fees required proving the excessive commonplace of conspiracy. Johnson’s process was to arrange the jury to interpret, for instance, using an organization card to purchase child oil, or a flight for an escort, because the predicate offense warranting life in jail. The argument was that Combs’s staff, following his orders, facilitated a sample of coercion and violence that far exceeded typical celeb shenanigans. “He referred to as himself the king and anticipated to be handled like one,” Johnson stated.
