Diddy admits abuse – however will it’s sufficient to convict him?

Prosecutors in New York are set to relaxation their case within the weeks-long federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The 55-year-old music mogul is accused of utilizing his energy because the chief of a enterprise empire to facilitate the intercourse trafficking of girls and conceal his crimes.

Mr Combs has admitted to home violence – however has pleaded not responsible to the prosecution’s costs, a few of which depend on legal guidelines as soon as geared toward mob bosses to attempt to convey him down.

The defence has but to make its case – which Mr Combs’ attorneys have mentioned will solely take a pair days.

Prosecutors, in the meantime, referred to as greater than 30 witnesses, together with Mr Combs’s ex-girlfriend and musician Casandra Ventura, and rapper Child Cudi, who as soon as dated Ms Ventura – in addition to former assistants, resort safety guards and others who say they witnessed Mr Combs’ abuse.

Authorized consultants say their testimony has helped prosecutors current a compelling case to a panel of 12 jurors – however a conviction on all counts stays removed from assured.

Listed below are some key points of the case – and the potential vulnerabilities within the prosecution’s arguments.

A key witness for the prosecutors was Ms Ventura, a musician and mannequin generally known as Cassie. She testified for days about her abusive, on-and-off 11-year relationship with Mr Combs.

Eight months pregnant and infrequently talking by means of tears, Ms Ventura testified that Mr Combs beat and coerced her into so-called freak-offs, throughout which she would have intercourse with male escorts as he watched and filmed.

Prosecutors allege Mr Combs used medication, violence and manipulation to stress a number of ladies into undesirable sexual encounters with male escorts.

Ms Ventura’s testimony – delivered when she was weeks away from giving beginning – was crucial to prosecutors’ case that Mr Combs dedicated intercourse trafficking, a cost that carries a most sentence of life in jail.

A few of the strongest proof was a surveillance video of Mr Combs beating Ms Ventura within the hallway of a resort throughout a freak-off, and the testimony of a resort safety guard who mentioned Mr Combs provided him cash to do away with the tape. Prosecutors additionally displayed pictures of Ms Ventura’s many accidents, allegedly from the rapper’s abuse.

Ms Ventura was not the one former girlfriend to testify. Attorneys additionally referred to as “Jane”, who testified beneath a pseudonym and shared related tales about how she, too, was pressured into freak-offs, or what she referred to as “resort nights”.

However jurors had been additionally proven loving textual content messages that Ms Ventura and “Jane” despatched to Mr Combs, together with some by which the ladies expressed curiosity in collaborating within the intercourse acts.

The general public is turning into extra educated about home violence and the truth that ladies could really feel compelled to remain in abusive relationships, mentioned Jennifer Biedel, a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York.

However a mixture of loving messages and allegations of coercion might typically be troublesome for a jury to place collectively, Ms Biedel urged.

Mr Combs’s case “won’t be one which’s as clear because the jury may prefer it to be”, she mentioned.

Additional complicating their case, prosecutors misplaced a 3rd alleged sufferer who that they had hoped would testify, after they had been now not capable of contact her.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, mentioned dropping an alleged sufferer might damage the case, as a result of a prosecution benefitted from having a number of testimonies.

“Jurors could disbelieve one sufferer, but it surely’s actually laborious for them to disbelieve many,” he defined.

Mr Combs is going through an equally critical cost of racketeering, with prosecutors alleging he relied on loyal workers to run a “felony enterprise” to facilitate his sexual abuse of girls and conceal his conduct.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (Rico) statute was initially created to tackle mob bosses, however has since been utilized in different instances, together with the sex-trafficking trial of disgraced singer R Kelly, who was convicted.

In the course of the trial, prosecutors have elicited testimony from Mr Combs’ workers about organising freak-offs and cleansing up, in addition to bringing him medication in the course of the encounters.

The federal government additionally accused Mr Combs of utilizing his felony enterprise to commit arson. Rapper Child Cudi testified that Mr Combs set fireplace to his Porsche as a result of the singer was indignant about him relationship Ms Ventura.

It might be simpler for prosecutors to show the weather of intercourse trafficking than racketeering due to the various technical components of the racketeering statute, together with the involvement of different folks and entities, Ms Biedel mentioned.

“It’s laborious to simplify advanced authorized ideas into language that lay-people from all completely different backgrounds perceive,” the previous prosecutor added.

But when jurors had already concluded Mr Combs is a “dangerous man”, they could be much less more likely to acquit him simply due to one specific component of a sophisticated authorized cost, a felony defence lawyer, Mitchell Epner, mentioned.

“In my expertise, jurors have a tendency to repair upon a narrative after which align the details to suit with that story,” Mr Epner mentioned.

It’s now Mr Combs’ attorneys who will take their place on the podium.

They confronted a dilemma: whether or not to let their very own consumer take the stand. This week, his attorneys mentioned they’d name no witnesses, that means the music mogul is not going to be testifying.

If he had, all the case might have come right down to his remarks, authorized consultants mentioned.

Such a state of affairs could be dangerous for the rapper, as he must tackle many allegations of violence, some incidents of which have been filmed, Mr Rahmani mentioned.

Excessive-profile defendants in felony trials usually don’t take the stand, in an effort to keep away from opening themselves as much as cross-examination.

Throughout cross-examinations of presidency witnesses, Mr Combs’s attorneys already scored some wins, attorneys mentioned.

Throughout Jane’s testimony, for instance, they tried to color the witness as somebody who at instances seemed to be performing with company in her relationship with Mr Combs, Mr Epner mentioned.

In the end, Ms Biedel mentioned, Mr Combs’s attorneys could be unlikely to attempt to discredit the various particular person witnesses who had testified over the rapper’s alleged misconduct – in any case, he has already admitted to a few of that misconduct.

As an alternative, the attorneys would attempt to chip away on the case for a broader racketeering and intercourse trafficking conspiracy, Ms Biedel urged.

“The prosecution has placed on a very compelling set of details that can be laborious for the defence to contest,” she mentioned. “So I feel the defence goes to be round whether or not these details meet the authorized components.”