Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defense lawyer urged a jury on Friday to find the former hip-hop mogul not guilty in his sex trafficking trial, saying prosecutors are trying to criminalize his unusual sexual preferences.
The lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said during his closing argument in Manhattan federal court that over the past two months prosecutors had presented a “fake trial” to use Combs’ sexual proclivities as evidence of a criminal conspiracy centered on his businesses.
“They take the baby oil and the Astroglide and make it the evidence in this case, because there’s nothing wrong with his businesses,” Agnifilo said, adding that the “crime scene” in the case was Combs’ “private sex life.”
Combs, a former billionaire known for elevating hip-hop in American culture, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and two counts each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted on all counts, the Bad Boy Records founder faces a minimum 15-year prison term and could be sentenced to life behind bars.
Agnifilo peppered his closing argument with sarcastic questions, including asking how the women who testified against Combs could have been sex trafficked if they agreed to fulfill Combs’ sexual fantasies partly out of love for him.
“If we’re at ‘Freak Off’ number 75, and 75 of them have been consensual, what would have to happen at Freak Off 76 to say, now it’s sex trafficking?” Agnifilo said, referring to Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura and using Combs’ term for drug-fueled sexual performances with male escorts.
During the first day of closing arguments on Thursday, a US prosecutor told jurors Combs used “violence and fear” to lead a criminal enterprise that helped him subject two of his former girlfriends to sex trafficking,
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“The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” prosecutor Christy Slavik told jurors in her address. “He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law.”
Combs’ defense lawyers acknowledge that Combs was occasionally violent in domestic relationships, but have argued that his conduct did not amount to sex trafficking because the sex acts described by prosecutors were consensual.
Over more than six weeks of testimony in Manhattan federal court, jurors heard two of Combs’ former girlfriends testify that they took part in days-long, drug-fueled sex parties sometimes called “Freak Offs” with male sex workers while Combs watched, masturbated, and occasionally filmed. Combs did not testify.
The jury saw hotel surveillance footage of Combs beating one of the women in a hallway, and heard Combs’ employees describe setting up hotel rooms and buying drugs for the performances.
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Jurors are expected to start deliberations either late on Friday or on Monday. To convict Combs, they must vote unanimously.
