{"id":6679,"date":"2025-06-27T03:27:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/what-prosecutors-said-to-the-jury\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T03:27:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:27:42","slug":"what-prosecutors-said-to-the-jury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/what-prosecutors-said-to-the-jury\/","title":{"rendered":"What Prosecutors Said to the Jury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tP<\/span>rosecutors have spent the last month trying to convict Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs under an organized crime law usually deployed to go after mobsters and cartels. Trying to stick the landing during closing arguments, a government lawyer used the gangland language of \u201ckingdoms\u201d and \u201cfoot soldiers\u201d as she zeroed in on Combs\u2019 alleged racketeering enterprise.<\/p>\n

\n\tAssistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik<\/strong> delivered the closing argument on Thursday (June 26) for the prosecution\u2019s case against Combs, who\u2019s accused of using violence, bribery and blackmail to coerce women into participating in marathon sex shows dubbed \u201cfreak-offs.\u201d Combs says his sex parties were entirely consensual.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs is charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as \u201cRICO,\u201d a powerful tool that allows prosecutors to tie together various criminal acts into a single \u201centerprise.\u201d The statute is traditionally used to convict mobsters and cartels, but it\u2019s also been wielded in recent years against alleged sexual predators like R. Kelly and Nxivm founder Keith Raniere.<\/p>\n

\n\tSlavik focused heavily on Combs\u2019 supposed criminal enterprise as she tried to convince the jury to convict the music mogul of RICO violations on Thursday. She argued that Combs sat atop a large, organized syndicate and described his employees as \u201cloyal lieutenants\u201d and \u201cfoot soldiers\u201d \u2014 words typically associated with mafia capos who report to gang bosses.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe defendant was at the top of this enterprise,\u201d Slavik said, according to CNN<\/a><\/em>. \u201cRemember, it\u2019s his kingdom. Everyone was there to serve him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo convict Combs under RICO, the jury will have to find that the rapper and his associates committed at least two underlying crimes together. Slavik argued that there\u2019s evidence of Combs\u2019 enterprise engaging in a whole host of illegal acts, including distributing drugs for freak-offs, bribing a hotel security guard with $100,000 for surveillance footage of Combs assaulting his then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, and setting Kid Cudi\u2019s car on fire.<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps most importantly, Slavik said Combs and his employees committed the underlying crime of sex trafficking \u2014 which he is charged separately with \u2014 by forcing Ventura and another anonymous ex-girlfriend known as \u201cJane\u201d to participate in the freak-offs.<\/p>\n

\n\tSlavik told the jury that while both Ventura and Jane may have agreed to some of the freak-offs \u2014 dayslong hotel room parties where Combs would masturbate while watching the women have sex with male escorts \u2014 many of these events were obviously coerced.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe prosecutor said Combs blackmailed both women into participating in freak-offs by threatening to release their sex tapes. Slavik argued the rapper also plied the women with drugs to make them compliant and manipulated them with money \u2014 by paying Jane\u2019s rent and threatening to stop unless she complied, and by controlling Ventura\u2019s music career.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs additionally used violence, Slavik said, to traffic the women by making them think they had to participate in freak-offs if they didn\u2019t want to get hurt. The prosecutor pointed to Jane\u2019s testimony that she gave oral sex to an escort in 2024 after Combs dragged her by her hair and choked her, and claims from Ventura and numerous corroborating witnesses that Combs regularly beat her throughout the decade they dated.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt all comes down to this \u2014 what choice did Cassie have in the end?\u201d Slavik said. \u201cViewed through the entire context of their relationship, Cassie did not have the freedom to make voluntary adult choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs\u2019 defense lawyers will get the chance to make their own closing argument to the jury on Friday (June 27), when they\u2019ll likely say Ventura and Jane participated in the freak-offs willingly.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors will get a final chance to address the jury with a rebuttal argument after Combs\u2019 lawyers finish on Friday; the judge will then read out lengthy legal instructions. The jury could begin deliberating late on Friday, or when they return from the weekend on Monday (June 30).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prosecutors have spent the last month trying to convict Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs under an organized crime law usually deployed to go after mobsters and cartels. Trying to stick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[392,2079],"class_list":["post-6679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-jury","tag-prosecutors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}