{"id":6690,"date":"2025-06-28T00:35:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T00:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/defense-says-he-was-a-swinger\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T00:35:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T00:35:05","slug":"defense-says-he-was-a-swinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/defense-says-he-was-a-swinger\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Says He Was a ‘Swinger’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span> lawyer for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs delivered his final pitch in the rap mogul\u2019s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial in much the way the defense began over a month ago: by telling jurors that Combs and his girlfriends were \u201cswingers\u201d whose sex was always consensual.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarc Agnifilo<\/strong>, one of the many defense attorneys representing Combs, urged a jury in New York federal court to acquit the musician on Friday (June 27). Prosecutors had already given their closing argument the previous day, seeking a conviction based on charges that Combs used violence, money and blackmail to force his girlfriends to have sex with escorts during dayslong hotel parties he called \u201cfreak-offs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAgnifilo said Combs\u2019 freak-offs didn\u2019t come anywhere close to sex trafficking, according to CNN<\/a><\/em>. Instead, he argued, the evidence during the seven-week trial showed that both the singer Cassie Ventura and an anonymous ex-girlfriend known as \u201cJane\u201d wanted to have sex with escorts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey are swingers,\u201d Agnifilo told the jury. \u201cThey are avowedly swingers. This is their lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe defense lawyer pointed to text messages introduced throughout the trial in which Ventura and Jane conveyed enthusiasm for the freak-offs, as well as videos from the events where \u201cthe music\u2019s nice, the mood seems friendly and easygoing, and everyone is smiling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile acknowledging that there was some domestic violence in Combs and Ventura\u2019s relationship (a now-infamous hotel surveillance video from 2016 makes it difficult for the defense to escape that fact), Agnifilo said the pair shared \u201ca great modern love story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAgnifilo argued that Ventura and Jane are only saying now that the freak-offs were coerced for one simple reason: money. He reminded the jury that Ventura first put the spotlight on Combs by bringing a $30 million civil lawsuit against him in November 2023, which quickly settled for $20 million.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCassie Ventura sued Sean Combs for $30 million because Sean Combs has $30 million,\u201d Agnifilo said. \u201cThis very investigation came out of that civil case. No $30 million, no lawsuit, no criminal case. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here. We\u2019re here because of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to sex trafficking, Combs is charged with using his music empire to operate a criminal syndicate as defined by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act \u2014 the federal \u201cRICO\u201d statute often deployed against mobsters and cartels.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo convict Combs under RICO, the jury must find that the rapper and his underlings conspired to commit at least two underlying crimes. Prosecutors have said sex trafficking can be one of these crimes, as can drug-dealing, bribery and arson.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Agnifilo said bluntly on Friday that Combs is \u201cnot a racketeer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe defense lawyer said Combs only bought narcotics for personal use and didn\u2019t sell them (\u201che obviously has a drug problem,\u201d explained Agnifilo), and argued that it wasn\u2019t bribery when the rapper bought the infamous 2016 surveillance video because he was just trying to protect his reputation.<\/p>\n

\n\tRegarding arson, Agnifilo denied the bombshell allegations that Combs planned to have a Molotov cocktail thrown into Kid Cudi\u2019s Porsche due to jealousy over the fellow rapper\u2019s relationship with Ventura in 2012. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is no evidence that he had anything to do with the Porsche,\u201d Agnifilo said.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors got to have the last word with a rebuttal argument after Agnifilo\u2019s closing wrapped on Friday. The jury will return Monday to hear legal instructions and then begin deliberating \u2014 a process that can take anywhere from an hour to a week, depending on how long it takes the 12 New Yorkers to agree on a verdict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lawyer for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs delivered his final pitch in the rap mogul\u2019s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial in much the way the defense began over a month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2299,6389],"class_list":["post-6690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-defense","tag-swinger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690","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=6690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}