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    The Frick’s Gift to New York: A Superb New Concert Hall

    There’s a crackling aliveness to music in the 220-seat, subterranean yet airy auditorium, which was put through its paces in a burst of six concerts.Most everything at the Frick Collection, which reopened last month after a nearly five-year renovation, is the same as it was, but better.Hand-loomed velvet wall coverings have been replaced, making Vermeers and Rembrandts pop with fresh vibrancy. Chandeliers and skylights have been cleaned. It’s the museum we knew, with the grime wiped away.What a relief. For almost a century, the jewel-box Frick has held a special place in the city’s heart. Why mess with perfection?But sometimes messing around is worthwhile. The public can now enter the Frick family’s upstairs living quarters, turned into intimate galleries. And the museum has returned bearing another gift: a superb space for music, which has swiftly become one of the best places to hear chamber performances in New York City.The Frick’s well-loved concert series has moved from an ovoid room off the garden court, where performances took place since the 1930s, to a new, roughly 220-seat, curved-amphitheater auditorium two stories underground. In a debut burst of six concerts over two weeks, the theater was put through its paces.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Sean Combs’s lawyer says he committed violence, but not sex trafficking.

    Sean Combs, one of America’s most influential music moguls, was accused by federal prosecutors on Monday of leading a criminal enterprise that enabled his abuse of women and worked to cover it up.As his trial got underway in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, prosecutors painted him as a serial sexual predator who orchestrated drug-fueled sex marathons with prostitutes. Mr. Combs’s lawyers acknowledged that he was responsible for domestic violence but denied that he had committed sex trafficking or run a racketeering enterprise.In lurid detail, Emily A. Johnson, the prosecutor who delivered a 50-minute opening statement for the government, portrayed Mr. Combs as a man who ordered the performance of sex acts and “called himself the king.”“To the public, he was Puff Daddy or Diddy,” Ms. Johnson said. “A cultural icon, a businessman — larger than life. But there was another side to him, a side that ran a criminal enterprise.”One of the government’s first witnesses was a man who said he been paid as much as $6,000 to engage in lengthy sexual encounters with Mr. Combs’s girlfriend Casandra Ventura while the music mogul watched. He said he also overheard what he believed to be Mr. Combs striking Ms. Ventura in an adjoining room.Sean Combs in 2017.Lucas Jackson/ReutersMr. Combs, 55, one of the most successful producers and entrepreneurs in the history of hip-hop, faces charges of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy, a federal crime best known for its use in prosecuting organized crime syndicates.If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. “The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual,” Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said in her opening statement. “But it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker or somebody transporting for prostitution.”The trial of Mr. Combs is being closely watched by his legions of fans and the celebrities and stars who once turned in his orbit, attended his extravagant parties or listened to the hit music he helped to produce.The charges against Mr. Combs brought into the popular lexicon “freak-offs,” which Mr. Combs used to describe the drug-fueled sex bacchanals he organized that could last for days. At the core of the case is the government’s contention that Mr. Combs, acting like royalty, dispatched a crew of employees to abet his behavior and resolve any problems that it caused.Janice Combs, Mr. Combs’s mother, attended the first day of the trial in Manhattan.Mike Segar/ReutersIn the packed courtroom on the 26th floor of a Southern District of New York courthouse, the mogul’s mother, Janice Combs, sat in the second row of the gallery, dressed in black-and-leopard print, and surrounded by family members.Her son, who has been in custody since his arrest in September, wore a sweater, a collared shirt, slacks and lace-less shoes. He sat at the defense table, reading a Bible, his graying hair and beard revealing his months in detention, where he cannot dye it.Ms. Johnson told a jury of eight men and four women that the case would center on the testimony of three women, including Ms. Ventura, 38. Better known as Cassie, she was also a singer formerly signed to his label. In addition, Ms. Johnson said, the jury would view videos of parties where Mr. Combs directed sexual encounters.“You will see for yourself the defendant’s violence and its aftermath,” she said.In one particularly graphic detail, Ms. Johnson described a party at which Ms. Ventura “felt like she was choking” when Mr. Combs “made an escort urinate into her mouth.”Ms. Ventura, who was a 19-year-old model and aspiring singer when she met Mr. Combs in the mid-2000s, was physically abused early on in the relationship, Ms. Johnson said, describing how in 2009, Mr. Combs threw Ms. Ventura to the floor of an S.U.V. and stomped repeatedly on her face.When it was their turn on Monday, Mr. Combs’s legal team portrayed their client as a “complicated man” who rose from humble beginnings and built an entertainment empire. They acknowledged violent tendencies, jealousy-fueled disputes with former girlfriends — and that he was responsible for domestic violence.But despite his “bad temper,” he was being wrongly prosecuted for his “private, personal sex life,” Ms. Geragos said.She told the jury that there might be multiple points during the trial, which is expected to last about eight weeks, “where you think he is a jerk, he is mean.”“But he is not charged with being mean,” Ms. Geragos said. “He is not charged with being a jerk. He is charged with running a racketeering enterprise.”Ms. Geragos described the witnesses testifying against Mr. Combs as “capable, strong, adult” women who were in love with Mr. Combs and who are now interested in financial gain. Ms. Ventura stayed in the relationship with Mr. Combs for over a decade, Ms. Geragos noted.Over his three-and-a-half decade career, Mr. Combs helped make artists like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into household names. Under the name Puff Daddy, he had a No. 1 smash of his own in 1997 with “I’ll Be Missing You.” Mr. Combs’s lavish White Parties, held in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills and other playgrounds of the rich, were magnets for celebrities and music stars.The line to enter the courthouse on Monday morning was filled with reporters, podcasters, TikTok influencers and curious members of the public. Inside they found a clash of high-profile lawyers. Mr. Combs’s eight-person legal team is led by Marc Agnifilo, perhaps best known for representing Keith Raniere, the leader of the Nxivm sex cult.Among the six prosecutors on the case is Maurene Comey, who has experience with complex criminal matters, like the 2021 sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. She is the daughter of the former F.B.I. director James Comey.Mr. Combs has had other brushes with the law, including allegations of assault and a 1999 shooting inside a Manhattan night club that left three people injured. He had been at the club with his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, and was ultimately acquitted.Jurors were shown surveillance video of an encounter between Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura in a hotel hallway in 2016.via CNNBut the most widely seen episode of violence involving Mr. Combs came last May when CNN aired surveillance footage of him attacking Ms. Ventura in the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. In that video, Mr. Combs, wearing only a towel around his waist, is seen brutally kicking and dragging Ms. Ventura. On Monday the jury was shown the footage but it was slowed down — Mr. Combs’s lawyers had said the tape had been sped up and made the actions seem faster than in real life. A government expert corrected the speed.The prosecution’s first witness on Monday was Israel Florez, a Los Angeles police officer who had been a security guard at the InterContinental Hotel. He testified that he responded to a woman in distress on the sixth floor and found Mr. Combs seated in a towel, motionless but with “a devilish stare.” Huddled in the corner was Ms. Ventura, who had a “purple eye,” Mr. Florez said.Mr. Florez said Mr. Combs offered him a stash of cash that he understood to be a bribe. “He was telling me, ‘Don’t tell nobody,’” Mr. Florez said. The prosecution has said that Mr. Combs bought the surveillance footage from hotel security for $100,000. But copies apparently remained.The prosecution’s second witness was Daniel Phillip, the male stripper who said he was invited multiple times by Ms. Ventura to have sex with her while Sean Combs watched and masturbated.During more than an hour of explicit testimony, Mr. Phillip said he saw Mr. Combs once threw a liquor bottle at Ms. Ventura when she did not immediately go to him when called. He then dragged Ms. Ventura to another room, testified Mr. Phillip, who said he heard what sounded like Mr. Combs smack her. “Bitch, when I tell you to come here, you come here now, not later,” Mr. Phillip testified he heard Mr. Combs say.During his testimony, Mr. Combs’s three teenage daughters left the courtroom.Olivia Bensimon More

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    Cannes Film Festival: When the Stars Come, a Traverso Is There for Pictures

    Gilles Traverso is the third in a line of photographers from his family to capture the film elite every year of the Cannes Film Festival.When the Cannes Film Festival begins this week, it will be its 78th year. And in each one of those years, a member of the Traverso family will have been there to photograph it.Gilles Traverso, 67, is one of three generations of photographers who has taken pictures of the directors, actors and other members of the film elite who flock to the French city each year for the event.This year will be his 49th festival. Since he began photographing it alongside his father, Henri, in 1977, Gilles has witnessed the event transform as digital cameras have proliferated, the number of photographers attending has exploded and celebrities have become more inaccessible to the public.“The Cannes Film Festival is an exaggerated reflection of the time we live in,” he said in an interview in Cannes. But, he added, “What I hate is to say it was better before. I hate that. No, it was not better, it was something different.”Gilles Traverso is the latest of three generations of photographers from his family who have captured the stars and events at Cannes. This year’s festival will be his 49th.François Ollivier for The New York TimesThe Traverso family, originally from the Piedmont region of Italy, first moved to Cannes in the mid-19th century. In 1919, Auguste Traverso, then in his early 20s, set up a photography shop just as the city was beginning to evolve from a small fishing village to a vacation destination for the wealthy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Thierry Klifa on His Fascination With ‘The Richest Woman in the World’

    The director Thierry Klifa discusses his new film, “The Richest Woman in the World,” based on the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt.The world’s richest woman falls under the spell of a younger man. In the space of several years, she gives him more than $1 billion in cash, annuities and works of art — until her daughter steps in and reveals all in what turns into an international scandal.That’s the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oréal, and her longtime friend and confidant, the author and photographer François-Marie Banier. A fictionalized version of the saga — “The Richest Woman in the World,” starring Isabelle Huppert — will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24.A disclaimer at the movie’s start says it is “very loosely” inspired by real-life events and contains elements of “pure fiction,” including private exchanges between family members. And the director Thierry Klifa has made sure to change all the names. Yet the movie still hews very closely to the actual events (as recounted in a three-part documentary available on Netflix, “The Billionaire, the Butler, and the Boyfriend.”)Admittedly, Huppert looks nothing like the real-life Madame Bettencourt, who was recognizable by her heavily lacquered coiffure and strictly tailored suits. In the movie, Huppert has silky shoulder-length hair and a much younger look. She comes across as a playful Parisienne who is seduced by the flamboyant Fantin (the fictionalized version of Banier) and allows him to change everything: her clothes, her art collection, her life.In a recent video interview, Klifa discussed the scandal, why he became interested in it, and why he chose Huppert. The conversation, translated from French, has been edited and condensed.The director Thierry Klifa was “instantly fascinated” by the real-life story of the French billionaire who gave away part of her fortune to a younger man.Francois DourlenWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The prosecution depicts Sean Combs as a serial abuser, and outlines three key witnesses.

    Sean Combs, one of America’s most influential music moguls, was accused by federal prosecutors on Monday of leading a criminal enterprise that enabled his abuse of women and worked to cover it up.As his trial got underway in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, prosecutors painted him as a serial sexual predator who orchestrated drug-fueled sex marathons with prostitutes. Mr. Combs’s lawyers acknowledged that he was responsible for domestic violence but denied that he had committed sex trafficking or run a racketeering enterprise.In lurid detail, Emily A. Johnson, the prosecutor who delivered a 50-minute opening statement for the government, portrayed Mr. Combs as a man who ordered the performance of sex acts and “called himself the king.”“To the public, he was Puff Daddy or Diddy,” Ms. Johnson said. “A cultural icon, a businessman — larger than life. But there was another side to him, a side that ran a criminal enterprise.”One of the government’s first witnesses was a man who said he been paid as much as $6,000 to engage in lengthy sexual encounters with Mr. Combs’s girlfriend Casandra Ventura while the music mogul watched. He said he also overheard what he believed to be Mr. Combs striking Ms. Ventura in an adjoining room.Sean Combs in 2017.Lucas Jackson/ReutersMr. Combs, 55, one of the most successful producers and entrepreneurs in the history of hip-hop, faces charges of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy, a federal crime best known for its use in prosecuting organized crime syndicates.If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. “The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual,” Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said in her opening statement. “But it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker or somebody transporting for prostitution.”The trial of Mr. Combs is being closely watched by his legions of fans and the celebrities and stars who once turned in his orbit, attended his extravagant parties or listened to the hit music he helped to produce.The charges against Mr. Combs brought into the popular lexicon “freak-offs,” which Mr. Combs used to describe the drug-fueled sex bacchanals he organized that could last for days. At the core of the case is the government’s contention that Mr. Combs, acting like royalty, dispatched a crew of employees to abet his behavior and resolve any problems that it caused.Janice Combs, Mr. Combs’s mother, attended the first day of the trial in Manhattan.Mike Segar/ReutersIn the packed courtroom on the 26th floor of a Southern District of New York courthouse, the mogul’s mother, Janice Combs, sat in the second row of the gallery, dressed in black-and-leopard print, and surrounded by family members.Her son, who has been in custody since his arrest in September, wore a sweater, a collared shirt, slacks and lace-less shoes. He sat at the defense table, reading a Bible, his graying hair and beard revealing his months in detention, where he cannot dye it.Ms. Johnson told a jury of eight men and four women that the case would center on the testimony of three women, including Ms. Ventura, 38. Better known as Cassie, she was also a singer formerly signed to his label. In addition, Ms. Johnson said, the jury would view videos of parties where Mr. Combs directed sexual encounters.“You will see for yourself the defendant’s violence and its aftermath,” she said.In one particularly graphic detail, Ms. Johnson described a party at which Ms. Ventura “felt like she was choking” when Mr. Combs “made an escort urinate into her mouth.”Ms. Ventura, who was a 19-year-old model and aspiring singer when she met Mr. Combs in the mid-2000s, was physically abused early on in the relationship, Ms. Johnson said, describing how in 2009, Mr. Combs threw Ms. Ventura to the floor of an S.U.V. and stomped repeatedly on her face.When it was their turn on Monday, Mr. Combs’s legal team portrayed their client as a “complicated man” who rose from humble beginnings and built an entertainment empire. They acknowledged violent tendencies, jealousy-fueled disputes with former girlfriends — and that he was responsible for domestic violence.But despite his “bad temper,” he was being wrongly prosecuted for his “private, personal sex life,” Ms. Geragos said.She told the jury that there might be multiple points during the trial, which is expected to last about eight weeks, “where you think he is a jerk, he is mean.”“But he is not charged with being mean,” Ms. Geragos said. “He is not charged with being a jerk. He is charged with running a racketeering enterprise.”Ms. Geragos described the witnesses testifying against Mr. Combs as “capable, strong, adult” women who were in love with Mr. Combs and who are now interested in financial gain. Ms. Ventura stayed in the relationship with Mr. Combs for over a decade, Ms. Geragos noted.Over his three-and-a-half decade career, Mr. Combs helped make artists like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into household names. Under the name Puff Daddy, he had a No. 1 smash of his own in 1997 with “I’ll Be Missing You.” Mr. Combs’s lavish White Parties, held in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills and other playgrounds of the rich, were magnets for celebrities and music stars.The line to enter the courthouse on Monday morning was filled with reporters, podcasters, TikTok influencers and curious members of the public. Inside they found a clash of high-profile lawyers. Mr. Combs’s eight-person legal team is led by Marc Agnifilo, perhaps best known for representing Keith Raniere, the leader of the Nxivm sex cult.Among the six prosecutors on the case is Maurene Comey, who has experience with complex criminal matters, like the 2021 sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. She is the daughter of the former F.B.I. director James Comey.Mr. Combs has had other brushes with the law, including allegations of assault and a 1999 shooting inside a Manhattan night club that left three people injured. He had been at the club with his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, and was ultimately acquitted.Jurors were shown surveillance video of an encounter between Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura in a hotel hallway in 2016.via CNNBut the most widely seen episode of violence involving Mr. Combs came last May when CNN aired surveillance footage of him attacking Ms. Ventura in the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. In that video, Mr. Combs, wearing only a towel around his waist, is seen brutally kicking and dragging Ms. Ventura. On Monday the jury was shown the footage but it was slowed down — Mr. Combs’s lawyers had said the tape had been sped up and made the actions seem faster than in real life. A government expert corrected the speed.The prosecution’s first witness on Monday was Israel Florez, a Los Angeles police officer who had been a security guard at the InterContinental Hotel. He testified that he responded to a woman in distress on the sixth floor and found Mr. Combs seated in a towel, motionless but with “a devilish stare.” Huddled in the corner was Ms. Ventura, who had a “purple eye,” Mr. Florez said.Mr. Florez said Mr. Combs offered him a stash of cash that he understood to be a bribe. “He was telling me, ‘Don’t tell nobody,’” Mr. Florez said. The prosecution has said that Mr. Combs bought the surveillance footage from hotel security for $100,000. But copies apparently remained.The prosecution’s second witness was Daniel Phillip, the male stripper who said he was invited multiple times by Ms. Ventura to have sex with her while Sean Combs watched and masturbated.During more than an hour of explicit testimony, Mr. Phillip said he saw Mr. Combs once threw a liquor bottle at Ms. Ventura when she did not immediately go to him when called. He then dragged Ms. Ventura to another room, testified Mr. Phillip, who said he heard what sounded like Mr. Combs smack her. “Bitch, when I tell you to come here, you come here now, not later,” Mr. Phillip testified he heard Mr. Combs say.During his testimony, Mr. Combs’s three teenage daughters left the courtroom.Olivia Bensimon More

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    At the Cannes Film Festival, These Screenings Are on the Beach

    Cinéma de la Plage is the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings on the beach and under the stars.On a warm afternoon in late April, La Croisette hummed with life. Families pushed strollers along the boardwalk, children trailed behind with dripping ice cream cones, and tourists posed for selfies silhouetted against the Mediterranean. At Plage Macé, a centrally-located public beach, people tanned, played volleyball and went for a dip.For the next two weeks, Plage Macé has been transformed into an outdoor theater, outfitted with a massive movie screen — nearly 80 feet by 20 feet — and an elaborate sound system, with 600 deck chairs available on a first-come-first-served basis.This is Cinéma de la Plage, the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings. At a film festival notorious for its exclusivity, this is one event where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are — or how they are dressed.“Cinéma de la Plage is evidence that the Cannes Film Festival never forgets it has to remain a cultural and popular event,” Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s artistic director, explained in an email.Camilla Amelotti works at a children’s attraction, Les P’tits Bateaux (The Li’l Boats), directly in front of Plage Macé. In between selling souvenir magnets and handing out remote controls for miniature yachts, she described Cinéma de la Plage as an accessible alternative to the festival’s indoor screenings, especially for film-loving locals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    He Spent $12,495 to Be Gene Simmons’s Roadie (and Got More Than Expected)

    A father-son pair ponied up for the V.I.P. experience last week and got a glimpse behind the scenes of a rock ’n’ roll show, and into a notorious star’s heart.A few years ago, The Financial Times named Kiss “rock’s greatest capitalists.” By the newspaper’s count, the band founded in 1973 had licensed its name to some 5,000 products, including Kiss Kondoms and Kiss Kaskets.The “Kiss thing,” Gene Simmons, the band’s brash founding singer-bassist, once said, “has become this huge monster, despite the fact that critics say that doing games and slot machines and golf courses is not credible. Critics still live in their mother’s basement. We own the world.”Kiss wrapped up its End of the Road (supposed) farewell tour at Madison Square Garden in December 2023, but not before introducing digital avatars designed to perform shows and, in theory, make money in perpetuity. (Actual members of Kiss will play together in November as part of the Kiss Army fan club’s 50th-anniversary celebration in Las Vegas.)Early this month, Simmons started a solo tour with his Gene Simmons Band. And, at the age of 75, he’s still upsetting critics. For each stop, Simmons is offering a “Personal Assistant and Band Roadie for the Day” experience to one fan. The rocker’s website promises that the roadie and one guest will get to help set up for the gig, attend the soundcheck, have a meal with Simmons, get an onstage introduction during the show and receive a signed bass. V.I.P. experiences have become standard in pop, but it was the package’s price tag — $12,495 (show tickets not included) — that set the internet off. “‘Greedy’ Kiss rocker worth $400M is slammed for charging fans insane money to be his assistant,” blared a Daily Mail headline.Dwayne Rosado, right, and his son, Zach, got to attend the soundcheck, have a meal with Simmons, get an onstage introduction during the show and receive a signed bass.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesIt’s not insane to everyone. “This is what I choose to spend my money on,” said Dwayne Rosado, a tattooed 52-year-old retired corrections sergeant from Middletown, N.Y. He and his soft-spoken son, Zach, a 5-foot-11 seventh grader into mixed martial arts, video games and electric guitar, were the roadies for the day at Simmons’s recent concert at the Count Basie Center for the Arts’ 1,500-capacity theater in Red Bank, N.J. On the afternoon of the show, father and son — both wearing the official Gene Simmons Band road crew shirts that had been provided for them — waited at the theater’s loading area for the rock star to arrive.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Who’s who on Sean Combs’s defense team.

    Sean Combs, one of America’s most influential music moguls, was accused by federal prosecutors on Monday of leading a criminal enterprise that enabled his abuse of women and worked to cover it up.As his trial got underway in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, prosecutors painted him as a serial sexual predator who orchestrated drug-fueled sex marathons with prostitutes. Mr. Combs’s lawyers acknowledged that he was responsible for domestic violence but denied that he had committed sex trafficking or run a racketeering enterprise.In lurid detail, Emily A. Johnson, the prosecutor who delivered a 50-minute opening statement for the government, portrayed Mr. Combs as a man who ordered the performance of sex acts and “called himself the king.”“To the public, he was Puff Daddy or Diddy,” Ms. Johnson said. “A cultural icon, a businessman — larger than life. But there was another side to him, a side that ran a criminal enterprise.”One of the government’s first witnesses was a man who said he been paid as much as $6,000 to engage in lengthy sexual encounters with Mr. Combs’s girlfriend Casandra Ventura while the music mogul watched. He said he also overheard what he believed to be Mr. Combs striking Ms. Ventura in an adjoining room.Sean Combs in 2017.Lucas Jackson/ReutersMr. Combs, 55, one of the most successful producers and entrepreneurs in the history of hip-hop, faces charges of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy, a federal crime best known for its use in prosecuting organized crime syndicates.If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. “The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual,” Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said in her opening statement. “But it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker or somebody transporting for prostitution.”The trial of Mr. Combs is being closely watched by his legions of fans and the celebrities and stars who once turned in his orbit, attended his extravagant parties or listened to the hit music he helped to produce.The charges against Mr. Combs brought into the popular lexicon “freak-offs,” which Mr. Combs used to describe the drug-fueled sex bacchanals he organized that could last for days. At the core of the case is the government’s contention that Mr. Combs, acting like royalty, dispatched a crew of employees to abet his behavior and resolve any problems that it caused.Janice Combs, Mr. Combs’s mother, attended the first day of the trial in Manhattan.Mike Segar/ReutersIn the packed courtroom on the 26th floor of a Southern District of New York courthouse, the mogul’s mother, Janice Combs, sat in the second row of the gallery, dressed in black-and-leopard print, and surrounded by family members.Her son, who has been in custody since his arrest in September, wore a sweater, a collared shirt, slacks and lace-less shoes. He sat at the defense table, reading a Bible, his graying hair and beard revealing his months in detention, where he cannot dye it.Ms. Johnson told a jury of eight men and four women that the case would center on the testimony of three women, including Ms. Ventura, 38. Better known as Cassie, she was also a singer formerly signed to his label. In addition, Ms. Johnson said, the jury would view videos of parties where Mr. Combs directed sexual encounters.“You will see for yourself the defendant’s violence and its aftermath,” she said.In one particularly graphic detail, Ms. Johnson described a party at which Ms. Ventura “felt like she was choking” when Mr. Combs “made an escort urinate into her mouth.”Ms. Ventura, who was a 19-year-old model and aspiring singer when she met Mr. Combs in the mid-2000s, was physically abused early on in the relationship, Ms. Johnson said, describing how in 2009, Mr. Combs threw Ms. Ventura to the floor of an S.U.V. and stomped repeatedly on her face.When it was their turn on Monday, Mr. Combs’s legal team portrayed their client as a “complicated man” who rose from humble beginnings and built an entertainment empire. They acknowledged violent tendencies, jealousy-fueled disputes with former girlfriends — and that he was responsible for domestic violence.But despite his “bad temper,” he was being wrongly prosecuted for his “private, personal sex life,” Ms. Geragos said.She told the jury that there might be multiple points during the trial, which is expected to last about eight weeks, “where you think he is a jerk, he is mean.”“But he is not charged with being mean,” Ms. Geragos said. “He is not charged with being a jerk. He is charged with running a racketeering enterprise.”Ms. Geragos described the witnesses testifying against Mr. Combs as “capable, strong, adult” women who were in love with Mr. Combs and who are now interested in financial gain. Ms. Ventura stayed in the relationship with Mr. Combs for over a decade, Ms. Geragos noted.Over his three-and-a-half decade career, Mr. Combs helped make artists like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into household names. Under the name Puff Daddy, he had a No. 1 smash of his own in 1997 with “I’ll Be Missing You.” Mr. Combs’s lavish White Parties, held in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills and other playgrounds of the rich, were magnets for celebrities and music stars.The line to enter the courthouse on Monday morning was filled with reporters, podcasters, TikTok influencers and curious members of the public. Inside they found a clash of high-profile lawyers. Mr. Combs’s eight-person legal team is led by Marc Agnifilo, perhaps best known for representing Keith Raniere, the leader of the Nxivm sex cult.Among the six prosecutors on the case is Maurene Comey, who has experience with complex criminal matters, like the 2021 sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. She is the daughter of the former F.B.I. director James Comey.Mr. Combs has had other brushes with the law, including allegations of assault and a 1999 shooting inside a Manhattan night club that left three people injured. He had been at the club with his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, and was ultimately acquitted.Jurors were shown surveillance video of an encounter between Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura in a hotel hallway in 2016.via CNNBut the most widely seen episode of violence involving Mr. Combs came last May when CNN aired surveillance footage of him attacking Ms. Ventura in the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. In that video, Mr. Combs, wearing only a towel around his waist, is seen brutally kicking and dragging Ms. Ventura. On Monday the jury was shown the footage but it was slowed down — Mr. Combs’s lawyers had said the tape had been sped up and made the actions seem faster than in real life. A government expert corrected the speed.The prosecution’s first witness on Monday was Israel Florez, a Los Angeles police officer who had been a security guard at the InterContinental Hotel. He testified that he responded to a woman in distress on the sixth floor and found Mr. Combs seated in a towel, motionless but with “a devilish stare.” Huddled in the corner was Ms. Ventura, who had a “purple eye,” Mr. Florez said.Mr. Florez said Mr. Combs offered him a stash of cash that he understood to be a bribe. “He was telling me, ‘Don’t tell nobody,’” Mr. Florez said. The prosecution has said that Mr. Combs bought the surveillance footage from hotel security for $100,000. But copies apparently remained.The prosecution’s second witness was Daniel Phillip, the male stripper who said he was invited multiple times by Ms. Ventura to have sex with her while Sean Combs watched and masturbated.During more than an hour of explicit testimony, Mr. Phillip said he saw Mr. Combs once threw a liquor bottle at Ms. Ventura when she did not immediately go to him when called. He then dragged Ms. Ventura to another room, testified Mr. Phillip, who said he heard what sounded like Mr. Combs smack her. “Bitch, when I tell you to come here, you come here now, not later,” Mr. Phillip testified he heard Mr. Combs say.During his testimony, Mr. Combs’s three teenage daughters left the courtroom.Olivia Bensimon More