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    The Question for the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Jurors: What Qualifies as Coercion?

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    When the jurors deliberate Sean Combs’s fate in the coming weeks, they will confront a vast trove of evidence from two women who say his treatment of them for years swung between tender affection and sexual subjugation.At the core of the panel’s review will be the question of whether the women — both put forward by prosecutors as sex-trafficking victims — were willing participants in sex marathons with male escorts that lie at the center of the federal case against Mr. Combs.The women have testified for days that while they were in romantic relationships with Mr. Combs, they complied with his requests for voyeuristic, drug-fueled sex nights because they feared the retaliation of a man who wielded immense power over them.Casandra Ventura said she was repeatedly beaten and feared he would make sex tapes of her public as he had threatened. “Jane,” who testified under a pseudonym, said she was repeatedly pressured to have sex with hired men — once after vomiting, another time on her birthday. She said she worried that, given his pattern of behavior, she would seriously displease him if she stopped, leading him to stop paying the $10,000-a-month rent on the home where she lives with her child.“It was many, many blurred lines of love and affection mixed with emotional pressure to perform these things that my lover really desired,” Jane said of her relationship on the stand last week, “and so I wanted to fulfill my duties as a good girlfriend.”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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      Jurors at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial See Video of ‘Freak-Off’ Sexual Encounters

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      Earlier on Monday, the judge dismissed a juror over a “lack of candor” and prosecutors strove to show that the mogul’s “right hand” aide helped organize sex nights.After weeks of graphic testimony that detailed drug-fueled sex marathons, jurors weighing the fate of Sean Combs saw for the first time videos taken of the sex sessions at the heart of the case.The footage, from 2012 and 2014, involved Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend of 11 years, who testified that she participated in the encounters — known as “freak-offs” — out of fear of retribution from Mr. Combs, who repeatedly beat her during their relationship.The sensitive footage was not shown to the full courtroom, after the judge in the case sealed it from reporters and members of the public who attend the trial. Jurors watched the videos while wearing headphones and looking at screens that had been outfitted with privacy guards. Several jurors winced. One, frowning, snatched the headphones off after the first clip was played.The videos were shown in several brief clips, about 30 seconds each. Some footage was from an October 2012 stay at the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan, where two male escorts were invited to meet Ms. Ventura and Mr. Combs.Mr. Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, which revolve around his relationships with Ms. Ventura and another former girlfriend, known in court under the pseudonym Jane. He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have asserted that the two women repeatedly consented to the nights of sex.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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      The Question for the Sean Combs Jurors: What Qualifies as Coercion?

      by

      When the jurors deliberate Sean Combs’s fate in the coming weeks, they will confront a vast trove of evidence from two women who say his treatment of them for years swung between tender affection and sexual subjugation.At the core of the panel’s review will be the question of whether the women — both put forward by prosecutors as sex-trafficking victims — were willing participants in sex marathons with male escorts that lie at the center of the federal case against Mr. Combs.The women have testified for days that while they were in romantic relationships with Mr. Combs, they complied with his requests for voyeuristic, drug-fueled sex nights because they feared the retaliation of a man who wielded immense power over them.Casandra Ventura said she was repeatedly beaten and feared he would make sex tapes of her public as he had threatened. “Jane,” who testified under a pseudonym, said she was repeatedly pressured to have sex with hired men — once after vomiting, another time on her birthday. She said she worried that, given his pattern of behavior, she would seriously displease him if she stopped, leading him to stop paying the $10,000-a-month rent on the home where she lives with her child.“It was many, many blurred lines of love and affection mixed with emotional pressure to perform these things that my lover really desired,” Jane said of her relationship on the stand last week, “and so I wanted to fulfill my duties as a good girlfriend.”Mr. Combs has vehemently denied the sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him. The heart of his defense is consent. His lawyers spent hours asking the women to review messages in which they expressed love for Mr. Combs and, at times, interest in the sex sessions.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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      Inside the Jury Room at the Weinstein Trial, Rancor and Recrimination

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      As the panelists deliberated over whether the former Hollywood mogul should be convicted of sex crimes for a second time in Manhattan, accusations began to fly.Inside the jury room at the second New York sex crime trial of Harvey Weinstein, things were getting tense.The 12 jurors had already acquitted the former Hollywood mogul on one felony sex crime charge, and they had begun to deliberate on a second when the discussions suddenly turned pointed, and personal.One juror, who had been calm and had even prayed with the others, abruptly began accusing another of having been “bought out” by Mr. Weinstein or his lawyers.The moment, which occurred on the second day of deliberations in a case that was brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office after its earlier sex crime conviction against Mr. Weinstein was overturned, foreshadowed the rancor and dysfunction that would ultimately consume the panel.Although it ultimately voted to convict him of the second felony sex crime, it reached no decision on the third charge in the case, deadlocking on Thursday over whether Mr. Weinstein raped an aspiring actress in a hotel room in 2013.This account of what occurred in the jury room is based on interviews with several jurors, particularly one panelist who came forward twice to voice concerns to the judge about the behavior of his fellow jurors.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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      Judge Delays Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Jury Selection, Concerned About ‘Cold Feet’

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      Judge Arun Subramanian said he feared jurors might grow uneasy over the weekend and drop off the panel before the trial begins on Monday.Jury selection for Sean Combs’s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial was delayed on Friday over worries that some jurors might get “cold feet” before the start of the high-profile case.Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing the case, expressed concern that if jurors were selected before the weekend, they could grow uneasy and drop off the panel before the trial begins on Monday. The decision came after one potential juror sent an email to the court asking to be left off the panel for “issues of personal well-being,” the defense said.Twelve jurors and six alternates will be selected and sworn in on Monday at Federal District Court in Manhattan, ahead of opening statements in the case.The jury will be tasked with deciding whether the music mogul was a “swinger” with unorthodox sexual proclivities, or a predator who used his power to abuse victims in drug-dazed encounters. If convicted, Mr. Combs, who was once a roundly celebrated figure in the music industry, could spend the rest of his life in prison.The jurors will be anonymous, meaning their names will not be disclosed in public court. They will not be sequestered, however, so it is up to them to shield themselves from the media coverage and other chatter about the case.Over three days, dozens of New Yorkers took the witness stand inside the courtroom, where they were asked to describe in detail what they had seen and heard about the case against the artist and executive, who has been the subject of swirling allegations of sexual abuse over the past year and a half.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 ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Sex Trafficking Trial Begins Jury Selection

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      Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. Potential jurors were asked about their exposure to details of the accusations.Jury selection started on Monday in the federal trial of Sean Combs, which is expected to last well into the summer.The judge overseeing the case, Arun Subramanian, questioned potential jurors gathered at Federal District Court in Manhattan about what they have seen and read about the accusations against the high-profile defendant, whose alleged misdeeds have been nearly inescapable in the news and on social media for the past year and a half. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.Many of the potential jurors said they had been exposed to the case: on a television at the gym, through “water-cooler talk” among co-workers, via a comedian making jokes on Instagram. That exposure was not necessarily disqualifying as long as the potential jurors — who are not being identified by name — said they could decide the case based only on the evidence they saw in court.“You understand that Mr. Combs is presumed innocent?” Judge Subramanian asked one potential juror, who said she had heard about the case on the radio and had been aware of Mr. Combs’s music and celebrity since the 1990s.“Absolutely,” she replied.Mr. Combs has been accused by the government of running a criminal enterprise that is responsible for facilitating a pattern of crimes over two decades, including sex trafficking, kidnapping, arson and drug violations. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Combs of coercing four women into sex, including his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, who is expected to be a star witness in the trial.The music mogul’s lawyers have said that the sex at the center of the government’s case was consensual.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