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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Nine Lives

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      For decades, he occupied a special stripe of the celebrity stratosphere. Now the man who helped turn rap into a global concern has escaped a sex-trafficking conviction.For the last two months, Sean Combs — once the most powerful executive in hip-hop, and one of the most recognizable global avatars of American cool — had been reframed as a full-time defendant.Facing trial in federal court on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transporting people for prostitution, he seemed diminished — a powerful man brought low by those he had allegedly harmed, an avatar of how even the loftiest realms of celebrity might not offer a buffer against accountability. It appeared as if Combs’s life, his career, his public image would forever be changed. That his career had reached a cul-de-sac of his own making.On Wednesday, though, Combs was found not guilty on all charges apart from transportation to engage in prostitution, the least serious of them.If the time since late 2023 — when Combs’s ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura (the singer Cassie) filed a civil suit against him, which he settled in one day — has prophesied a fall from grace for Combs, Wednesday’s verdict demonstrated the opposite: that even several weeks of grim testimony from his intimates, employees and others about how he flaunted power and resources to bend them to his will was not compelling enough to completely knock him from his perch.Combs largely escaped the fate of some other high-profile entertainment figures who have been held accountable in the #MeToo era. Had he been convicted across the board, he likely would have faced a full reputational shattering like Harvey Weinstein, once the most powerful man in film, who has been imprisoned on federal sex crimes since 2020. Or R. Kelly, once R&B’s most formidable and popular star, who has been in prison since 2022 on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. Combs would have been a villain who once was famous, not the other way around.Instead, it’s possible that these charges and this trial might end up being viewed as a blemish on his résumé, another tragedy that registered only as a speed bump.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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      Combs Was Convicted Under the Mann Act, a Law With a Long History

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      The law, passed in 1910, prohibits the interstate or foreign transportation of an individual for sex. It has at times been used as a tool for political persecution.Sean Combs on Wednesday was cleared of some of the most serious charges against him — racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking — but still faces sentencing on two counts of transportation for prostitution under the Mann Act.The mixed verdict is seen as a victory for Mr. Combs, who faced a possible life sentence had he been convicted of any of the other counts. He could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison on the transportation for prostitution charges — 10 years for each count — but the final sentence will be up to a judge. As of 1 p.m. Wednesday, a sentencing date has not been announced.The Mann Act was passed in 1910 to prohibit the interstate or foreign transportation of an individual with the intention of engaging them in prostitution or any sexual activity. Initially referred to as the “White-Slave Traffic Act,” the federal statute came at a time when the United States saw rapid changes after the Industrial Revolution, including urbanization and immigration as young, single women moved to cities.As young women experienced greater sexual freedom, public anxiety grew over fear that there existed a “white slavery” plague in which innocent girls were drugged and smuggled across the country to engage in sexual activity.The law soon became a way for federal prosecutors to criminalize many forms of consensual sexual activity, including premarital, extramarital and interracial sexual relationships that involved interstate travel.Jack Johnson, the Black heavyweight boxing champion, was first prosecuted under the Mann Act in 1912 on charges of abducting a 19-year-old woman he had a relationship with. She refused to testify, dooming the case, and later married him. The following year, an all-white jury convicted Mr. Johnson of transporting a different woman across state lines “for immoral purposes.” Mr. Johnson had been a lover of that woman, who was white and had worked as a prostitute. President Trump pardoned Mr. Johnson posthumously in 2018.The Mann Act has also been used a tool for political persecution, targeting notable figures like the actor Charlie Chaplin, who was ultimately acquitted, and the singer Chuck Berry, who served more than a year in federal prison.Mr. Combs’s lawyers filed a motion in February to seek the dismissal of one of the sex-trafficking charges, arguing that he was being unfairly prosecuted based on his race. They pointed to the law’s “racist origins” and argued that it was being used against a “prominent Black man.”The act has been amended over the years to protect minors against child pornography, include the transportation of men in its coverage and address its misuse against consensual sex. A 1986 amendment replaced “immoral purpose” with “any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.” More

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      What Could Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Sentence Look Like?

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      Judge Arun Subramanian can consider federal guidelines and aspects of the music mogul’s character and history when determining Mr. Combs’s sentence.Though Sean Combs was acquitted on Wednesday of the most serious charges in his federal trial, he still faces the possibility of prison time because the jury found him guilty of two counts of transporting people to engage in prostitution.Sentencing experts say it is difficult to predict how severe his punishment will be, as the judge in the case must go through complicated calculus to determine a just outcome.A sentencing date has not yet been set. Each of the two transportation for prostitution convictions carries up to 10 years in prison, creating a maximum of 20 years if those sentences are served consecutively. But there are several reasons to think Mr. Combs’s sentence could be considerably shorter than that, experts said.“Judges almost never come close to” the maximum sentences, said Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.The judge in the trial, Arun Subramanian, will likely start by considering federal sentencing guidelines, rubrics which are used to create a penalty range based on various factors, including the nature of the offense, specifics of the case and personal characteristics of the defendant, like criminal history.Nationally, judges stuck to the sentencing guidelines in 67 percent of cases in the fiscal year 2024. But judges in the Southern District of New York imposed sentences within the guidelines just 34.5 percent of the time, almost always imposing shorter sentences than the guidelines suggested.Mr. Richman said the judge has wide latitude to consider what a reasonable sentence would be.“When making that decision he can consider the guidelines, especially since he just calculated them, but he can consider many other things and need not follow the guidelines,” he said.Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at Ohio State University, said that even if judges do not stick to sentencing guidelines, they are often still used as a benchmark. Judges generally don’t want to stray too far from established norms, he said.Mr. Berman said every aspect of the defendant’s character and history — his charity work, his professional success, his threat to others, any bad behavior — can be taken into account.“There really are no limits to what the judge can consider,” he said.That also extends to evidence presented at trial regarding the counts on which Mr. Combs was acquitted, if the judge deems it relevant to the sentencing. Judges must weigh, among other things, whether the defendant is likely to commit a crime again.In the courtroom on Wednesday, Mr. Combs appeared to treat the verdict as a victory, pumping his fist in celebration and thanking jurors. Mr. Berman said that “how much of a win will really turn on how aggressive prosecutors are in their sentencing recommendations,” which he said can often influence judges. More

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      Jury in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial Reaches Verdict on All Counts but Racketeering Conspiracy

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      The jury will keep deliberating on a racketeering conspiracy charge in the morning after saying there were “unpersuadable opinions on both sides.”A jury in Manhattan reached a partial verdict on Tuesday in the federal case against the music mogul Sean Combs, but it did not announce its decision because it was deadlocked on a final charge of racketeering conspiracy. The jury left for the night and will return to continue deliberating on Wednesday morning.The jury, comprising eight men and four women, said there were members “with unpersuadable opinions on both sides” on the racketeering count. After deliberating for more than 12 hours, they reached a verdict on the four other counts in the case, two each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers have denied that any of his sexual activities with the women in the trial were nonconsensual.After the jurors alerted the court to the partial verdict at about 4:05 p.m. on Tuesday, Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, brought them into the courtroom and encouraged them to continue their discussions.“I ask at this time that you keep deliberating,” Judge Subramanian said.He reread the panel an excerpt from the jury instructions that said “no juror should surrender his or her conscientious beliefs for the purpose of returning a unanimous verdict.”At that point, the jury decided to conclude its deliberations for the day and return on Wednesday at 9 a.m.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 Dismisses Jay-Z’s Suit Against Lawyer He Said Extorted Him

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      Lawyers for the rapper had accused Tony Buzbee of making false assault claims. Another federal suit Jay-Z has filed against Mr. Buzbee and his client continues.A judge in Los Angeles on Monday allowed for the dismissal of a months-old lawsuit filed by Jay-Z, in which the rapper had attempted to sue a lawyer he said had tried to blackmail him with false claims of sexual misconduct.In November, lawyers for Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter), brought a suit that accused the lawyer, Tony Buzbee, of extortion, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He sued after Mr. Buzbee, who has filed a number of lawsuits that accuse Sean Combs of sexual assault, reached out to explore a complaint from an anonymous accuser who said that Mr. Carter and Mr. Combs sexually abused her.Mr. Buzbee subsequently filed suit accusing Mr. Carter of raping the anonymous accuser with Mr. Combs when she was 13.That lawsuit accusing Mr. Carter of sexual misconduct was later withdrawn by the woman. Now Mr. Carter’s suit against Mr. Buzbee in Los Angeles has been dismissed.Still ongoing is a separate lawsuit filed by Mr. Carter against Mr. Buzbee in federal court in Alabama, the home state of the anonymous woman who initially sued Mr. Carter on sexual assault grounds.Mr. Carter’s lawyers have asserted in their filings that the woman and her lawyers knew the allegations they were making were false but proceeded with the claim anyway. In the Los Angeles case, Mr. Carter’s lawyers have said he received a letter from Mr. Buzbee threatening to “immediately file” a “public lawsuit” against him unless he agreed to resolve the matter through mediation for money.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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      8 Key Text Exchanges at the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial

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      The words sent between the mogul and his girlfriends have been cited as crucial evidence by both sides in a case that turns on whether sex marathons he directed were coercive.A jury began deliberating on Monday over the fate of Sean Combs, the music mogul facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Inside the jury room in Lower Manhattan, the 12 New Yorkers will have access to hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of evidence presented during the seven-week trial, including years worth of text messages that chronicle Mr. Combs’s relationships with the two women at the center of the case.The prosecution has highlighted dozens of those text messages in an effort to prove that Mr. Combs used violence, financial control and threats to manipulate his girlfriends into physically taxing sex sessions with hired men, while he masturbated and filmed.The mogul’s defense lawyers have maintained that these nights of sex — known as “freak-offs” and “hotel nights” — were fully consensual, and they spent hours throughout the trial parsing messages in which the women appeared to convey enthusiasm for the encounters.The trove of texts that jurors have seen provided intimate glimpses into the dynamics of two tumultuous relationships, the first with Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, and the second with a woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane.”Both sides have had to contend with the complexities reflected in the years of communications: expressions of love and anger, lust and reluctance, excitement and anxiety.The total collection of evidence in the case includes 28 days of witness testimony, videos of some of the drug-fueled sex sessions and the surveillance footage of Mr. Combs’s assault on Ms. Ventura in 2016. But the text messages play a crucial role in knitting together a narrative of events. More

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      At the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial, Jurors Are Ready to Deliberate

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      The panel of 12 will be asked to decide whether the music mogul is guilty of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.A jury in the federal trial of the music mogul Sean Combs will begin deliberating on Monday after receiving legal instructions from the judge in the complex sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy case.The panel, made up of eight men and four women, heard closing arguments from the government prosecutors on Thursday, followed by a presentation by the defense and a final rebuttal from the government on Friday.Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing the trial, then opted to send the jurors home for the weekend so they could “come back fresh on Monday morning” to receive his directions. The judge estimated it would take him a few hours to go over the fine points of the laws at the core of the government’s case, a process known as “charging the jury,” before the jurors could start deliberations.The anonymous group was not sequestered throughout the trial and spent the weekend at home following the passionate final pleas from both sides last week.“You’ve heard the closing arguments, but I will ask you to continue to keep an open mind about the case,” Judge Subramanian told jurors on Friday, before adding the standard instructions he has given throughout the trial: “Do not speak with each other about the case. Do not speak with anyone else about the case. Do not read or research or look up anything about the case.”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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      What Happened in the Closing Arguments of the Sean Combs Trial

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      The jurors will begin deliberating on Monday. The music mogul has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.The federal government and Sean Combs’s defense team presented their closing arguments this week after extensive testimony in which the music mogul’s ex-girlfriends said they were pressured to have sex with male escorts in drug-dazed marathon sessions.Mr. Combs is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, and has pleaded not guilty, saying the sexual encounters were consensual. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating on Monday, which will mark the eighth week of the trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan.Here are some key observations from the closing arguments:The ChargesSex TraffickingThe federal prosecutor who delivered the government’s closing argument on Thursday, Christy Slavik, emphasized to jurors that convicting Mr. Combs of sex trafficking required only one example of him coercing his girlfriends into sex with prostitutes.For examples of such coercion, Ms. Slavik pointed to Mr. Combs’s 2016 assault on Casandra Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel that was captured on surveillance video, and a fight between “Jane” and Mr. Combs in 2024 before he directed her to have sex with another man.Jane, who was identified by a pseudonym, testified that she repeatedly said “I don’t want to” before Mr. Combs asked, “Is this coercion?”The next day, the defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo argued that Ms. Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, was a willing participant in the frequent sex sessions that Mr. Combs called “freak-offs.”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