This report contains descriptions of physical and sexual assault.
Sean Combs' defense team used its closing arguments on Friday to reframe the prosecution's narrative at his federal trial in Manhattan.
Speaking for more than four hours at a Southern District of New York courtroom, lawyer Marc Agnifilo alternated between sarcasm and solemnity in refuting the government's allegations of sex trafficking and racketeering. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The prosecution used its closing arguments on Thursday to explain how nearly six weeks of evidence and testimony proved that Combs ran a criminal enterprise that facilitated and concealed sex crimes for decades. Prosecutor Christy Slavik mapped out a long-standing pattern of abuse that began with one of the government's key witnesses, Combs' former girlfriend, the singer and model Casandra "Cassie" Ventura. Slavik showed texts and testimony from Ventura telling Combs she didn't want to participate in "freak-offs," and said that Combs used sexually explicit videos to threaten her into following his demands. "All of this was designed to do one thing — to make Cassie afraid to say no to him," Slavik said.
During his remarks, Agnifilo called the relationship between the hip-hop mogul and Ventura, "a great modern love story." He also acknowledged, however, that the jury has seen videotape of Combs kicking, shoving and dragging Ventura by her hair in a California hotel hallway in 2016. Ventura also testified to a history of abuse, and several other witnesses said that they either saw Combs physically attacking Ventura or saw her bruises, fat lips and other evidence of abuse.
"We own the domestic violence," Agnifilo said. Over the course of his remarks, he added that Combs leads a "swinger's lifestyle" and that "he has a drug problem, no question."
But Agnifilo also sought to recast Ventura from an alleged abuse victim into a conniving player who deftly juggled romantic rivals and schemed for a big payday from Combs, who settled a civil lawsuit with her in Nov. 2023 for $20 million.
"Cassie is nobody's fool," Agnifilo asserted. "She's sitting somewhere in the world today with $30 million," he said, referring to both the settlement with Combs and a later settlement with the owner of the hotel where Combs attacked her in 2016. "He's in jail. It's like a slaughter."
Agnifilo similarly attacked the credibility of the prosecution's other prime witness and alleged victim, Combs' former girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym "Jane," saying that Jane too was looking to benefit materially from her relationship with Combs, reminding the jurors that he is still paying for Jane's home and her legal costs.
He also sardonically thanked federal agents for their raids on Combs' properties: "The streets of America, safe from Astroglide!" he exclaimed, referring to the hundreds of bottles of lubricant and baby oil that were found at Combs' homes.
Agniflo also tried to dismantle the credibility of other key witnesses, including Combs' former employees Capricorn Clark, who testified that Combs and his associates had kidnapped her twice, and the woman who testified on the stand as "Mia," who said that Combs had sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. "This was not unwanted sexual contact," the defense attorney said.
He repeatedly reframed the videos Combs made of Ventura and Jane having sex with male escorts as "homemade porn," and argued that Combs had paid for the men's time, and not the sex itself. He also asked the jury to consider how Combs is on trial for racketeering — and yet there are no other people who were indicted with him. "No witness said they were part of an enterprise," he added.
Agnifilo repeatedly looped back to some of the defense's key arguments from its opening statement: that all of Combs' relationships were consensual. "You can call it swingers, you can call it threesomes," he said. "Whatever you want to call it, that's what it is."
As part of his detailed breakdown of the predicate acts the government is accusing Combs and his associates of having committed — which include arson, bribery, kidnapping and drug distribution — Agnifilo disputed that Combs could have had any involvement in the alleged arson attack on a car belonging to the musician Scott Mescudi, who records as Kid Cudi, and was briefly romantically involved with Ventura, or that Combs had allegedly gone to Mescudi's house with a gun with the intent to confront him.
Agnifilo called arson "cowardly" and not Combs' "style," and asserted that Combs, whom he compared to the actor John Wayne, would have gone to battle Mescudi in a "good, old-fashioned fistfight."
Near the end of his remarks, Agnfilo accused the government of "targeting" Combs after Ventura filed her civil lawsuit. Prosecutors objected to his statement, saying that such speculation should not have been made to the jury. Judge Arun Subramanian agreed, later instructing the jurors that the decision-making of either prosecutors or a grand jury in whether or not to charge a defendant is "none of your concern."
In her rebuttal to Agnifilo's presentation, prosecutor Maurene Comey tried to refute what she said were the defense's three main arguments: that there was no payment by Combs for sex; that there was no criminal enterprise; and that Ventura, Jane and Mia had all lied on the stand.
Speaking of the male escorts, Comey said: "They were not paid for their scintillating conversation. They were paid to have sex."
She also explained to the jury regarding the racketeering charge that Combs' businesses could serve both lawful and unlawful purposes simultaneously, that at least some of his employees were aware of or participated in illegal activities such as prostitution and bribery.
In a particularly impassioned moment, Comey described a violent episode with Jane that allegedly took place in June 2024, after Combs knew he was the subject of a federal criminal investigation, saying that for "20 years, he had gotten away with crime after crime."
Comey went back to testimony Jane gave on the stand, in which she said that during that 2024 episode, Combs forced her to give oral sex to a male sex worker, while she already had welts on her head and a blossoming black eye from Combs' attack. On the stand, Jane said that she repeatedly told Combs she did not want to have oral sex with the man. Combs leaned in, she testified, and allegedly said to her: "Is this coercion?"
"The defendant fully understood what was happening was coercion, was sex trafficking, and he made a conscious decision to do it anyway," Comey declared.
Comey added: "The defendant was brazen enough to think he could keep getting away with crimes while he was under federal investigation. In his mind, he was untouchable, a god among men … and who would stand up to a god?"
Judge Arun Subramanian said that he would give the jury their instructions on the law on Monday morning; deliberations are set to begin immediately afterward.
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