P. Diddy was found not guilty of sexual traffic and especially an association of criminals, a crime liable to life imprisonment, but guilty of transporting persons for prostitution, which implies the displacement from one person to another according to American law.
“You have listened, you worked together, you were there every day, that it rains or that it is beautiful. You made it without any other reward than that of responding to the call of the public service. This should give us all hope,” Judé Arun Subramanian told jurors who will still have to rule the penalty of the rapper.
In the wake of this decision, his lawyer Marc Agnifilo asked that the singer and producer could be released under conditions because it is absolved of the most important charges.
Shortly before the decision of the jury, P. Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs, had prayed in court by looking at members of his family on the spot. “God, please watch over my family,” he said.
P. Diddy trials: the jury agrees on a verdict for four of the five charges
Accusations
P. Diddy was accused of having forced women – including her girlfriend from 2007 to 2018, the singer Cassie, and a former more recent companion having testified under the pseudonym “Jane” – to engage in sex marathons with prostituted men while he masturbated or filmed. And also to have implemented a criminal network, of which he was at the head, to organize these marathons called “freak-offs”.
Aged now 55, P. Diddy has had a triple career as a producer, rapper and businessman. He had signed The Notorious Big in the 90s, before he himself knows the success under the name of Puff Daddy with his album “No Way Out”, then to associate with brands of alcohol.
In 2023, his ex-partner Cassie filed a complaint against him in a civilian for rape dating back to 2018, and accused him of having had a “violent behavior” and “deviating” for a decade, like forced sex with prostituted men. If the case is settled in 24 hours, “amicably”, according to a confidential agreement, it gives rise to other complaints, having led to this criminal trial at the Manhattan court.
During the trial, P. Diddy’s lawyers did everything to discredit the control witnesses with muscular back-to-counter reports and tried to show that their client had a “polyamatrous” lifestyle that does not fall under criminal law.
Cassie and Jane admitted that their respective relationship involved love, but that they were at the same time subject to threats linked to their reputation, their financial situation and their physical integrity.
The jurors have viewed recordings of these sex marathons, as well as the recording of surveillance cameras of a los Angeles hotel showing the hip-hop magnate dragging on the ground Cassie and driving it.
“He (P. Diddy) had so far exceeded the limits that he could not even see them anymore,” said a prosecutor, Maurene Comey, saying that the rapper felt “untouchable”. “But the accused is not God,” she said to the jury, hoping for a conviction for all the counts.
P. Diddy trials: the jury agrees on a verdict for the last charge
