Diddy and Cassie a 'modern love story,' defense says in closing arguments

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs’s defense team called the sex-trafficking case against him “badly, badly exaggerated” during its dramatic and at times erratic closing arguments Friday, pushing back on the prosecution’s claims that the music mogul ran a criminal enterprise and portraying his sexual exploits as a “lifestyle” that involved “personal-use drugs.”

While addressing jurors in Manhattan federal court for roughly four hours, lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo attempted to counter the government’s charges against Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sex trafficking, one count of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted of the most serious charges, he could face life in prison.

Agnifilo said his client is “the only man in America” being put on trial for making homemade pornography.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R24ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R44ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

“The crime scene is your private sex life,” the lawyer told the jury, framing Combs’s drug-fueled sex parties — known as “freak-offs” — as consensual encounters. He also suggested Combs’s accusers were driven by regret and greed, seeking money from the wealthy businessman for sexual conduct they had agreed to take part in.

Agnifilo’s delivery stood in stark contrast to the prosecution’s structured and neutral summation from Thursday. At times, he was animated and theatrical, pacing the floor of the courtroom in front of the jury box, his voice rising and almost cracking. Combs, who was dressed in a yellow sweater over a white collared shirt, appeared to watch his lead attorney attentively — a markedly different demeanor from the restless energy he displayed during the prosecution’s closing remarks.

Here are the major points Agnifilo made during closing arguments, ahead of jury deliberations next week.

To prove the racketeering charge, prosecutors must show that members of an ongoing organization, with a common purpose, and with Combs as its head, agreed to commit crimes on the defendant’s behalf.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R29ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R49ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

They failed, Agnifilo argued Friday.

“Nobody came into this courtroom and said, ‘I was a member of an enterprise, and let me tell you how it worked,’” Agnifilo said.

The sex and drugs that many witnesses spoke of, according to the defense, were part of Combs’s personal life and completely divorced from his well-known music and apparel brands. The personal matters that the mogul’s assistants dealt with, Agnifilo argued, were “1 percent” of their jobs.

He also highlighted Combs’s success as a Black businessman and champion of diversity and inclusion, pointing out all the former employees who testified that they admired the mogul.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R2eekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R4eekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

“Being with him from a business standpoint was like drinking from a fire hose,” Agnifilo said, quoting one of them. “They loved him. Even the ones that are suing him.”

Referencing transcripts shown during the trial, Agnifilo noted that the word “love” was uttered nearly 900 times by prosecution witnesses.

Agnifilo countered the prosecution’s claims that narcotics distribution is one of the most clear-cut illegal offenses Combs committed that would support a racketeering conspiracy charge. Procuring drugs for personal use — while still illegal — does not meet the legal definition of distribution, he said. (The prosecution strongly disagreed.)

Agnifilo also sought to undermine allegations of kidnapping related to that charge, mocking the possibility that Combs’s former assistant Capricorn Clark could have been kidnapped every day for a week. Clark has alleged that Combs forced her on multiple days to undergo questioning, including a lie-detector test, related to missing jewelry.

Combs’s lead attorney Marc Agnifilo, who delivered the defense’s closing remarks on Friday, is pictured May 12. - (Aristide Economopoulos/For The Washington Post)

In a surprising strategy, Agnifilo called the toxic and abusive relationship between Combs and star prosecution witness Casandra “Cassie” Ventura “a great modern love story.”

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R2mekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R4mekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

The defense attorney also told jurors that the couple’s text messages — many sexually graphic examples of which were read during the trial — were “some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.” The defense has conceded throughout the trial that the relationship was abusive.

Ventura, who said she endured years of unwanted sex with strangers and physical abuse from Combs, was actually just a woman who liked sex a lot, the lawyer told the jury: “She’s beautiful. She should.”

He also pointed jurors to an Instagram post from Ventura last year, after CNN released surveillance footage showing Sean Combs beating her in a hotel lobby. She thanked those who sent her messages of support and wrote, “domestic violence is the issue.”

“Believe her,” Agnifilo beseeched the jurors in his closing arguments for Combs’s defense. “When she says to you that domestic violence is the issue, I’m asking you to believe her.” This has been a pillar of the defense’s strategy: that Combs has taken responsibility for domestic violence but is not guilty of the charges he faces.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R2rekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R4rekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

Agnifilo said Combs’s accusers did not even disclose their allegations to criminal investigators but instead filed lawsuits because, in actuality, “this is all about money.”

“Nobody calls the FBI. Nobody calls DHS. Nobody calls anybody,” Agnifilo said. “They do call somebody, though — they call civil plaintiffs’ lawyers.”

Agnifilo then reminded jurors that Ventura got a settlement, which she said was $20 million, from Combs after suing him. The defendant’s accusers saw an opportunity for a payday as misconduct allegations against him started to go public, the defense argued. “We’re here because of money,” Agnifilo repeated.

Turning to the second alleged victim in Combs’s sex trafficking charges, a single mother who testified under the alias Jane, the defense held Combs up as an example of a man committed to doing right by Jane and her child, wiring her money and paying the rent on her home.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R30ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R50ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

Agnifilo argued that Jane had a “pretty bad deal” when it came to child support, and that she probably deserved more money from the father. “He’s picking up the ball for someone who seems to have dropped the ball with his own kid,” Agnifilo said.

Jane may now be “regretting that she made a choice” to join in Combs’s freak-offs with other men, Agnifilo argued, but “you can’t look at things like criminal conduct looking backward.”

Agnifilo also addressed the charge of transportation to engage in prostitution, contending that Combs wasn’t paying men to have sex with his then-girlfriends but rather for their time.

During the trial, the government called two men who participated in freak-offs to testify, but neither identified himself as a prostitute, Agnifilo said.

AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R35ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R55ekkr8lb2m7nfblbH1» iframe

One of those men, Daniel Phillip, testified he would have had sex with Ventura in front of Combs for free, because he liked being so close to their celebrity.

“There’s no evidence,” Agnifilo said, “that there was negotiation of sex for money.”

The prosecution presented a trove of records during the trial Thursday in an effort to prove this charge — including bank statements showing Combs or his associates purchasing flights for alleged male escorts, airline records, hotel reservations and bank deposits, as well as communications with the men or escort services themselves.