Diddy trial jury has hundreds of hours of 'date night' or 'freak off' videos in evidence
Deliberations will begin Monday in Manhattan after six weeks of testimony and two days of closing arguments.
When deliberations begin Monday in New York City, jurors in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial will have watched at least 30 minutes of video showing the parties with prostitutes that prosecutors say were brutal sex crimes at the center of the rapper’s decades-long criminal enterprise.
His attorneys played more than half the footage.
Combs’ defense embraced the videos during the seven-week trial as a way to bolster the argument that the women Combs is accused of trafficking by fraud, force or coercion were in reality willing participants in what lawyer Marc Agnifilo described on Friday as “essentially, I submit to you, a date night.”
“What I’m asking you to do is feel free to watch the videos. Videos are important evidence. They’re sensitive, but they’re important,” Agnifilo told the jury in his four-hour closing argument.
Agnifilo said jurors “almost have to take on the role of like a doctor and just say … ‘I’m going to divorce myself from the fact that I was never meant to see these.’”
“The hotel rooms are beautiful. The music is nice. I think there’s Bryson Tiller and Usher, and the music is beautiful. It’s a nice mood,” Agnifilo said. “When you watch these videos for the first time, you have no idea, you know, you’re in a federal courthouse and in a racketeering sex trafficking trial.”
Only Combs, the attorneys and U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian and his staff know what exactly jurors saw on the videos after the judge made the rare decision to seal them from public view at federal prosecutors’ request.
Subramanian, a 2023 Joe Biden appointee, did not close the courtroom when they were played in trial. Instead, jurors wore headphones while viewing the videos on the small monitors at their seats, and the judge ordered the televisions in the gallery and overflow courtroom shut off.
Jurors saw six images from the videos during Cassie Ventura’s testimony and 15 during the testimony of a woman who was in a relationship with Combs until his arrest in September 2024 and testified under the pseudonym Jane. They first saw portions of the videos showing Ventura on June 17 during testimony from DeLeassa Penland, a special agent with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. They saw more during cross-exam, then saw videos of Jane on June 20 and June 24 during testimony from Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Joseph Cerciello.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily A. Johnson played about 2 minutes and 5 seconds from videos involving Ventura during Penland’s direct-exam, then Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos played at least another 10 minutes in cross-exam, including from two videos prosecutors entered as evidence but didn’t play.
With Cerciello, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey played 11 segments totaling at least 12 minutes. The length of two segments isn’t documented because Comey didn’t state the time stamps on the record as she did with the others; she only said to play the entire segment or stated the beginning mark and said to play until “the end.”
Geragos played more footage on cross, but not from the videos Comey showed. Instead, she played two videos in their entirety that had been entered into evidence by prosecutors but not played in direct-exam, and she played five segments totaling about 5 minutes and 13 seconds of another video prosecutors entered as evidence but didn’t play. She also showed text messages from before and after the encounters in which Jane and Combs discussed their plans and how much fun they had together.
Some of the clips the defense played were from last July, after Combs assaulted Jane on June 18, 2024, in what prosecutors argued is a clear example of him forcing her into sex trafficking.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik acknowledged this in her closing argument when she said she expects the defense “will argue that those videos show that Jane was into it. But what those videos really show you is that she was super, super high, just like she told you.”
“She was different in those videos than the videos that you’ve seen. And that’s because she was high on a different drug during those videos,” Slavik said, referencing Jane’s testimony about Combs giving her “a new sort of drug — liquid Molly, she called it,” which is pure MDMA or Ecstasy.
Slavik said the videos show “some of the most private, intimate, embarrassing moments of Jane’s life,” and Combs used them as leverage by threatening “to expose her and send the sex tapes to her child’s father.” Slavik also used the phrase “love bombing” to describe Combs showering Jane with affection in what psychologist Dawn Hughes said abusers use as a ploy to win their victims’ loyalty.
“All of these factors, in combination, show the defendant’s course of conduct that’s meant to control, manipulate and coerce Jane into engaging in commercial sex acts,” Slavik said. “These factors lurking in the background of their relationship meant that Jane couldn’t say no to hotel nights without risking the rent payments, without risking violent outbursts, without risking the release of her sex tapes.”
Slavik said Jane “is not an adult woman making a free choice, as the defense has suggested.”
“It’s a woman who’s told the defendant that she doesn’t want to do hotel nights but has relented to avoid any number of bad things happening to her,” Slavik said.
Slavik said the videos of Ventura show her “performing, just like Jane.”
“Don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s anything more than that: a performance. If you look closely, you’ll see that everything Cassie told you about freak-offs is true. They’re orchestrated. They’re directed. The defendant is moving the camera around himself, at times focused on the escort and not on Cassie at all, very similar to the Jane videos. It’s clear that this was his fantasy, not Cassie’s,” she said.
Slavik told jurors to “make no mistake: This is not an attempt to criminalize dysfunctional relationships or unconventional sexual preferences.”
“It’s about how the defendant’s conduct broke federal law,” she said. “These charges are not about adults freely engaging in a sexual preference of their choice. It’s not about free choices at all.”
In his argument the next day, Agnifilo said if jurors “take the part out that is inconsistent or not inconsistent with how, you know, many people choose to be intimate, and what you really have left is kind of this beautiful evening.”
“Forget the sex part. I mean, they’re hanging out. They’re eating food. At one point Cassie is eating watermelon. People are hanging out, having a nice time, listening to music. And that was the escape as much as the physical intimacy,” Agnifilo said on Friday.
Agnifilo called Combs’ and Ventura’s relationship “kind of a great modern love story.”
“They didn’t write love stories like this in the 1800s because they didn’t have a lot of these problems,” Agnifilo said.
Agnifilo also told the jury “the crime scene is your private sex life” and “we’re here because of money.” He reminded them of Ventura’s $30 million lawsuit settlement.
“Nobody calls the FBI. No one calls Department of Homeland Security. Nobody calls anybody. They do call somebody, though. They call civil plaintiffs’ lawyers. That’s who they call, because this isn’t about justice. This isn’t about a crime. This is about money,” Agnifilo said.
RICO ‘predicate acts’ include arson, kidnapping
Prosecutors cited the videos in a timeline exhibit that also cited flight records, text messages and phone record that show the filmed sexual encounters involve prostitutes who traveled across state lines to engage in commercial sex. Slavik said on Thursday that commercial sex through interstate commerce is illegal “even if all the participants enthusiastically consented … which for the reasons that we’ve been talking about we know that that’s not the case.”
That crime is the basis for Combs’ two transportation to engage in prostitution charges, but the charges that carry more prison time are more complex.
For the sex trafficking charges involving Ventura and Jane, prosecutors allege Combs forced, defrauded and/or coerced them into the sexual encounters, including by threatening to publicize videos of them and, later in his relationship with Jane, paying her $10,000 monthly rent in Los Angeles.
Jane testified in trial that Combs continues to the rent as well as her lawyer’s bills.
For the racketeering conspiracy charge, prosecutors allege Combs conspired with one or more of his employees to further his criminal enterprise through kidnapping, arson, bribery, witness tampering, forced labor, sex trafficking, transportation for prostitution and distribution and possession of drugs, including ketamine, cocaine, Ecstasy, methamphetamine, GHB, Oxycodone and a substance called Tusi that Slavik said “is a combination of the drugs that I’ve already listed that’s just dyed pink.”
The alleged victims of forced labor are Combs’ former employees Capricorn Clark and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Mia, as well as Ventura and Jane for the sex with prostitutes that Combs arranged. Mia also testified that Combs raped her in when she lived at his home in Los Angeles in 2009 and 2010, and Ventura testified he raped her in 2018.
Prosecutors’ proposed verdict form lists nine predicate acts for the racketeering conspiracy charge. Jurors must find at least two proven for Combs to be convicted on that count, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. One is sex trafficking, and if jurors find it’s been proven, they must say whether it involved Ventura “between in or about 2009 and in or about about 2018” and/or Jane “between in or about May 2021 and in or about 2024.”
The sex trafficking charges are separate and have a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life. The transportation charges carry a maximum 10 years.
Slavik told jurors on Thursday that the sex trafficking crime “is about the defendant's use of illegal action to get Cassie and Jane to say yes.”
“It doesn’t require them to say no. It doesn’t require them to try to run away. It just requires that the defendant knew or recklessly disregarded that they were saying yes to a commercial sex act because of the force, fraud or coercion that he used against them,” Slavik said.
And to prove a racketeering pattern, Slavik said, prosecutors “must prove that the defendant agreed with other members of the enterprise that two crimes would be committed.” The two acts “can be the same kind of act or different acts” such as two acts of drug distribution or two kidnappings, or one act of drug distribution or one kidnapping.
Slavik said jurors heard evidence of two occasions where Combs told Jane to transport drugs with the help of his security and his chief of staff, Kristina “K.K.” Khorram.
“Those are two crimes — two racketeering activities. This is all you need to find the defendant guilty of count one,” Slavik said.
Prosecutors said in letter last week they’re no longer pursuing attempted arson, attempted kidnapping and aiding and abetting sex trafficking as liability theories for rackteering conspiracy.
People on the Internet falsely reported prosecutors were dropping major charges and that the case against Combs was crumbling. In reality, the move is largely insignificant because prosecutors still are pursuing arson, kidnapping and sex trafficking as liability theories.
I discussed this on Fox 2 Detroit’s “The Noon” with my friend Maurielle Lue on Friday.
Slavik told jurors they “may have heard the term ‘racketeering’ before in the context of mafia or organized crime, but the concept is simple.”
“The law recognizes that when someone commits a crime as a part of a group, what the law calls an enterprise, they’re more powerful and more dangerous,” Slavik said, calling an enterprise “not a complicated or special thing.”
Prosecutors superseded Combs’ indictment three times between September 2024 and April 2025, but they never charged a coconspirator. Jurors heard testimony from several former employees, but Slavik identified Combs’ conspirators on Thursday as Khorram and Combs’ security guards such as Damien “D-Roc” Butler and Faheem Muhammed, who did not testify.
Khorram made $600,000 annually as Combs’ chief of staff, lived in his Miami mansion and was described by a witness as Combs’ “right brain,” Slavik said Thursday.
“She knew where the defendant was and what he was doing at all times. She even responded to messages from the defendant’s phone. She made the defendant’s life her life,” Slavik said. “As the chief of staff, she also had a lot of control over defendant’s other staff, and she communicated on his behalf, including with assistants, security and even the defendant’s girlfriends.”
Combs’ security, meanwhile, “were particularly loyal, and they were armed and ready.”
“They were at the defendant’s side for some of the defendant’s most violent and threatening acts,” Slavik said, including when Combs and Butler armed themselves with guns to confront rival rap mogul Suge Knight at Mel’s Diner in Los Angeles in 2008.
Slavik reminded jurors that agents found “multiple guns” in Combs’ mansions during the federal raids in March 2024. Some were registered firearms in a locked safe in the security office, Slavik said, but others “had no explanation” such as a rifle with a defaced serial number and two AR-15 rifles with their serial numbers cut out.
Slavik dismissed Combs’ lawyers’ suggestions “that there was no criminal enterprise because no one testified that they were part of a criminal enterprise.”
“Members of the jury, use your common sense and look at the evidence. Whether you’re receiving a paycheck from a lawful business or not, when you direct other people to get or transport drugs for your boss, you’re committing a crime,” Slavik said. “When your boss asks you to buy and bring him drugs and you do it, you’re agreeing to commit a crime. When you go with your boss to kidnap another employee and make her take you to someone’s house, you are agreeing to commit a crime. And when you lock your boss’ girlfriend in a hotel room after your boss stomped on her face and won’t let her leave, you’re agreeing to commit a crime.”
“And what the evidence shows is that over and over, the defendant and his inner circle agreed to commit crimes together. That’s what a racketeering conspiracy is,” Slavik continued.
Slavik told jurors they heard evidence of three kidnappings: 1) Ventura in 2009 when Combs and his security wouldn’t allow her to leave a hotel after Combs sent her there after assaulting her 2) Clark in 2004 when she says she was forced to undergo lie detecter tests over missing jewelry 3) Clark in 2011 when she says Combs coerced her into accompanying him to rapper Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi’s home.
The torching of Mescudi’s Porsche weeks later is the basis for the arson predicate act, Slavik said.
Slavik said jurors have seen “so much evidence” that Khorram knew the “freak offs,” “hotel nights” or “wild king nights” she coordinated for Combs involved prostitution.
“So every time she helped the defendant coordinate travel for a girlfriend or an escort, she was agreeing that these crimes would be committed. She may not have liked it, and in fact at times it seems like K.K. was disapproving. But that doesn't matter. She knew exactly what was happening, and like with everything else she did for the defendant, she made sure that he had everything he needed,” Slavik said.
“Time and time again, K.K. facilitates travel for the escorts, knowing full well what’s going on during freak-offs. You can look at the charts for examples of K.K. doing that. Every time she did, that's another example of a racketeering act in the charged racketeering conspiracy,” she continued.
Agnifilo said prosecutors “have charged one of the most serious, complicated, comprehensive statutes on the books.”
“They have charged personal-use drugs and threesomes as racketeering. That is the other trial. That, I submit to you, is the false trial. That is the exaggerated trial,” he told the jury.
Agnifilo noted that prosecutors didn’t charge Combs with violating the federal racketeering statute; they charged with him conspiring to do so.
“So they need a racketeering co-conspirator. And they just don’t have one,” he said.
Defense closing prompts curative jury instruction
Agnifilo’s argument led to Judge Subramanian reading two extra instructions to jurors to address improper statements he made.
Comey requested curative instructions during the morning recess after Agnifilo suggested jurors consider “why the government charged a particular racketeering predicate,” which Comey called “wholly inappropriate”
Comey also said the jury should be instructed regarding Agnifilo saying Combs is charged with kidnapping and arson when in reality they are predicate acts to the racketeering conspiracy charge, and regarding Agnifilo saying Combs’ assault of Ventura in 2015 was a misdemeanor crime. The judge said he’d craft one to address Agnifilo telling the jury to consider why prosecutors charged Combs, which he said “is the bridge too far.”
The judge told jurors, “Before the break, there was a suggestion during the defense closing that you should consider the charging decisions made by prosecutors in this case. It would be improper for you to consider such matters in your deliberations, and you should disregard those comments. I will also remind you that I will be instructing you on the law in this case and what I instruct you and not anything that the lawyers have said about the law are the proper instructions for you to consider.”
Then the end of Agnifilo’s argument, Slavik requested another curative instruction after Agnifilo said Combs was the only one charged and had been targeted.
“The government’s view is that the prosecution’s motives and views and decisions underlying the charges are absolutely improper subjects for argument,” Slavik said.
Judge Subramanian agreed to craft an additional instruction to “inform the jury that the decision of the government to investigate an individual or the decision of the grand jury to indict is none of the jury’s concern.”’
“The only concern the jury has is whether or not the government has or has not proven each element of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt, which I think would neutralize any suggestion that the jury should consider in its deliberations the targeting argument that Mr. Agnifilo made,” Subramanian said.
Subramanian told Agnifilo “you should have phrased it differently” regarding Combs being the only one charged but said jurors already will be instructed “on the proper law.”
“From that point forward you focused on the lack of evidence in the conspiracy and the lack of co-conspirators proven by the evidence in this case, which were proper subjects of inquiry,” Subramanian said.
However, the judge took issue with Agnifilo’s argument about Combs being targeted, calling it a selective prosecution argument that is “not an appropriate subject for the jury.”
Agnifilo asked Subramanian to read the instruction on Monday, but the judge read it on Friday before Comey’s rebuttal.
“Members of the jury, prior to the break, on the defense’s closing, there was discussion about the targeting of the defendant. The decision of the government to investigate an individual or the decision of a grand jury to indict an individual is none of your concern. The only concern this jury has is whether or not the government has or has not proven each element of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Many videos entered as evidence but not shown
After jurors watched some of Jane’s videos on June 20, Comey asked Cerciello, the Homeland Security Investigations agent, if the other videos he reviewed “generally depict the same type all those clips?”
“Yes, they do,” Cerciello answered.
“In total, do they last many hours?” Comey asked.
“They do,” Cerciello answered.
Comey said she’s “not going to play clips from the rest,” but she pointed to the others on the timeline chart and had Cerciello confirm they were from February, March and July 2023 as well as July and August 2024.
Slavik told jurors on Thursday that “we’re not asking you to find that every single freak-off or every single hotel night was sex trafficking.”
“Even though they both repeatedly testified about not wanting to have freak-offs, there may have been some instances where the elements of sex trafficking aren't met, but to convict the defendant of sex trafficking, you do not need to find that all of the freak-offs or even the majority of the freak-offs that he had with Cassie or Jane were the product of force, fraud or coercion,” she said.
Slavik said Judge Subramanian will instruct jurors that they “only need to find that the elements of sex trafficking are met on one occasion during the period charged in the indictment.”
“So if there was one time, one single freak-off when the defendant knew, or recklessly disregarded that Cassie or Jane was participating because of his lies, his threats, or his violence, then that’s it, he’s guilty,” Slavik said.
I was in the courtroom for Cerciello’s testimony, and I watched the jurors as they watched the videos. I couldn’t read their expressions, but I noticed a few rolled their eyes when, during cross-exam, Geragos halted a video and said it was the wrong one, then put another one on.
Jurors didn’t see explicit videos during closing arguments, but Slavik showed the video of Combs assaulting Ventura at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles in March 2016. She also reminded jurors of testimony from security company employees about Combs paying $100,000 for the video, which is the basis for the bribery predicate act to the racketeering conspiracy charge.
I paid $450 to get into the Diddy trial courtroom
I recently spent a few days in New York City taking in the Diddy trial scene outside and inside the courthouse.
I was in the courtroom on Friday, June 20; Monday, June 23; and Tuesday, June 24, and I owe my courtroom seat the last two days to Gigi, Jerson and Anthony of Same Ole Line Dudes, a New York-based company that charges money to wait in line for other people at events with limited capacity such as court proceedings and restaurant openings.
There are 28 media seats and 14 public seats in the Diddy trial courtroom, in addition to seats reserved for in-house credentialed reporters who are based in the fourth floor press room where electronics are allowed.
I probably could’ve worked out media recognition if I’d contacted the court ahead of time, but I used public seating to cover Michael Avenatti’s trial for defrauding Stormy Daniels at the same courthouse in 2022, and I heard that the Diddy trial public seating is possible to secure if you get there early enough. Also, the demand for the press seats often is greater than the demand for the public seats.
But with testimony drawing to a close, public demand was increasing, so I paid $155 for a line sitter to get to the courthouse at 2:45 a.m. on Monday. That got me the #23 spot in the line of both public and media seats, and I ended up in the 11th of 14 public spots.
For Tuesday, the final day of testimony, I paid $295 for a line sitter to arrive at 10:45 p.m. on Monday. That got me the #19 spot in the public/media line, and I ended up in the 9th or 10th of 14 public spots after some line cutters got ahead of me.
It was barely worth it. I loved seeing everything in person and meeting the attorneys and putting faces to the names of these Ivy Leaguers AUSAs advocating such broad secrecy in a federal criminal trial, but the entire ordeal of even trying to get a chance at being in there was exhausting and also expensive.
It’s also infuriating that the courtroom was about half empty the three days I was in there, and even when people with public seats leave or get kicked out for falling asleep, the court doesn’t do anything to get more members of the public inside after so many people fought Hunger Games-style for the 14 seats all morning. Meanwhile, any law clerk or extern appears to be able to walk in there at any time.
The line sitters can’t stay in line later than 6:45 a.m. The court doesn’t bring people inside until 7:45 a.m. or sometimes after 8 a.m., so you have to stand outside in the sun and try to hold your spot in line while people try to cut in all around you.
There’s no way I could do that every day for a two-month trial just to get in the courtroom, where you are not allowed to use electronics. The overflow room is more accessible, but it’s not the same and there was no way I was going to watch from there after traveling to New York from Los Angeles. I had to get inside the courtroom, and paying line sitters was the only way to have a chance.
What a bummer, and it’s aggravating that Judge Subramanian hasn’t even been on the bench three years and doesn’t seem to care that his courtroom will sit mostly empty after so many people try to get in every morning.
Subramanian began the charge conference about jury instructions on Wednesday by remarking, “This is the most people I’ve ever seen at a charge conference. Buckle in,” as if it’s somehow remarkable that when people actually found out what goes on in his courtroom during a big case, they want to see it themselves.
He and the AUSAs showed the same indignation over the news organizations’ request not to seal the sexually explicit videos that both prosecutors and the defense are using to support their case.
Comey, who is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, actually said on the record in court, “Prosecutors are not aware of a single case in which a video of alleged sexual abuse has been shown outside of the jury and the parties.”
She was an undergraduate at an expensive college on the East Coast in 2008, so it’s understandable that Comey didn’t know firsthand of the U.S. Department of Justice showing in open court during a death penalty sentencing jury trial in Boise, Idaho, videos of serial killer Joseph Duncan sexually torturing a 9-year-old boy. But isn’t that what Westlaw is for?
Subramanian was a young Susman Godfrey LLP associate focused on commercial and bankruptcy law in New York City when the Duncan case was going on, and it’s a safe bet he’s never heard of the judge who ruled the videos should be played in open court, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, who took inactive status in 2019.
These are the same people who were fine showing a photo of a rapper who everyone now knows is Kanye West only to the jury and to Jane, which Subramanian allowed under his order granting the Jane pseudonym.
As of now, nobody has corrected the record to indicate that, actually, videos of alleged sexual abuse have been shown outside the jury and parties, and it was in a case that involved crimes against children, not celebrity sex parties. Not even the Davis Wright Tremaine LLP lawyers representing the news organizations mentioned the case, and yes, the District of Idaho DOES count as federal court.
The news organizations weren’t advocating for the videos in Combs’ trial to be publicly available. Instead, they wanted them shown in open court, just as the Duncan videos were, or shown to three reporters who would describe their contents as a “pool” report for other journalists.
After seeing with my own eyes how the videos are being used for the jury by both sides, it feels even more wrong that no one in the public has any idea what they show, but an entire courtroom watched those Duncan videos. The fact that Combs’ lawyers showed more on cross than prosecutors showed on direct underscores that.
The week ahead…
Jurors are to begin deliberating Monday morning in Manhattan after Judge Subramanian reads the instructions. Court is to begin at 9 a.m. EST.
I’ll follow everything on my socials, including BlueSky, Instagram and Twitter, and I’ll have another in-depth article soon.
Transcripts of the closing arguments and rebuttal are available to download as PDFs for my paid subscribers. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, you can pay through the Substack option below, or you can use Venmo (MeghannCuniff), PayPal or Zelle (meghanncuniff@gmail.com). The cost is $8 per month or $80 per year. Your paid subscriptions make my work possible. Thank you!