Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial week 7 recap: closing arguments begin, what it could mean for Diddy's future

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00:00The bombshell Manhattan trial of US versus Diddy is nearing the finish line. It's the end of week

00:06seven. The prosecution and defense gave closing arguments and I've got questions. And if you've

00:11been tuning in every week, then you know who's here. Entertainment lawyer, former litigator and

00:17legal correspondent Lisa Bonner. Now, Lisa, we're just going to dive in because you were texting

00:23and DMing me last night and you didn't see this coming. What surprised you about the closing

00:28arguments and jury instructions? Well, we have not gotten to jury instructions,

00:33but let me lead into that with the closing arguments. We have heard about a pattern of

00:38behavior from Combs and that the prosecution is alleging. They have alleged this pattern,

00:45this pattern of sex trafficking, this pattern of abuse, this pattern of every crime that he has

00:52really been alleged. And what surprised me is that when the prosecution started their closing

01:00argument and as they built up into their closing argument, they kept repeating the fact that the

01:08sex in the freak offs and the hotel nights, you only had to show one instance of sex trafficking by forced

01:20fraud or coercion. And that is under the law. That is the statute in the case law that they have,

01:27that they had cited. But the interesting thing is they switched from the pattern to just really

01:33hammer it home to the jury. So I think from a purpose of, I believe, maybe looking at their

01:43rationale for this, is they wanted to show that this is a really horrible person who has committed

01:50this act, this act with the freak off, this act with the freak off, and just kept talking about

01:55the freak offs and the hotel nights, only to dial it back and say, you know what, you only need to find

02:00one instance. And that could be with Cassie, that could be the intercontinental, where if you look at

02:08it, she was trying to escape the freak off. That has been admitted into evidence as fact. So that is

02:14one of the things that is, was very interesting to me. Now, the reason I think they did it was to

02:19simplify it because it's easy to find one count, as opposed to looking at the totality of the

02:24circumstances, perhaps, and trying to really figure out, was it more likely than not that she wanted to

02:30stay? And sometimes she did, sometimes she didn't. Nope. They narrowed that down and said,

02:35you need only one time to talk about and find him guilty of sex trafficking. A huge moment in shift

02:43and in simplicity. So yeah, so essentially they were saying all those other moments when,

02:49with the text messages, if it appeared that she was agreeing and wanting, you know, these freak

02:54offs with Diddy, they were saying that's inconsequential, just so I'm clear. It only needs

02:59to be this one instance. The one instance. And that I think is what shocked everybody because

03:05they've been showing this pattern. They have, they admitted over 2000 text messages and emails

03:11into evidence. So just think about how the average jury thinks of RICO. And they always think of it as

03:19this complicated enterprise with co-conspirators. And we can talk about that in a bit, but in the

03:24underlying crime that they had used in the RICO and cited in the RICO was sex trafficking by force,

03:31fraud, or coercion. So that they said, you know what? You don't need a pattern. You only need to

03:36find one instance for Jane and you only need to find one instance for Cassie. Now remember,

03:42you need predicate crimes under RICO. And they emphasize that you only need two, which I have

03:48been talking about with you. The fact that you need two, whether it's forced labor, embezzlement

03:54from Cassie's mother, fraud or bribery with the security guard and purchasing the tape,

04:01obstruction of justice in terms of purchasing the tape. So they went on and really simplified it.

04:07Drugs, the possession of narcotics with the intent to distribute weapons charges. So they walked through

04:13every underlying predicate crime that they had been alleged, including kidnapping and arson. But those

04:19was a little bit more circumstantial, in my opinion, for the jury to look at. But they simplified this

04:26in a way that really makes it digestible, if you will, for the average juror.

04:33Right. So with that in mind, for several weeks, I think it's accurate to say that the prosecution did

04:40an effective job painting Diddy as this terrifying, monstrous tycoon. In fact, during their closing

04:48argument, U.S. Attorney Christy Slap, this is what she said. She said, he thought that his fame,

04:54wealth and power put him above the law. But over the course of this trial, his crimes have been

05:00exposed. So how effective were they proving that he is, in fact, a criminal?

05:07That's what I, we've talked about this on a going backwards basis, right, since the very beginning.

05:13They have really honed in on the fact that Sean Combs is a one who is in charge of everything that

05:24people exist in fear, but they also love him for whatever reason. And he takes advantage of that.

05:31That has been their narrative, that through each witness, through each alleged victim,

05:37they have all talked about that pattern of abuse, whether it's through forced labor with the

05:44assistants, in terms of making them work toward, you know, 90 hours in some instances where they

05:51have literally passed out and had to go to get rehydrated. Or each person has, each assistant has

05:58alleged mostly forced labor. So they have gone through and they have really talked about what a

06:03not nice person that he is. And as one of the assistants stated was, this was Diddy's kingdom and

06:13we were all there to serve him. And that is what the prosecution really focused on throughout this

06:21trial. Basically saying that he was this person who yielded, excuse me, wielded power over his

06:28assistance over his girlfriends for his own pleasure and used his unindicted co-conspirators,

06:38Christina Karam and DRock to help further that criminal enterprise, as well as using commercial

06:47resources from Combs Enterprise in furtherance thereof. Right. So the defense, they gave their

06:54closing arguments today. So what was their rebuttal? What did they argue?

06:58They argued that this, that they had Cassie and, uh, Cassie and Diddy and Cassie and Jane had a

07:08swinger's lifestyle. They own the domestic violence. They said that he was a pillar of the community in

07:15terms of working with him. He embraced and started DEI before it was a thing. So they talked about a lot of

07:24his personality in terms of the business world and said, you know, he had legitimate businesses and

07:29what he did amounted to his personal life. For instance, they were talking about the freak offs and

07:38that was his personal life. They were talking about the fact that he used drugs and that was his personal

07:45life. And you don't, he was not distributing drugs for commercial purposes. But some of that, what they

07:55are talking about is not in fact, what is in the law. For example, with the possession of drugs with

08:03the intent to distribute, it does not need to be for commercial purposes. It could be, you are taking

08:09these GHB or, um, a Molly or whatever drugs that they had talked to ketamine and you're giving it to

08:17people. The possession of those types of drugs, especially as Frank black under a pseudonym is

08:23illegal. And then you're distributing these illegal drugs to people that is illegal. And that does rise

08:30to the letter of the law of possession of drugs of narcotics with the intent to distribute. So while the

08:37defense did try to do a good job in terms of humanizing him to the best of their ability,

08:45a lot of what they said is going to need curative instruction. In fact, that they did get some

08:51curative instruction from the judge, meaning that the judge had to correct what the defense said to

08:57the jury. And so it was what we thought it was. It was consensual. It was swingers lifestyle. He was a

09:05good guy. If he was going to do anything to kid Cuddy, he would have fought him with his two hands.

09:11He's never, there's no evidence of Diddy ever fighting anybody. So anyway, it was, it was the

09:17best they could do. And what, with what they had, I thought. All right. So Lisa, I thought it was

09:21interesting that defense attorney, Mark Agnifilo, he argued that Cassie is just like Diddy and they

09:27matched each other's energy. And he even called her a gangster, you know? And like you said,

09:32they acknowledged the domestic violence, but he described their relationship as a great modern

09:38love story. What did she make of that? And how do you think that's going to play out with the jury?

09:43That flies into every face of reason that one could think of. And basically what he was saying

09:54is that even though they had this toxic relationship, he, they loved each other. She did not want to leave.

10:01She never said that she wanted to leave when in fact she did. And that is admitted into evidence

10:08that she tried to get away. He did certain things to lure her back, whether it was exploiting the,

10:15excuse me, attempting to exploit and offering to exploit these freak off videos or extorting money from

10:22her mother or dragging her physically back. That is not a modern day love story. Every woman and every man

10:30knows that that is not the type of behavior that two loving consensual adults have. Also that undermines

10:42the fact of the manner of consent. It is a well-known fact of law that a husband can be guilty of raping

10:53his wife if there is not consent in the relationship. And we talked about this from the beginning, Carlos,

10:59every single act of sexual relations between two people needs consent, period. So that is not a normal

11:11relationship by any stretch of the imagination. And I, like I said before, they were grasping at straws

11:17and basically stating that her, she played kid Cuddy as well. And, you know, she, that is so

11:25immaterial to what is supposed to be about the law.

11:32So of course, Diddy, he's, you know, he pled not guilty. In what world does he walk free?

11:40That's a tough question. And let me just say this. In any world, we know better as lawyers to try and

11:47predict what a jury would do. From a legal perspective, I can only offer my opinion,

11:55but I do believe that he would be convicted at minimal on the transportation for the purposes

12:07of prostitution. Those two counts. It's very straightforward. Only thing you have to show

12:12is that you paid for a commercial sex worker to come across state lines and have sex with you. So

12:19that is very well established. In terms of the sex trafficking counts, I would say that when the

12:31prosecution simplified the case so well and stated that you only need one act, that is how, when you're

12:41going, just let me back up, when you're going through seven weeks of testimony showing how horrible

12:48one person is and establishing a pattern, and then your gotcha moment to the jury is, okay, whatever,

12:56with anything that you think about the sex trafficking, you only need one. And that is what

13:03is going to be in the jury instructions, along with the law, which talks about this through force

13:09fraud coercion. So when you're looking at it through a reasonable person standard from someone who has been

13:17in that courtroom for seven weeks, I would think that there is not a realistic chance that Diddy walks. I don't

13:29think so. And also, let me point out, and I've said this before, Carlos, but I want to point out also that R. Kelly

13:36was convicted of nine counts of sex trafficking as a one-man RICO case. Now, again, some of those were

13:49minors, and many of them weren't. However, he did not have any named co-conspirators, just like Diddy

13:56didn't. And he was convicted in the Eastern District of New York, literally, right across the water of the same type of case.

14:08All right, Lisa, what happens next week?

14:12Well, they're going to get jury instructions on Monday. And that is going to take up, I would say,

14:21at least half of the day, because from what I understand, there are about 50 pages of jury

14:27instructions. And then they're going to get a ballot form, essentially. And so the judge will go

14:35and explain the jury instructions to them. He's going to give them the weekend to talk about and

14:41marinate on everything they've heard. And so Monday, they will start with the jury charge and the jury

14:45instructions and the form. And then they will begin deliberations. And we shall see.

14:51Well, Lisa, thank you for joining me every week to connect the dots in Diddy. I will see you next

14:58week. I know you're going on vacation after all of this.

15:01I'm going on vacation. And I do believe that the next time we speak by next Friday, I do believe

15:10that we will have a verdict.

15:11Right. Lisa predicts a verdict. All right. To stay up to date with all things Diddy Trial,

15:15including a possible verdict next week. Visit us at Page6.com and watch us on YouTube.

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