Sean Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking but convicted of transporting for prostitution. Photo / Getty Images
A federal court jury in the Sean “Diddy” Combs case rejected the government’s theory that he ran a criminal enterprise that helped him carry out serious crimes, including sex trafficking and drug distribution.
Some legal experts following the criminal trial said that it was not a surprise that the music mogul beat the racketeering conspiracy count in the indictment.
It required prosecutors to establish that Combs led an operation involving employees who facilitated illegal sex and drug-related behaviour in an organised manner akin to a mafia crime ring.
“Even reading the indictment, it did seem like a stretch to charge Combs with the Rico statute,” said Anna Cominsky, who heads New York Law School’s Criminal Defence Clinic. Rico refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act.
New York lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented mafia scion John Gotti jnr and Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, described Combs as “a guy that lived a questionable lifestyle and ran a music empire” but said “the Rico charges were so out of place here”.
Combs also was acquitted of two counts of sex trafficking charged as individual crimes.
He was convicted on two counts of transporting his accusers for the purpose of prostitution. On the racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking counts, he faced up to life in prison.
Jay Clayton, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Ricky Patel, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations’ New York field office, issued a statement addressing the impact of sex crimes on victims and on society, but did not address the outcome of the case specifically.
“Sex crimes deeply scar victims, and the disturbing reality is that sex crimes are all too present in many aspects of our society,” the statement said.
The Rico statute has been used in recent years in other cases that involved allegations of sexual violence.
Singer R. Kelly was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in federal court in Brooklyn in 2021 for 30 years’ worth of allegations of abuse related to women and minors.
In 2019, NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in a case that involved a minor and forced labour from within the self-help organisation he headed.
Those cases differed from Combs’, according to Lichtman, because the accusers in Combs’ case were adults in consensual relationships with the producer and had the ability to leave and see other partners.
While they may have suffered abuse, the evidence did not show they were forced into sex, he said, and they sought out more and more sexual experiences and time with Combs.
Unlike in other Rico cases, the Combs case did not include a witness who testified that a distinct organisation was committing crimes.
Prosecutors were required to prove that members of the enterprise agreed to commit two racketeering acts from a list of alleged crimes.
In summation, prosecutor Christy Slavik said that crimes such as drug distribution and sex trafficking were easily proved and that his two alleged trafficking victims, singer Cassie Ventura and a woman called Jane, a pseudonym, clearly didn’t want to participate in “freak-offs”.
Federal prosecutors often bring racketeering cases against gangs and gang members, including in recent years against the MS-13 organisation.
The US Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has prosecuted dozens of gang members under the Rico statute in recent years, and it usually uses insiders with deep knowledge of the gang to narrate the case for the jury from the witness stand, often relating gruesome crimes that they committed with others.
Raj Parekh, a former acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who is now at the firm Sparacino PLLC, said: “Rico can be a powerful storytelling vehicle about structure - who gives the orders, who follows them and how the operation runs as a co-ordinated system”.
“The strongest cases are those where the story is clear, the enterprise is well-defined, and the criminal acts are tightly woven into the enterprise’s structure and purpose.”
He added: “These [insider] witnesses often come with baggage, such as criminal records, plea deals and inconsistent statements”.
“The key is not only to confront these issues directly, but most critically, to ensure the testimony clearly explains to the jury how the witnesses’ firsthand knowledge supports the charges in the case.”
Virginia defence lawyer Joseph Flood, who has handled Rico cases, also noted that the government did not have a key witness to walk the jury through operations at the alleged organisation - one potentially fatal flaw in the government’s strategy in the Combs case.
Witnesses who worked for Combs spoke of involvement in drug deliveries and described their role in setting up their boss’ hotel rooms for sex parties, but did not discuss a broad scheme or hierarchy.
“I think they had a real uphill climb … Maybe crimes were committed, but they were sort of ad hoc and done to serve a sexual purpose … The primary goal here was to pleasure him, not to make money,” Flood said.
Flood said that while the conduct may have been repulsive, “I was shocked that this was going forward as a Rico conspiracy. They just didn’t seem to have it.”
The government did not have co-operating witnesses who had a lot to lose by lying or who had a lot of big-picture information to share.
“For the witnesses who are going to be insiders … they always have some type of bias or motive, generally to help themselves out. They’ve already pleaded guilty,” said Joe King, another DC-area defence lawyer with Rico case experience.