Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Found Guilty of Transportation for Prostitution

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Moments after the jury in Sean “Diddy” Combs’s Manhattan federal court sex-trafficking case handed down a verdict that would let him avoid prison for life, his family clapped loudly and a “Woo!” rang out in the courtroom. Jurors found Diddy guilty on two counts of transportation for prostitution but not guilty of the far more serious counts of racketeering and sex trafficking. The maximum sentence for the transportation counts is 20 years — and that’s only if the judge makes the exceedingly rare move of handing down consecutive sentences for each count — compared with a possible maximum of life imprisonment. 

The verdicts followed a bombshell nine-week sex-trafficking and racketeering trial. Diddy had been charged with five counts: one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force or fraud, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Prosecutors called 34 witnesses to the stand over more than six weeks, including three women who accused him of abuse. Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, Diddy’s ex, told jurors he coerced her into drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts for about a decade. “I felt pretty horrible about myself,” Cassie told jurors, saying Combs had lured her into a lurid world under the false pretenses of a romantic relationship, forcing her compliance with physical and verbal abuse as well as the threat of blackmail. “I felt disgusted,” Cassie said as she testified about these encounters, called “Freak Offs,” “Hotel Nights,” or “King Nights,” which were core to the prosecutors’ case. Diddy allegedly recorded many of these encounters, giving him blackmail material to hold over his victims’ heads, prosecutors said at trial. The prosecution contended that Diddy’s abuse was part of a sprawling criminal enterprise that relied on other violent acts, such as alleged kidnapping and arson, and included other crimes such as drug distribution and witness tampering, made possible by his devoted employees and inner circle.

A key piece of evidence in the prosecutors’ case was a spring 2016 video apparently showing Diddy attacking Cassie in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel during an alleged Freak Off. Cassie described the alleged horrors in detail during her days on the stand. She was coerced into performing for days even when she had a urinary-tract infection or other injuries stemming from sex acts. “When we were having frequent Freak Offs,” Cassie alleged, “sometimes they were back to back. I was actually doing the Freak Offs with the infection.” She said the infections were painful and frequent. “It got to the point where Cipro didn’t work anymore,” Cassie remarked, referring to the powerful antibiotic. “Occasionally, I would get sores on my tongue from the Freak Offs, [from] taking drugs, substances, friction in my mouth,” she claimed. Cassie added that she developed an “ongoing, off-and-on addiction with opiates,” saying she would take the opiates to come down from the ecstasy. “Opiates made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily,” she said. “I didn’t want to feel what was actually going on … it was just an escape for me.” Cassie also alleged that Diddy had raped her after a post-breakup dinner in 2018. “I just remember crying and saying ‘no,’” she said on the stand.

“Jane,” another Diddy accuser who took the stand, entered into what she believed was a romantic relationship with the mogul in early 2021. He took her on a trip to Turks and Caicos for her birthday, and they swiftly developed pet names for each other, Bert and Ernie. “He was really charming, really nice, and I was just drawn to him,” Jane testified. As they spent more and more time together, which included using molly during their sexual encounters, Diddy told Jane about his fantasies involving her having sex with other men. One night, after they had been awake for 12 hours, Jane said Diddy suggested, “I can make this fantasy a reality if you’d like. I can make that happen.” Since the idea was “turning him on” and Jane cared deeply about him, she agreed. “I felt that that night just opened, like, a Pandora’s box in our relationship. It just completely set the tone for our relationship going forward,” she said. As time went on, Jane repeatedly told Diddy she no longer wanted to participate in these encounters. She broke into tears while describing how Diddy doled out ecstasy so she could stay awake during the dayslong events, which sometimes involved multiple male escorts. 

“He would be like, ‘You’re not getting tired on me, are you? Let’s finish strong, hard. Let’s end on a high note,’” Jane said. Diddy was so demanding about these sexual events that he pressured her into not using condoms, saying “he didn’t want to see a rubber while he was watching.” If she brought it up, he would “guilt-trip” her. Jane said she went along with Diddy’s desires given how hard she had fallen for him: “I just didn’t want to disappoint my lover.” Diddy maintained his power over Jane financially, prosecutors claimed. She said that in spring 2023, they entered into a “love contract” in which he agreed to pay her rent. As a result, she felt pressure to make Diddy happy, lest he cut off his support. In the summer of 2024 — when Diddy knew he was being investigated by the Feds — Jane said he pressured her into an encounter. “I said, ‘I don’t want to!’” she recalled of that evening. Diddy got close to her face and said, “Is this coercion?” and compelled her to take ecstasy. “I had to perform oral sex on Anton. It just felt like forever,” Jane said. Diddy allegedly watched. She added, “I felt so sick … I just felt disgusted. I just felt terrible.” 

Mia, a former Diddy assistant, said he had attacked her multiple times. “The highs were really high, and the lows were really, really low,” Mia told jurors. The work environment varied wildly depending on Diddy’s ever-changing moods. “He’s thrown things at me. He’s thrown me against the wall … He’s thrown me into a pool … He’s also, uh, sexually assaulted me,” she said. Mia said he had sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. One night in 2010 when she was staying at Diddy’s Los Angeles home, Mia woke to “the weight of a person on top of me.” The person was Diddy. Mia remembered him undoing his pants. “He put himself inside of me … I just froze,” she said, adding that she felt “terrified and confused and ashamed.” Another time, when she was leaving a closet area, “He was standing right in front of me.” Diddy, she said, “had his penis out” and forced her to perform oral sex.

In the end, jurors decided Diddy had committed prostitution-related crimes but not offenses that constituted a criminal enterprise or coercive sex conspiracy. 

Word that jurors had reached a verdict came just after 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Diddy’s legal team filed into the courtroom, then went through a door leading to a holding cell where he had been waiting during deliberations. After Diddy emerged several moments later, he sat with his head lowered, and defense attorney Teny Geragos placed a box of tissues in front of him. Judge Arun Subramanian took the bench and said there was a note from jurors dated 9:52 a.m. “The note reads, We have reached a verdict on all counts.” Subramanian implored those in court to “maintain order while the verdict is being read until we have the jury out of the courtroom.” Jurors were brought into the courtroom and remained expressionless as they looked straight ahead and filed into the jury box. 

“Have you reached a verdict?” Subramanian’s deputy asked the jury foreman, who responded in the affirmative. The deputy asked, “Is the verdict unanimous?” “It is.” Then came the verdict: not guilty on count one, racketeering conspiracy; not guilty on count two, sex trafficking of Cassie; guilty on count three, transportation for prostitution of Cassie; not guilty on count four, sex trafficking of Jane; and guilty on count five, transportation for prostitution of Jane. Diddy turned to look at his family and put his hands together as one does during prayer. Each juror then confirmed that this was their verdict. Diddy could be seen nodding as he looked toward the jury. 

After jurors left the courtroom, lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo asked Subramanian to release Diddy pending sentencing, saying he no longer faces the gravest charges. “He remains only charged with prostitution,” Agnifilo said. “He should be released.” The lawyer suggested Diddy be released on a $1 million bond. As he made this pitch, murmurs of agreement could be heard circulating in the gallery. Head prosecutor Maurene Comey pushed back, noting that testimony showed Diddy behaving violently. Subramanian said he wasn’t going to make a decision right away and asked them to submit letters early this afternoon. “I understand that Mr. Combs does not want to go back to the MDC,” Subramanian said, prompting Diddy to shake his head as laughter broke out in court. 

Court was adjourned until the afternoon when Subramanian was poised to speak on the bail issue. Cheers erupted as Diddy walked out. “I’ll be home soon,” he told his family. “I love you!” he told another relative. As the defense lawyers filed out, Geragos was crying. Some of the audience shouted, “Dream team! Dream team!” potentially a reference to the moniker of O.J. Simpson’s defense team in his 1990s trial.