Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial updates: Defense closes; deliberations set for Monday

For Cassie Ventura, violence at the hands of Sean Combs “became her normal,” federal prosecutor Christy Slavik asserted during the government’s closing argument.

Ventura experienced it and “saw and heard about the defendant attacking her friends,” Slavik said, naming Combs' former assistant "Mia"; longtime Ventura friend Bryana Bongolan; celebrity stylist Deonte Nash; and former Ventura Kerry Morgan.

“The defense asked why, if the violence was so bad, she didn’t leave. But you know why,” Slavik told the jury, telling them that fear overrides an inclination to flee.

“There was no safe space for Cassie,” Slavik said.

So-called "freak-off" sexual encounters were also part of Ventura's norm, according to Slavik, noting that Ventura had previously testified that they became like a job.

“'Freak-offs' did not occur in isolation. The defendant wanted them all the time,” Slavik said. While Ventura testified that she agreed to participate in the first one, Slavik told the jury it should be “no surprise” that Ventura came to despise them, reminding the jury they meant hours covered in baby oil, wearing uncomfortable outfits, and sometimes occurred when she had her menstrual period. Allegedly, Combs or an escort also would urinate on her, Slavik said.

Slavik said the "freak-offs" were a “turn on for him,” meaning Combs, but humiliating for Ventura.

“We’re not asking you to find that every 'freak-off' was an instance of sex trafficking but there were many she participated in because of his force, threats of force and coercion,” Slavik said. “That conduct is illegal. That conduct is sex trafficking.”

Slavik also asked jurors not to be “fooled” into thinking that what they saw on explicit video footage was “anything more than a performance,” with Ventura pretending to like the directions Combs was giving. Combs' defense has maintained that all sexual encounters were consensual.

Slavik walked the jury through one more play of the 2016 hotel security surveillance video footage in which Combs is depicted wearing only a towel and, Slavik said, "looks ridiculous.”

She said Combs was not, as the defense asserted, “out of his mind high on drugs” when he attacked Ventura. Rather, Slavik told the jury, the video shows Combs “in complete control of himself” while dealing with a security guard after the attack and trying to limit the damage to his reputation.

The footage depicted Combs dragging Ventura after attacking her to “finish the 'freak-off,'” Slavik said. “This incident should leave no doubt in your mind that the defendant committed trafficking.”

In their continuing summation, federal prosecutors told jurors that they've heard ample evidence that Sean Combs engaged in a coercive course of conduct that left "Jane," the former Combs girlfriend who testified under pseudonym, feeling no choice but to submit to unwanted sex with male escorts.

“This is not an adult woman making a free choice,” prosecutor Christy Slavik said. “Coercion means getting someone to agree to a commercial sex act because they’re afraid of the consequences.”

Slavik asserted that the alleged coercion involved threats to withhold rent payments, threats to release sex tapes, and threats of violence and drugs.

Slavik told jurors that some of the explicit video footage they saw of sexual encounters during defense cross-examination may have appeared to show that "Jane" was “into it” but that it actually showed Jane “super, super high” on a liquid form of molly that made her feel a “sexual energy unlike anything she had ever experienced.”

Next, the jury was shown photos of Combs with a young Cassie Ventura, as Slavik reminded the jury that he's nearly 20 years older than Ventura.

“The defendant made it so it didn’t matter if she was making money through her music,” Slavik said. “He made her dependent on him.”

That control, Slavik said, extended to Ventura’s parents. She showed the jury bank records that documented a $20,000 payment that Ventura's mother and father made to Combs after he found out about her relationship with Kid Cudi. Combs allegedly demanded the money as payment to prevent him from releasing video tapes of Ventura engaging in sexual encounters. The payment was later returned to Ventura's parents.

“This wasn’t about the $20,000," Slavik told the jury. “This was about control."

Slavik also told the jury that Combs' alleged physical abuse of Ventura started early in their relationship. The prosecutor said the defense doesn't deny the abuse occurred -- “they just want to call it domestic violence,” Slavik said -- but she argued that it’s an element of sex trafficking because the so-called “'freak-offs' happened before, after and sometimes during” the violence.

“They were intertwined,” Slavik said.

The government summation reminded the jury about an alleged incident in June 2024, when the former Combs girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym "Jane" told the court that she submitted to oral sex with an escort after Combs allegedly beat her for hours.

The jury saw the photo of "Jane’s" injuries after Combs allegedly punched her in the face, kicked her while she was on the ground and slapped her while she was in the shower, leaving her with a black eye and golf-ball-sized lumps, according to "Jane's" previous testimony.

If it had stopped there, prosecutor Christy Slavik said, the alleged attacks would have been no more than a “brutal incident of domestic violence.” She said it became sex trafficking when Combs then allegedly told "Jane" to put on an outfit, then played some pornography and called an escort.

“After brutally assaulting 'Jane' over the course of hours he decided it was time for her to have sex with an escort,” Slavik said. “The defendant brought 'Jane' into the bathroom. He said, ‘take this f------ pill, take this f------ pill, you’re not going to ruin my night. Get out there, [perform oral sex], [have sex with] him, I don’t care but you’re not going to ruin my night.’”

When "Jane" told Combs that she didn’t want to, according to her testimony, Slavik reminded the jury that "Jane" further testified that Combs put his face inches from hers and said, “Is this coercion?”

June 2024 was three months after federal agents raided Combs’ homes, Slavik said, telling the jury that Combs knew at that point that he was under investigation for that very alleged crime.

“In that moment, when the defendant taunted 'Jane,' asking her if this was coercion, he was brazenly breaking the very same law,” Slavik said. “There’s no question why 'Jane' engaged in a commercial sex act that night. You know why she did it. The defendant had just showed her, in no uncertain terms, what he was capable of.”

That night, according to "Jane's" testimony, she performed oral sex on the male escort. That, according to Slavik, means Combs committed sex trafficking.

“The defendant’s assault and 'Jane’s' fear of further violence is the reason 'Jane' had sex with the escort that night. So, on this basis, too, the defendant is guilty of count 4” of the indictment against Combs, Slavik said.

The jury is taking a lunch break, after which the government’s closing will continue.

Sean Combs coerced "Jane" into drug-addled sexual marathons with male escorts by using payment of her $10,000 monthly rent as leverage, a federal prosecutor alleged during closing arguments.

“He’s reminding her that she owes him and that he can take things away from her if she doesn’t give him what he wants,” the prosecutor, Christy Slavik, said.

She reminded the jury about "Jane’s" text messages to Combs expressing anguish at how “one night of fun turned into the entirety of our relationship” and at how so-called hotel nights made her feel “dark, sleazy and makes me feel disgusted with myself.”

The jury heard Combs’ response in a voice message that suggested he would stop paying her rent. “I just wanted to just give you a heads up that I'm about to really disappear on you,” the message said.

“He knew that threatening to take away her home could turn a no into a yes. That’s coercion,” Slavik said.

Slavik also told the jury Combs trafficked "Jane" through fraud when he “tricked” her into coming to New York in September 2023.

“He knew that Jane wouldn’t come to New York for a 'hotel night.' He led her to believe that there wouldn’t be one. He lied,” Slavik said. “You know that he lied because of his communications.”

She showed the jury messages Combs sent to "Jane" promising a night of shopping and dinner. At the same time, she showed messages Combs sent to Cowboys 4 Angels arranging a male escort.

“As he’s telling "Jane" that there won’t be a hotel night, he’s setting up a hotel night,” Slavik said. “Instead of doing the things that he promised, he hired a new escort to have sex with her.”

She called "Jane’s" September 2023 New York trip “a completed act of sex trafficking” and “a blatant example of the defendant using fraud and coercion.”

“This trip alone makes the defendant guilty,” Slavik said.

Combs has denied all government charges against him.