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

In a theatrical closing argument, Sean Combs' lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, paced in front of the jury, shouted his disbelief at the prosecution's case and gestured in mock outrage at the amount of lubricant found in Combs' garage.

"Boxes of AstroGlide! Take him off the streets!" Agnifilo sarcastically told the jury.

Other defense attorneys suppressed laughter at the defense table, while prosecutor Maurene Comey rested her head in her palm.

Agnifilo argued sex played a positive role in Cassie Ventura and Sean Combs' relationship, suggesting she could not have been a victim of trafficking.

"She's a woman who actually likes sex," Agnifilo said. "Good for her. She's beautiful."

Agnifilo spoke in more staccato when he questioned former Combs employee Capricorn Clark's account of submitting to a five-day lie detector test, which the government said amounted to kidnapping.

"She went home. Everyday. So, what is the government alleging?!" Agnifilo half shouted. "I have no doubt that she was unsettled. She was not kidnapped."

The defense similarly doubted Clark was kidnapped at gunpoint when Combs came to her home early one morning on the way to confront Kid Cudi.

"He doesn't need a gun. He didn't have a gun," Agnifilo said.

The defense told the jury the case against Sean Combs is not about sex trafficking, racketeering or transportation to engage in prostitution.

"Domestic violence is the issue," defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said. "We own it. That's not charged."

Agnifilo insisted that Combs would have pleaded guilty had he been charged with domestic violence.

"He didn't kidnap anybody. He didn't obstruct justice. He didn't bribe anyone," Agnifilo said. "He did what he did but he's going to fight to the death to defend himself against what he didn't do."

Agnifilo asked the jury to see the case as a "great modern love story" of an intense, loving relationship that had its ups and down.

"This trial is about love. This trial is about jealousy. So much about jealousy. So much about jealousy. It's about infidelity," Agnifilo said.

He urged jurors to read the text messages Cassie Ventura and Combs sent to one another.

"You will cry. They are some of the most beautiful things you have ever read," Agnifilo said. "If racketeering conspiracy had an opposite, it would be their relationship."

He said they "truly, truly loved each other" and Ventura is no victim.

Sean Combs waved to his family, flashed a thumbs up and blew kisses on his way to the defense table to hear his attorney, Marc Agnifilo, deliver his closing argument to the jury.

Speaking from a podium in front of the jury box and sometimes pacing back and forth, Agnifilo sought to cast Sean Combs as a self-made entrepreneur committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.

“He was doing this in 1993 as a 24-year-old by himself,” Agnifilo said. “Not because some government told him to.”

He introduced the jury to Combs’ six grown children and his mother, who are seated in the gallery.

“The man takes care of people,” Agnifilo said, pointing to his ex-girlfriend, known by the pseudonym “Jane.”

“I hope she’s having a nice day. I don’t know what she’s doing but I know she’s doing it in a house he paid for,” Agnifilo said.

Responding to the prosecution's allegation that Combs is a racketeering kingpin, the defense attorney exclaimed, “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?” 

He mocked the government’s case.

“Thank goodness for the special response team. They found the baby oil. They found the AstroGlide,” Agnifilo said. “The only crime scene is your private sex life.”

The defense will deliver a closing statement to the jury Friday at the federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial of Sean Combs, hoping to raise doubt about his guilt among the eight men and four women after federal prosecutors told them, “It’s time to hold him accountable.”

The defense is expected to argue that Cassie Ventura and a woman testifying under the pseudonym “Jane” were not trafficking victims but long-term girlfriends who willingly, sometimes enthusiastically, participated in drug-powered sexual marathons with male prostitutes.

In the government’s summation, a federal prosecutor, Christy Slavik, argued Combs “tricked” "Jane" into so-called "hotel nights" under the guise of a real relationship.

“He told her that they would go on trips; that they'd go shopping; that they'd go on a yacht, but only after she did a hotel night with him,” Slavik said. “They were just lies he told 'Jane' to make her keep participating in these hotels nights.”

Slavik argued Ventura took part in "freak offs" because Combs deployed force, threats of force or coercion. She told the jury it “shouldn’t be a surprise” they were not something Ventura wanted to do.

“Think about how she described them, hours and hours long, covered in baby oil, wearing uncomfortable outfits, sometimes when Cassie had her period and when she had UTIs. Sometimes the defendant told the escorts to urinate on her, and sometimes he did too,” Slavik said.

Prosecutors depicted Combs as the leader of a criminal enterprise who relied on an inner circle of “loyal lieutenants” to help get drugs for the "freak offs," cash to pay the escorts and to keep Ventura and "Jane" in line.

“The evidence showed you how he and his inner circle helped him carry out these crimes and how far they would go to cover them up,” Slavik said.

To find Combs guilty of racketeering conspiracy the jury must find he agreed to commit at least two underlying criminal acts, which could include sex trafficking, drug distribution, kidnapping, arson, bribery, witness tampering, forced labor and transportation for the purposes of prostitution.

Slavik argued drug distribution alone is enough to convict. She said Combs and his aides “participated in hundreds of acts of drug distribution” and it does not matter if the quantities were small or the drugs were for personal use.

“The defendant and his staff were all involved in buying and distributing drugs,” the prosecutor said.

Combs has denied all government charges against him.