Diddy Found Not Guilty Of Sex Trafficking and Racketeering, But Guilty Of Transportation to Engage In Prostitution

Diddy and Cassie

Source: Africa Publicity

Music mogul, Sean “Diddy” Combs has been found not guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering, two serious charges that could have seen the 55-year-old spend the rest of his life in prison.

 

But on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, jurors found him guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

 

Diddy who pleaded not guilty to all five charges, faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for the transportation convictions.

 

The mixed verdict by the jurors came on the third day of deliberations.

 

Diddy pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

 

Within seven weeks into the trial, US prosecutors dropped theories of attempted arson and kidnapping to streamline their racketeering conspiracy count.

 

 

The arguments

 

Prosecutors called 34 witnesses since the trial’s start in early May, including two ex-girlfriends of Combs who testified they felt coerced into marathon sex events with male sex workers that were called “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.” Jurors were shown about 20 minutes of video recordings from the dayslong events.

 

Defense lawyers, though, say they were consensual sexual encounters consistent with the swingers lifestyle.

 

The star witness:

 

Diddy’s former lover and R&B singer Cassie Ventura testified against him in the trial, recounting a turbulent 10-year relationship with Combs that she says was consumed by violence and his obsession with a form of voyeurism.

 

 

Cassie detailed how she was humiliated on several occasions and had to take ecstasy and get drunk to take part in his sex parties or freak-offs.

According to Cassie who is a key witness in the trial, Diddy never cared that freak-offs made her feel “worthless.”

 

Addressing the court in tears, Cassie described the fear and humiliation she says she suffered during the freak-offs.

Cassie says aside taking ecstasy and getting drunk, she also put on a masquerade mask. She told the court that it was Diddy who told her to wear the mask.

According to Cassie, she was too high to feel much, but that she remembers feeling “dirty and confused.”

 

She told the court that the freak-offs became a weekly ritual, expressing that she feared that if she refused to participate in them, Diddy would become angry.

 

Describing episodes of anger from Diddy, she said “His eyes would go black. The version of him I was in love with was no longer there.”

According to Cassie, she tell Diddy “gently” that “doing this [freak-offs] made feel horrible, it made me feel worthless” but he didn’t care.

Dozens of Details

US prosecutors have asked Cassie to provide several details about the freak-offs, including the names of the hotels in which they took place, as well as the types of candles asked to be used during the encounters. Cassie told prosecutors the hotels are too many to name.

More About Diddy’s Trial

Diddy’s sex trafficking and other federal criminal trial began on Monday, May 12, 2025, with prosectors saying in their opening statements accusing Diddy of using his celebrity status and a “loyal” inner circle of employees to sexually abuse women and run a criminal enterprise.

His lawyers, however, defended his “swinger” lifestyle.

Diddy, age 55, has been charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty.

On Monday, the court heard from prosecutors’ first witnesses, including a security guard from a New York hotel where Diddy is seen in a now-viral video beating his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in 2016.

His testimony was followed by a man who claimed Diddy abused his ex-girlfriend during paid sexual encounters with the couple.

After seating a panel of 12 jurors and six alternates on Monday morning, the government and Diddy’s lawyers outlined their cases.

Prosecutor Emily Johnson accused Diddy of using his celebrity status and a “loyal” inner circle of employees to sexually abuse women and run a criminal enterprise.

She focused on the two central alleged victims in the case – Diddy’s former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, and another unnamed former girlfriend.

Prosecutors informed the court that Diddy had used violence and threatened Ms Ventura’s music career to force her to perform non-consensual, humiliating sexual acts with male prostitutes during so-called “freak-offs” filmed by him (Diddy).

 

According to Ms. Johnson, Diddy “had the power to ruin her [Ms Ventura’s] life”.

Diddy sat in a grey sweater and trousers with a blank stare and his hands folded on his lap in court as prosecutors made their case against him.

At the heart of the government’s case is a surveillance video that shows Mr Combs beating Ms Ventura and dragging her by the hair in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.

Lawyers for Diddy noted that the video was evidence of Diddy’s’ “flawed” character, but not of a larger criminal enterprise.

“Domestic violence is not sex trafficking,” according to Diddy’s lawyer, Teny Geragos.

Ms Geragos says Diddy has a “bit of a different sex life” – and shifted the focus to the women accusing him, calling them “capable, strong women” who chose to stay with the rapper.

They had “the freedom to make the choices that they made”, Ms Geragos argued.

 

Prosecutors’ first witness, a former security guard named Israel Florez, worked at the hotel, the site of a surveillance video showing Mr Combs attacking his ex-girlfriend. The clip, which CNN released last year, was played for jurors on Monday.

Mr Florez told jurors that morning on March 5, 2016 at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles he received a call about a “woman in distress” on the sixth floor.

According to him, he found Diddy there in a towel, slouched on a chair with a “devilish” look on his face, and a broken vase on the floor. Ms Ventura sat cowering in the corner with her face covered, Mr Florez said.

 

Mr Florez told prosecutors that Ms Ventura kept saying she wanted to leave, but Mr Combs told her she could not.

He testified that Ms Ventura had a purple eye, but did not want to call police and she eventually left in a black SUV.

Mr Florez alleged that later, to “make it go away”, Mr Combs tried to hand him a wad of cash, but he declined.

Attorneys for Diddy tried to poke holes in Mr Florez’s claims, asking why he did not include certain details – like Ms Ventura’s purple eye – in an incident report he filed afterwards.

 

His testimony was followed by Daniel Phillip, a former manager of male strippers, who said he met Mr Combs and Ms Ventura after his boss asked him to fill in as a stripper for a bachelorette party.

But, Mr Phillip says, he was greeted at a hotel instead by Ms Ventura, who told him it was her birthday and her husband wanted to give her a gift.

Mr Phillip told the court he would go on to have sex with Ms Ventura on several occasions – encounters that lasted as long as 10 hours, sometimes under the influence of drugs – as Mr Combs watched and filmed.

He alleged that he witnessed Diddy attack Ms Ventura at least twice, including one time when he dragged her by her hair as she screamed “I’m sorry”.

 

Diddy then came back in the room with Ms Ventura and asked the two to have sex again in front of him, Mr Phillip said.

“I was shocked,” he said. “It came out of nowhere. I was terrified.”

Mr Phillip claimed on the stand that he did not call the police for fear that Mr Combs was “someone with unlimited power” and that he could “lose his life” for reporting it.