Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives on the LA Premiere of “The 4: Battle For Stardom” on the CBS Radford Studio Heart, Might 30, 2018, in Los Angeles.
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
On the primary day of Sean Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial, jurors heard that the music mogul allegedly made a male escort urinate in his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s mouth, inflicting Ventura to really feel like she was “choking.” Jurors additionally noticed video of Combs kicking and dragging Ventura in a resort hallway in 2016.
Prosecutors wasted no time introducing a few of their most graphic and disturbing proof. Consultants say it was a transparent tactical determination.
“It’s a shock and awe technique,” Mark Chutkow, a former federal prosecutor in Detroit who specialised in human trafficking instances, tells Rolling Stone. He stated when coping with a high-profile celeb defendant, prosecutors usually attempt to dismantle any “optimistic emotions” as quickly as doable.
“Right here, [Combs] is good-looking, charismatic, and well-known for a few years within the New York space. They wish to flip that narrative instantly, so any potential holdout jurors might be trying extra skeptically at him,” Chutkow, now a trial lawyer at Dykema Gossett, says. “They actually wish to create an impression about him proper out of the gate.”
Chutkow and different consultants inform Rolling Stone they count on prosecutors will deal with the resort surveillance video as a lot as doable all through the anticipated eight-week trial.
“The factor about video is you possibly can’t actually cross-examine video,” Chutkow says. “Within the Derek Chauvin trial, they confirmed the video of him placing his knee towards George Floyd’s neck at first, center and finish of the case. It’s one thing the protection couldn’t actually counter.” (Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was convicted of murdering Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, on Might 25, 2020.)
Prosecutors talked about the video of the resort assault throughout their opening assertion Monday however known as a former resort safety guard as their preliminary witness to play your complete video for jurors. The witness, Israel Florez, testified that he was known as to the sixth flooring of the InterContinental Resort in Los Angeles on March 5, 2016 for a “lady in misery.” The guard not solely described seeing Ventura with a visible injury, he additionally testified that Combs provided him a wad of money to maintain quiet. He stated it “undoubtedly” seemed to be a bribe.
“I believe this was strategically thought-through,” former federal prosecutor Braid Bailey says of the choice to place Florez on the stand first. “He’s a non-involved witness in phrases being simply resort safety personnel. He’s not essentially going to have any stake in any of this. It’s extraordinarily useful to the prosecution.”
Bailey says the point out of the alleged money supply was essential as a result of in keeping with Combs’ indictment, bribery is among the predicate acts that prosecutors declare was a part of Combs’ alleged sample of racketeering. Bailey agrees the video’s introduction so early on was key. “When you possibly can lead with a tangible instance of power, it’s a particularly highly effective strategy to begin. It instantly casts Mr. Combs in a particularly destructive gentle, which goes to be tough for the jury to cease seeing him in. It’s not essentially insurmountable, however that’s not a picture you need in jurors’ minds,” he says.
Michelle Simpson Tuegel, a lawyer who represented a number of victims of disgraced USA Gymnastics nationwide staff physician Larry Nassar, says she was struck Monday by the opening assertion from Combs’ protection lawyer, Teny Geragos. In her handle to the jury, Geragos stated folks may hear the proof and decide Combs is a jerk, however they shouldn’t conclude that an incident of “home” violence caught on video is proof of intercourse trafficking.
“I believe their characterization of [Combs] as attempting to simply accept duty, saying he’s an advanced man, and he could also be responsible of home violence, however he’s not a intercourse trafficker – that’s a extremely harmful place to take,” Simpson Tuegel says. “Saying home violence is totally separate from sexual violence, it’s simply not the fact normally. There may be an intersection with home violence and intercourse trafficking and sexual assault.”
Simpson Tuegel additionally notes prosecutors’ determination to name a male intercourse employee as the second witness of their case on Monday afternoon. She says it helped “arrange the context of the complete image of this business intercourse that allegedly was happening.” The witness, Daniel Phillip, testified that he was paid to have business intercourse with Ventura and that he as soon as witnessed an enraged Combs throw a bottle at Ventura earlier than he pulled Ventura into one other room and purportedly struck her.
“It units your complete stage of the connection being one among abuse, violence, and intimidation, which is essential as a result of the protection has tried to set it up [that] she selected to remain on this relationship,” Simpson Tuegel says. “I believe that’s one thing jurors have a broader understanding of now – that there are individuals who stay in relationships who’re victims, and that’s not absolutely a alternative. It doesn’t really feel like a option to them in that second, that they’ll go away. And the violence, the intimidation, and the threats are amplified with somebody with the extent of assets and energy that Sean Combs had.”
The consultants who spoke with Rolling Stone agree there’s loads of time left for either side to current further proof and rating factors with jurors. A lot stays unknown. But when all goes in keeping with plan, Ventura is anticipated to take the stand this week because the prosecution’s star witness.
Combs, 55, was arrested and charged in September. He has pleaded not guilty. His preliminary indictment largely mirrored the bombshell sex-trafficking lawsuit filed by Ventura in November 2023. Prosecutors have since added further fees of intercourse trafficking and transportation to interact in prostitution in reference to one other alleged sufferer. Sufferer-2 was recognized by prosecutors Monday utilizing the pseudonym Jane.
The jury of eight males and 4 girls in the end should resolve whether or not Combs was a “swinger” who indulged his eccentric appetites with different consenting adults, because the protection claims, or a serial intercourse predator who bodily abused and compelled girls into drug-fueled sex marathons generally known as Freak Offs and Wild King Nights, as prosecutors allege.
From Rolling Stone US.