The jury in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial said Tuesday that it has reached a verdict on four of five counts against the hip-hop mogul and was unable to reach a decision on the top charge, racketeering conspiracy.
But the outcome of any of the charges was not yet clear. The judge told the jury to hold off announcing its partial verdict and instead to continue weighing the remaining charge. Like prosecutors and Combs’ defense team, Judge Arun Subramanian reasoned that after just two days of deliberations, it was too soon to give up on reaching a verdict on all counts.
The development came late Tuesday afternoon, when the jury sent a note saying it was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the racketeering conspiracy charge because there were jurors with “unpersuadable views” on both sides.
Subramanian noted that juries have a right to deliver a partial verdict, but he said that given that deliberations started only Monday, he’d rather they continue for now. The jury was eventually dismissed for the day.
Combs’ lawyers surrounded him at the defense table soon after the note was sent to the court. The hip-hop mogul appeared morose as they explained to him what was happening. At one point, lead defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo stepped away from the huddle, returned with a piece of paper and handed it to Combs, who read it solemnly.
Combs’ mother and several of his children returned to the courtroom after the judge announced that the jury had reached a partial verdict.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, were at their table glued to their phones and laptop computers.
Jurors are weighing charges that Combs used his fame, wealth and violence to force two girlfriends into drug-fueled sex marathons with male sex workers known as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”
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He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers contend prosecutors are trying to criminalize Combs’ swinger lifestyle and that, if anything, his conduct amounted to domestic violence, not federal felonies.
Combs, 55, could face 15 years in prison to life behind bars if he is convicted of all charges.
Racketeering conspiracy — count 1 on the jury’s verdict sheet — is the most complicated of the charges against Combs because it requires the jury to decide not only whether he ran a “racketeering enterprise,” but also whether he was involved in committing some or all of various types of offenses, such as kidnapping and arson.
The charge falls under RICO — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — which is best known for being used in organized crime and drug cartel cases.
Earlier Tuesday, the jury asked to review critical testimony from one of the prosecution’s most important witnesses: the hip-hop mogul’s former longtime girlfriend Cassie.
The panel of eight men and four women asked for Cassie’s account of Combs beating, kicking and dragging her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 — an assault captured on now-infamous security camera footage.
They also asked to see Cassie’s testimony about an incident in which she said Combs accused her of taking drugs from him and kicked her off of their yacht at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2013. On their way back to the U.S., she said, he threatened to release explicit videos of her having sex.
In addition, the jury asked for Cassie and stripper Daniel Phillip’s testimony about her jumping into his lap at a New York City hotel after, as Phillip testified, he suspected Combs had been slapping and slamming her around an adjacent room.
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“Her whole entire body was shaking, like she was terrified,” said Phillip, who was at the hotel for a sexual encounter with Cassie sometime between 2012 and 2014.
Phillip testified that he asked Cassie, the R&B singer whose real name is Casandra Ventura, why she was with Combs if he was hitting her and beating her. He said he told her she was in real danger. Cassie, he said, “basically tried to convince me that it was OK, it’s OK. I’m fine, I’ll be OK.”
Phillip and Cassie were among the first witnesses who testified when the trial began last month.
The jury’s testimony request came soon after Combs’ lawyers and prosecutors began the day haggling with Judge Subramanian over a jury question left over from the end of the first day of deliberations on Monday.
Jurors wanted clarification about what qualifies as drug distribution, an aspect of the racketeering conspiracy charge that will help determine whether Combs can be convicted or exonerated on the count.
Subramanian said he would remind jurors of the instructions he gave them on that part of the case before they started deliberating on Monday. Combs’ lawyers had pushed for a more expansive response, but prosecutors argued — and Subramanian agreed — that doing so could end up confusing jurors more.
On Monday, the panel deliberated over five hours without reaching a verdict. Barely an hour into deliberations, the jury foreperson sent a note to the judge, complaining that there was one juror “who we are concerned cannot follow your Honor’s instructions. May I please speak with your Honor or may you please interview him?”
The judge sent jurors a note reminding them of their duties to deliberate and obligation to follow his instructions on the law.
After pleading not guilty, Combs chose not to testify as his lawyers built their arguments for acquittal mostly through lengthy cross examinations of dozens of witnesses called by prosecutors, including some of Combs’ former employees who took the witness stand reluctantly only after being granted immunity.
When jurors first left the room to begin deliberating on Monday, Combs sat for a while slumped in his chair at the defense table before standing and turning toward three rows of spectators packed with his family and friends.
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