Sean 'Diddy' Combs verdict is a blow to federal prosecutors, analysts say

[ad_1] U.S. authorities prosecutors repeatedly informed jurors that Sean “Diddy” Combs was the ruthless ringleader of a legal conspiracy, the important thing determine in a sprawling racketeering and intercourse trafficking scheme. Combs should be convicted on all 5 legal counts, the prosecutors argued, and solely then can justice be served.

Ultimately, the jury was not satisfied.

The panel of 12 New Yorkers returned a blended verdict on the climax of Combs’ federal trial Wednesday, convicting the music mogul on two interstate prostitution counts however acquitting him on the vastly extra critical expenses of racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking, which every carried a most jail sentence of life behind bars.

In interviews, authorized analysts and former federal prosecutors stated the decision was a blow to the Southern District of New York, which spent seven weeks unwinding an expansive narrative, introducing reams of graphic proof and calling greater than 30 witnesses to the stand. In distinction, the protection group didn't name a single witness.

“This trial was a significant gamble, and Combs gained that guess,” stated Anna Cominsky, an affiliate professor of legislation and the director of the Legal Protection Clinic at New York Legislation Faculty. “All the pieces is stacked towards the defendant going right into a federal case, particularly one like this.”

“His attorneys had been sensible and so they owned the dangerous details,” Cominsky added. “They fought on the issues that mattered, and it paid off.”

Sean "Diddy" Combs confers together with his attorneys in New York on June 12. Jane Rosenberg / Reuters Combs’ protection group by no means disputed their consumer’s historical past of home violence — together with his bodily assault of ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura at a Los Angeles lodge in 2016. Additionally they readily acknowledged that Combs organized drug-dazed, marathon sexual encounters in luxurious lodges referred to as “freak offs.”

However the rapper’s attorneys at all times insisted that Ventura and one other ex-girlfriend, recognized in courtroom below the pseudonym “Jane,” willingly participated in freak offs. The attorneys highlighted textual content messages through which each ladies expressed romantic affection for Combs and generally conveyed enthusiasm for his or her “lodge nights.”

In acquitting Combs of racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking, jurors successfully rejected the prosecution’s assertion that the music mogul oversaw a legal enterprise encompassing intercourse trafficking, compelled labor, drug distribution and different acts to meet his sexual wishes. They could have been persuaded by the protection group’s characterization of Combs as a “swinger” who had been unfairly persecuted for his way of life.

In generally sarcastic closing arguments final week, protection legal professional Marc Agnifilo stated the case towards his consumer was “badly exaggerated.” Jeffrey Harris, a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, stated jurors may need agreed that the prosecution’s case was overwrought from the beginning.

“Juries anticipate extra from prosecutors than they do from protection attorneys,” Harris stated, “and when prosecutors lose credibility by over-charging it normally doesn't finish properly.”

Berit Berger, a former federal prosecutor in each the Southern and Jap Districts of New York, disagreed with the suggestion that prosecutors had over-charged Combs, however acknowledged that the protection group might have been profitable in puncturing the federal government’s narrative, particularly when it got here to the query of consent.

“It’s simple to say that when there’s an acquittal on some counts, however I do suppose that they [prosecutors] introduced proof that met the authorized components for every of those statutes,” Berger stated. “I feel the protection actually needed to color this as a state of affairs the place grown lady had company, and will have left this relationship at any time, and so they selected to remain, as a result of there have been advantages to that.”

“My guess is that resonated with a number of the jurors,” Berger added.

In an interview, one other former Justice Division prosecutor stated the Combs verdict was a “huge loss” for the workplace, including that juries can get hung up on the technical components in giant racketeering conspiracy instances outdoors of the everyday mafia and gang conduct. The jurors in Combs’ case had been requested whether or not prosecutors had proved he had been concerned in underlying racketeering acts comparable to kidnapping, arson and bribery.

“In these conventional contexts, witnesses can inform you why all of it pertains to the charged enterprise,” stated the previous federal prosecutor, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to precise candid views. “With out that narrator from contained in the enterprise or clear specific ties, it is extremely arduous.”

The previous prosecutor stated they had been curious what a decide would do in post-trial motions, saying a decide might nonetheless sentence Combs severely if moved by the proof, noting that the statutory most on every of the 2 counts he was convicted of is 10 years in jail.

Misty Marris, a protection legal professional and authorized analyst, stated the prosecutors in the end failed to supply a sturdy clarification of how Combs’ alleged legal enterprise labored.

“They by no means established what the legal enterprise was, its objective, the way it operated, who was actually concerned in it,” Marris stated. “That actually by no means gelled for me, and clearly the jury agreed.”

Jay Clayton, the U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of New York, and Ricky J. Patel, the particular agent in command of the New York Subject Workplace of Homeland Safety Investigations, didn't straight tackle the result in a press release launched after the decision.

“Intercourse crimes deeply scar victims, and the disturbing actuality is that intercourse crimes are all too current in lots of points of our society,” Clayton and Patel stated. “Victims endure gut-wrenching bodily and psychological abuse, resulting in lasting trauma. New Yorkers and all Individuals need this scourge stopped and perpetrators dropped at justice.”

“Prosecuting intercourse crimes requires courageous victims to return ahead and inform their harrowing tales,” they added. “We and our legislation enforcement companions acknowledge the hardships victims endure and have prioritized a victim-centered method to investigating and prosecuting these instances.”

When the decision was being learn contained in the courtroom this morning, Combs received on his knees and prayed. The prosecutors remained seated, subdued and by all appearances despondent.