NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs was portrayed in his lawyer’s closing argument on Friday as the victim of an overzealous prosecution that tried to turn the recreational use of drugs and a swinger lifestyle into a racketeering conspiracy that could put the music mogul behind bars for life.
Attorney Marc Agnifilo mocked the government’s case against Combs and belittled the agents who seized hundreds of bottles of Astroglide lubricant and baby oil at his properties as he began a presentation expected to last several hours.
“Way to go, fellas,” Agnifilo said of the agents.
He said prosecutors had “badly exaggerated” evidence of the swinger lifestyle and threesomes to combine it with recreational drug use and call it a racketeering conspiracy.
“He did not do the things he’s charged with. He didn’t do racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking,” the lawyer said.
Agnifilo also called Combs’ prosecution a “fake trial” and ridiculed the notion that he engaged in racketeering.
“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?” Agnifilo asked. “Did any witness get on that witness stand and say yes, I was part of a racketeering enterprise — I engaged in racketeering?” No, Agnifilo argued, telling jurors that those accusations were a figment of the prosecution’s imagination.
Combs’ family, including six of his children and his mother, were in the audience for the closing.
All his life Combs has taken care of people, Agnifilo said, including the ex-girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym Jane, whose rent he’s paying.
“I don’t know what Jane is doing today,” Agnifilo said. “But she’s doing it in a house he’s paying for.”
Referring to lawsuits filed by Combs’ accusers, he said: “This isn’t about crime. It’s about money. This is about money.”
Agnifilo noted that Combs’ former longtime girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, sued him in November 2023. Combs settled with her the next day for $20 million, but the allegations in the lawsuit prompted federal law enforcement to open the criminal investigation that led to his arrest.
“If you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to pick Cassie,” Agnifilo said.
Cassie and Jane both testified during the trial that they were coerced repeatedly by Combs to perform in drug-fueled dayslong sex marathons with male sex workers while Combs watched, directed, masturbated and sometimes filmed the encounters.
Prosecutors, he argued, have invaded Combs’ bedroom and his most intimate personal affairs.
“Where’s the crime scene? It’s your sex life,” Agnifilo said.
He also mocked the prosecution’s assertion that Combs and his underlings had engaged in hundreds of racketeering acts and their suggestion that many of his so-called freak-offs and “hotel nights” were crimes.
If that’s so, he said, “we need a bigger roll of crime scene tape,” a reference to a famous line from the movie “Jaws.”
Agnifilo reiterated that the defense “owns” the fact that Combs was violent, but he argued that behavior does not justify the grave charges he faces.
He said Combs and Cassie had a “loving, beautiful relationship,” albeit a “complicated” one.
“If racketeering conspiracy had an opposite, it would be their relationship … they were deeply in love with each other,” Agnifilo said.
If convicted, Combs could face a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life.
He did not testify during the trial that is in its seventh week.
After Agnifilo completes his closing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey was expected to deliver a rebuttal summation before the judge reads the law to the jury, which is not expected to begin deliberations until Monday.
