Federal prosecutors have showed jurors more videos of the drug-fuelled sex marathons at the centre of allegations that could put Sean “Diddy” Combs behind bars for life.
The clips, totalling about 20 minutes of footage of so-called “freak-offs” or “hotel nights”, bookended a prosecution case that began seven weeks ago with jurors seeing security camera footage of the hip-hop mogul beating his former longtime girlfriend Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
Prosecutors are set to rest their case on Tuesday once Combs’s lawyers finish cross-examining the final government witness — Joseph Cerciello, a Homeland Security Investigations agent whose evidence included spending hours reading out text message exchanges, some of which involved Combs or other people in his orbit.
As they questioned Mr Cerciello, Combs’s lawyers played excerpts from the videos, which were shown only to the jury and the parties — not reporters or public observers of the trial — because of their graphic nature.
Assistant US attorney Maurene Comey sometimes referred to the mostly one or two-minute clips filmed by Combs as “explicit” videos, a signal for jurors to put on headsets that enabled them to hear and view the recordings without them being seen or heard by spectators in the Manhattan courtroom.
Prosecutors have cited the drug-fuelled multi-day events as evidence of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, saying Combs relied on employees, associates and his business accounts to fly male sex workers to Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, where his staff set up hotel rooms for the encounters and cleaned up afterwards.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty. He has been active in his defence, writing notes to his lawyers and sometimes influencing when they stopped questioning witnesses.
Last week, prosecutors showed jurors about two minutes of footage from 2012 and 2014 involving Cassie, a male sex worker and Combs.
Cassie, an R&B singer whose real name is Casandra Ventura, earlier told the court that she participated in hundreds of “freak-off” events. She and Combs were in a relationship from 2007 until 2018.
She sued Combs in 2023, alleging years of abuse. He settled within hours, and dozens of similar lawsuits followed.
Defence lawyers last week showed the jury about 18 minutes of video clips from the sex performances involving Cassie after a lawyer said in opening statements that the videos prove sexual activity was consensual and not evidence of a crime.
On Monday, prosecutors aired nearly 20 minutes of recordings from 2021 and 2022 of a single mother who was identified only by the pseudonym Jane, male sex workers and Combs. Jane said earlier in the trial that she was romantically involved with Combs from 2021 until his September arrest at a New York hotel.
Mr Cerciello told the court that dozens of recordings from late 2021 until last August lasted many hours.
Closing arguments are tentatively scheduled for Thursday after what was expected to be a brief defence presentation.
