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One day after a prosecutor called Sean Combs the “vicious” leader of a criminal enterprise in the government’s closing arguments, the music mogul’s lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, stood before a jury in lower Manhattan Friday and said his client was simply living a “lifestyle” of swingers, threesomes, and recreational drug use.
Pacing and speaking with animated hand gestures and sarcastic tones, Agnifilo blasted the government’s case as “fake” and “exaggerated.” He said it was an overreaching attempt to criminalize his client’s private sex life and claimed prosecutors were charging “personal use of drugs and threesomes as racketeering.”
A seasoned criminal defense lawyer known for representing other high-profile defendants such as Luigi Mangione and convicted Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere, Agnifilo said Combs was hardly a crime boss and built “wonderful, sophisticated, real businesses that have stood the test of time.”
“Sean Combs has become something that is very, very hard to be. He is a self-made, successful, Black entrepreneur,” Agnifilo said. Maybe Combs’ former employees didn’t always like him, “but they loved him,” the lawyer argued.
With jurors sometimes laughing along with his lively performance, Agnifilo scoffed at the government’s focus on salacious details in the case. “Boxes of Astroglide, taken off the streets, whoo! I feel better already,” he said, referring to the Homeland Security agents who raided Combs’ homes last year. “Thank goodness for the special response team. They found the Astroglide! They found the baby oil! They found like five valium pills. Way to go fellas.”
He joked that America’s “streets are safe now,” and then turned to what he called the “real trial.” “This isn’t about a crime. This is about money,” Agnifilo argued, claiming Combs is the victim of shakedowns in civil court. He said jurors wouldn’t even be hearing the case if Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, never filed her sex trafficking and rape lawsuit against Combs in 2023. The case settled within 24 hours, and jurors later learned Ventura received a settlement.
“She is sitting somewhere in the world with $30 million,” Agnifilo said of Ventura, referring to the $20 million settlement she received from Combs and the subsequent $10 million she received from the Los Angeles hotel where she was assaulted by Combs in 2016. Jurors heard evidence during the trial that security guards at the hotel accepted a $100,000 cash “bribe” from Combs to cover up the hallway surveillance video showing the assault.
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“If you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to pick Cassie,” Agnifilo said. He described Ventura as an “intense” and “unafraid” woman who made her own decisions and was enthusiastic about her unorthodox sex life with Combs. He even called her “gangster” for having a “burner phone” to hide some of her communications from Combs. “Cassie’s no joke, and that why he loved her,” the lawyer said. “She matched him. She was like him.”
Agnifilo called the couple’s relationship “a great modern love story,” referencing texts they exchanged professing their love for one another. It was a stark statement given Ventura’s four days of gut-wrenching testimony about the many times Combs allegedly beat her during their decade-long relationship. On the witness stand, Ventura described Combs stomping on her face in the back of an Escalade in 2009 and kicking and punching her repeatedly over the years. She said he also threatened to release her intimate videos, harmed people she loved, and stifled her career to keep her under his control.
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As Agnifilo worked Friday to dismantle the government’s case, he claimed prosecutors failed to prove Combs had anything to do with the Molotov cocktail planted in Kid Cudi’s Porsche in 2012 after Combs learned the fellow rapper was dating Ventura. Agnifilo admitted Combs had broken into Kid Cudi’s house to confront him face to face weeks earlier, saying that was more his “style.” He said Combs was a “fighter” who might engage in a “good old fashioned fist fight” but wouldn’t take the “cowardly” step of plotting a car bombing. “There is no evidence that he had anything to do with the Porsche,” Agnifilo said.
When jurors were dismissed for a break, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey, the lead prosecutor on the case, complained to the judge about what she called Agnifilo’s “deeply objectionable” and “wholly inappropriate” commentary. Comey took issue with Agnifilo characterizing some of Combs’ alleged behavior as “misdemeanor” and said it was inappropriate for the lawyer to tell jurors they should question why the government was “charging” Combs with arson. She said that was misleading considering arson is only one of the alleged predicate act supporting the racketeering conspiracy charge.
“I think I’m allowed to be sarcastic,” Agnifilo responded.
When jurors returned, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian told jurors it would be “improper” for them to consider prosecutors’ charging decisions.
Combs, 55, was arrested last September and has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted as charged, he faces a minimum of 15 years and up to life in prison.
Before Agnifilo’s presentation stared, Combs’ family members filed into the courtroom to lend support. Combs’ son Justin arrived wearing a shirt that said “Free Sean Combs,” a violation of courtroom rules. He quickly turned the shirt inside-out to be present in the gallery for Agnifilo’s fiery address.
In her nearly five-hour summation Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik struck a much more serious tone. She told jurors that Combs’ alleged criminal enterprise used a “methodical pattern of violence, coercion and manipulation” to traffic Ventura as well as a more recent ex-girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym “Jane.” Slavik said the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Combs’ inner circle of security staffers and “loyal lieutenants” engaged in crimes including the purported sex trafficking as well as drug distribution, forced labor, arson, kidnapping and witness tampering – all to “satisfy his every desire” and protect his reputation in the process.
But throughout the seven-week trial that included testimony from 34 witnesses, Combs’ deep bench of high-powered lawyers pushed back on the government’s narrative. In her opening statement delivered May 12, defense lawyer Teny Geragos said Combs simply indulged in a “swingers lifestyle” filled with “threesomes” and “kinky sex,” and while those pursuits may not be conventional, they did not amount to sex trafficking.
The defense didn’t shy away from Combs getting physical with Ventura. After the lawyers lost their bid to keep video of Combs’ 2016 assault of Ventura inside a Los Angeles hotel out of the trial altogether, they met it head on, characterizing their client as a “flawed individual” with substance abuse and anger issues. They called it unfortunate that Combs ended up in relationships that were “toxic at times,” but were adamant he didn’t run a decades-long RICO conspiracy that used force, fraud, or coercion to make Ventura and Jane submit to unwanted sex with male escorts that Combs choreographed and recorded while masturbating.
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“You will see that these women are strong, capable, and they were in love with him. You will see that breaches of trust, infidelity, and jealousy are what drove the domestic violence you will hear about. You will see that alcohol and drugs played a major role in his temper. The evidence is going to show you a very flawed individual, but it will not show you a racketeer, a sex trafficker, or somebody transporting for prostitution,” Geragos said.
After prosecutors deliver their final rebuttal argument Friday, the case is expected to go to the jury after judge’s instructions them on the law. They’re expected to begin their deliberations Monday.
