Jury due to begin deliberating in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trial

Ju­rors are set to start de­lib­er­at­ing Mon­day in Sean “Did­dy” Combs ’ sex traf­fick­ing case, weigh­ing charges that could put the hip-hop mogul in prison for life.

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing le­gal in­struc­tions from fed­er­al Judge Arun Sub­ra­man­ian, the ju­ry of eight men and four women will head be­hind closed doors to de­lib­er­ate. They’ll sift through sev­en weeks of some­times graph­ic and emo­tion­al tes­ti­mo­ny about the rap, fash­ion and re­al­i­ty TV im­pre­sario ‘s propen­si­ty for vi­o­lence and his sex­u­al predilec­tions, in­clud­ing drug-fu­eled sex marathons dubbed “ freak-offs ” or “ho­tel nights.”

Combs, 55, has plead­ed not guilty to fed­er­al charges of rack­e­teer­ing con­spir­a­cy, two counts of sex traf­fick­ing — re­lat­ing to two of his ex-girl­friends — and two counts of trans­porta­tion to en­gage in pros­ti­tu­tion for al­leged­ly ar­rang­ing to fly sex work­ers across state lines.

In clos­ing ar­gu­ments last week, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors and Combs’ de­fense team took their last shots at con­vinc­ing ju­rors to con­vict or ac­quit the Gram­my Award-win­ning founder of Bad Boy Records.

“The de­fen­dant used pow­er, vi­o­lence and fear to get what he want­ed,” As­sis­tant U.S. At­tor­ney Christy Slavik said. “He thought that his fame, wealth and pow­er put him above the law.”

Re­lat­ed Sto­ries

De­fense lawyer Marc Ag­nifi­lo coun­tered, “This isn’t about crime. It’s about mon­ey.” He not­ed that one of Combs’ ac­cusers in the crim­i­nal case al­so sued him in civ­il court.

In all, 34 wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied, head­lined by Combs’ for­mer girl­friends Cassie — the R&B singer born Casan­dra Ven­tu­ra — and “ Jane,” who tes­ti­fied un­der a pseu­do­nym. Both women said he of­ten was vi­o­lent to­ward them and forced them in­to hun­dreds of sex­u­al en­coun­ters with paid male sex work­ers.

Ju­rors al­so saw now-in­fa­mous se­cu­ri­ty cam­era video of Combs beat­ing, kick­ing and drag­ging Cassie at a Los An­ge­les ho­tel in 2016 and clips from videos of sex­u­al en­coun­ters.

Combs chose not to tes­ti­fy, and his lawyers didn’t call any wit­ness­es in their de­fense case. His at­tor­neys elect­ed in­stead to chal­lenge the ac­cusers’ cred­i­bil­i­ty dur­ing lengthy cross-ex­am­i­na­tion ques­tion­ing.

The de­fense has ac­knowl­edged that Combs veered in­to vi­o­lence, but his lawyers main­tain that the sex acts were con­sen­su­al. They con­tend that pros­e­cu­tors are in­trud­ing in Combs’ per­son­al life and that he’s done noth­ing to war­rant the charges against him.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LAR­RY NEUMEIS­TER

NEW YORK (AP)