Strip away the patina of celebrity gossip and frippery and the Sean Combs trial becomes a lens through which to look at prosecutorial overreach and abuse of RICO statutes in an era of collapsing rule of law.
The New Yorker summed up what the prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Southern District of New York (SDNY) were trying to do:
Emily Johnson, a U.S. Attorney, took fifty minutes to deliver her opening statement. She sought to kill the celebrity in the jury’s mind:
“To the public, he was Puff Daddy, or Diddy. A cultural icon, a businessman—larger than life. But there was another side to him, a side that ran a criminal enterprise.”
The RICO statutes (named for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) conjure the Mafia, a highly orchestrated and highly mythologized network that carries out dastardly crimes. How to frame the bon vivant as a felon?
The vernacular of Combs’s activities comes across as kinky, not immediately nefarious. During the trial, jurors watched clips of what Combs has described as “freak-offs,” voyeuristic sessions in which he would allegedly force women, who were under the influence of drugs, to have sex with other men in his presence.
When allegations of arson, rape, and abuse were introduced, particularly as described by two key witnesses, Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym of Jane, the jury felt the gravity.
But the charges required proving the high standard of conspiracy. Johnson’s task was to prepare the jury to interpret, for example, the use of a company card to buy baby oil, or a flight for an escort, as the predicate offense warranting life in prison.
The argument was that Combs’s employees, following his orders, facilitated a pattern of coercion and violence that far exceeded typical celebrity shenanigans.
“He called himself the king and expected to be treated like one,” Johnson said.
The defense case:
Geragos’s daughter, Teny, another member of the defense team, followed the prosecutors, whom she depicted as prudes and zealots.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case,” she said.
The defense argued that the racketeering and trafficking charges—RICO offenses—introduced a standard of proof that the prosecution could not possibly meet.
Yes, Diddy cultivated unorthodox sexual tastes. Yes, Diddy took drugs. Yes, Diddy had a propensity to commit acts of domestic violence.
Had the prosecution charged Combs with domestic violence, he would have expressed remorse and accepted his punishment.
But the video in the hotel hallway of Ventura and Combs, Teny Geragos argued, showed a squabble, not sex trafficking.
The defense, with its framing, wanted to awaken any latent unease that a juror—an older one, perhaps—might feel toward the preceding years of correction between the sexes.
“Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” Geragos said.
The idea was that cultural shifts could not pollute a legal line of reasoning. Geragos molded Combs’s relationships with Ventura and Jane into nasty little afternoon soaps: the passionate meeting, the descent into addictive toxicity, infidelity and violence on both sides, the separation, and, ex post facto, the financial revenge.
Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who crafted a business empire around his personal brand, was convicted on Wednesday of transporting prostitutes to participate in his drug-fueled sex marathons, but acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, the most serious charges against him.
Though Mr. Combs, 55, still faces a potential sentence of as much as 20 years in prison, he and his lawyers were jubilant after the acquittals on the more severe charges in an indictment that accused the famed producer of coercing women into unwanted sex with male prostitutes, aided by a team of pliant employees.
Post-trial interviews with an alternate juror reveal where the defense ‘poked holes’ in the SDNY’s RICO case.
More importantly, they were unable to prove their allegations that Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ various business constituted a criminal conspiracy.
Joey Jackson, proud graduate of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, pointed out one glaring omission from the prosecutor’s case for CNN:
“When you look at the issue of RICO and racketeering, what you generally look at are mob bosses who have these underbosses who are furthering (a) criminal enterprise,” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said.
In Combs’ case, prosecutors claimed he and members of his inner circle had engaged in crimes involving kidnapping, arson, forced labor, bribery and sex trafficking, among others. For a conviction, jurors would have needed to find Combs and at least one other person had agreed to commit at least two relevant acts within a 10-year window.
But jurors never heard any direct testimony from many of the people who prosecutors claimed participated in the enterprise. That’s unusual for a racketeering trial, Jackson said.
Typically, “you have one of those mob bosses or the underbosses come testify saying, ‘He, the one sitting right there, told me to engage in an arson, told me to bribe this one, extort this other person, get money from the other, pass drugs here.’ You didn’t have that, nor did you have other people besides (Combs) sitting at that table,” Jackson said.
Why did prosecutors go for RICO charges against Puff Daddy? The NYT explained:
The federal law — the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO — was once seldom used, but it and state racketeering laws have been central to recent cases against R. Kelly, Young Thug, Wall Street executives, street gang members and President Trump.
The charge allows prosecutors to present a sweeping narrative that includes accusations about a defendant’s misdeeds that could stretch back decades, sometimes long past the statute of limitations.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, the racketeering statute increasingly has been used by federal attorneys to prosecute a series of high-profile men accused of sexual abuse.
Speaking of President Trump, he’s had a habit of inserting himself into cases like this:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 9, 2025
Which brings us to the broader political context. Wikipedia paints a chaotic picture of the last seven months at the US Attorney’s office of the SDNY:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 9, 2025
Much of that chaos was due to Trump’s killing the SDNY’s case against New York Mayor Eric Adams which led to the resignation of acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and several other prosecutors.
The Guardian summed up the quids and pro quos and whatnots of the Adams & Trump transaction:
a top official at the justice department ordered the acting US attorney in the southern district of New York to stop prosecuting Adams for allegedly accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources.
The move was the latest stop in a dramatic term for America’s highest-profile mayor, which has seen the former cop elected as a Democrat but then drift rightwards, especially after Trump was elected and Adams faced prosecution. In heavily Democratic New York, Adams is now seen as an ally to Trump and has even reportedly flirted with the idea of becoming a Republican.
Since being indicted in September, Adams has made regular overtures to Trump, including visiting him at his resort in Florida and skipping scheduled Martin Luther King Jr Day events in the city to attend Trump’s inauguration.
Some observers said Adams was trying to obtain a pardon from Trump and ignoring his responsibilities as mayor. Adams claimed he has not discussed his legal case with Trump and that he had been talking with the president to help the city.
Whatever Adams’s intentions were, Trump now appears to have helped him and, in doing so, added to the perception he will ignore the rule of law when it benefits him politically.
Quite a whipsaw for the #MeToo generation PMC prosecutors at the SDNY who had notched up quite a collection of high-profile scalps under “the historic leadership” of Damian Williams including Ghislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried, and U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, and expected to add Adams and Combs to their trophy collection.
Now those who didn’t resign over the Adams case find themselves working for former Goldman Sachs M&A attorney Jay Clayton, who headed up the SEC during Trump’s first term.
Talk about The Empire Strikes Back.
But it’s hard to sympathize with overreaching prosecutors, especially members of what The Black Agenda Report calls the Black Misleadership Class like Williams when they re-enact the infamous Mann Act persecution of Black icons Chuck Berry and Jack Johnson.
Interestingly, per the PBS article linked above, the Mann Act itself was crafted by “Progressive Era Reformers” who “did not distinguish between sexually active women and prostitutes.”
Kind of brings to mind the Combs’ Defense team’s characterization of the prosecution as “prudes and zealots.”
It’s also a tidy tie-up that cast-off Trump ally and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani gained fame using RICO against the “Mafia Commission” and found himself at the wrong end of a RICO prosecution in 2023.
If I didn’t fear we’re witnessing the end of the American Constitutional Republic, I’d wrap with some reassuring pablum about the pendulum swinging back and forth.
As is, I feel trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of a corrupt and overreaching PMC class and a corrupt and overpowering Trump.
In a future coffee break I will get into Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fanni Willis and her liberal use of RICO statutes against everyone from cheating teachers, Atlanta’s most famous rapper, Cop City protestors, and Trump himself.
I didn’t even touch the extortion/blackmail angle. As any good citizen does, I follow the lead of my government in these matters and if Jeffrey Epstein is a big “move along, nothing to see here” than I’m sure P. Diddy, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., or maybe it’s Puff Daddy, the man from U.N.C.L.E., is equally verboten.
Ian Welsh has an interesting take on the reason for Trump’s Epstein reversal: “Trump needs leverage. I suspect he’s decided to use the leverage on hand.”
Thereby explaining the inexplicable. Wonder if the Russians and Chinese have their diamond encrusted copies yet?
I saw that. Hard to argue.
Thank you very much!
Eagerly awaiting your Georgia entry.
glad to hear it. Fanni Willis is a remarkable prosecutor.
My impression is that “driving while black” remains a “crime” in much of the USA, as the police get to make the call. The prosecution’s attempt to make “having an orgy while black” a criminal offense was a miserable failure thanks to trial by jury.
Thanks. Some celebrity trials get a lot of coverage. Thanks for this analysis.
I compare the quantity of coverage for celebrity trials to coverage for three recent trials/events:
murder of actor Johnny Wactor while vandalizing his car,
shooting event with Luigi Mangione,
trial/re-election for political activist David Hogg.
These are all different from one another, none is my hero, and all are different from the Sean Combs trial. Yet, I wish our evening news had more about them and less about celebrity divorces.