Sean 'Diddy' Combs Found Not Guilty of Sex Trafficking

Even with a partial conviction, the result is something of a victory for Mr. Combs, who was elated in court. He had faced a possible life sentence had he been convicted of other counts in the case. He could be sentenced up to a maximum of 20 years in prison on the two transportation for prostitution charges — 10 years for each count — but the final sentence will be up to a judge.

Here’s what else to know:

• Combs’s reaction: After the verdict was read, Mr. Combs put his hands together and mouthed “thank you, thank you” at the jurors. Later, he dropped to his knees, apparently in prayer, and started a round of applause in court. His supporters and family began clapping and whistling for his legal team, who embraced each other.

• Possible release: A defense lawyer immediately asked the judge to release Mr. Combs from jail to await sentencing now that he no longer faces sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. The judge said he would hear arguments on the question before ruling.

• The jury: The racially diverse panel of eight men and four women, ranging in age from 30 to 74, sent several notes to the judge during deliberations, both asking for evidence and expressing concern about one juror. Read more >

• Racketeering: Jurors said on Tuesday that there were “unpersuadable opinions on both sides” in regard to the racketeering count, and on Wednesday, they announced they had decided to find Mr. Combs not guilty of the charge. Racketeering law was once intended to combat the Mafia but has become central in cases against R. Kelly, Young Thug, Wall Street executives, gang members and President Trump. Read more >

• Prosecution’s case: Mr. Combs was portrayed as the head of a criminal enterprise who “used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted” in the government’s closing argument. A prosecutor said Mr. Combs used violence, financial control and threats to manipulate his girlfriends into physically taxing sex sessions with hired men, while he masturbated and filmed. Read more >

• Defense’s case: In its closing argument, Mr. Combs’s defense team told jurors that the government’s evidence contradicted its case. It acknowledged that Mr. Combs had engaged in domestic violence and drug use, but argued that the accusation that Mr. Combs was a sex trafficker or criminal ringleader was “badly exaggerated.” Read more >

The Mann Act was passed in 1910 to prohibit the interstate or foreign transportation of an individual with the intention of engaging them in prostitution or any sexual activity. Initially referred to as the “White-Slave Traffic Act,” the federal statute came at a time when the United States saw rapid changes after the Industrial Revolution, including urbanization and immigration as young, single women moved to cities.

As young women experienced greater sexual freedom, public anxiety grew over fear that there existed a “white slavery” plague in which innocent girls were drugged and smuggled across the country to engage in sexual activity.

The law soon became a way for federal prosecutors to criminalize many forms of consensual sexual activity, including premarital, extramarital and interracial sexual relationships that involved interstate travel.

Jack Johnson, the Black heavyweight boxing champion, was first prosecuted under the Mann Act in 1912 for abducting a 19-year-old woman he had a relationship with. She refused to testify, dooming the case, and later married him. The following year, an all-white jury convicted Mr. Johnson for transporting a different woman across state lines “for immoral purposes.” Mr. Johnson had been a lover of that woman, who was white and had worked as a prostitute. President Trump pardoned Mr. Johnson posthumously in 2018.

The Mann Act has also been used a tool for political persecution, targeting notable figures like the actor Charlie Chaplin, who was ultimately acquitted, and the singer Chuck Berry, who served more than a year in federal prison.

Mr. Combs’s lawyers filed a motion in February to seek the dismissal of one of the sex-trafficking charges, arguing that he was being unfairly prosecuted based on his race. They pointed to the law’s “racist origins” and argued that it was being used against a “prominent Black man.”

The act has been amended over the years to protect minors against child pornography, include the transportation of men in its coverage and address its misuse against consensual sex. A 1986 amendment replaced “immoral purpose” with “any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.”

Advocacy groups had been closely following the deliberations, and they swiftly reacted to the verdict. Most expressed disappointment while praising the two former girlfriends of Mr. Combs’s — Casandra Ventura and a woman known in court as “Jane” — who came forward to tell their stories in often excruciating and lurid detail. Both testified that Mr. Combs had used violence and financial leverage to coerce them into having sex with male escorts.

Arisha Hatch, the interim executive director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, condemned the verdict as “a stain on a criminal justice system that for decades has failed to hold accountable abusers like Diddy.” She called it “an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.”

“This is a decisive moment for our justice system,” Ms. Hatch said, “one which threatens to undo the sacrifice of courageous survivors who stepped forward to share their stories in this trial.”

Scott Berkowitz, the founder and president of RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, was more circumspect, calling the verdict “a complex reflection of how survivors of sexual violence can find justice.”

“Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo called the relationship between Sean Combs and Cassie Ventura a ‘great modern love story,’” Mr. Berkowitz said. “There’s nothing modern or great about abusing your partner, and it certainly isn’t an expression of love.”

“The details of Combs’s crimes were shocking and, in many ways, uncommon,” Mr. Berkowitz added. “But the experiences of those he victimized, and the courage that they showed in their testimony, are familiar to millions of survivors.”

Fatima Goss Graves, the head of the National Women’s Law Center, focused in a statement on extolling what she said was “extraordinary bravery” from the “inspiring survivors who chose to tell their stories.”

“This is not just about Sean Combs,” Ms. Graves said. “We know that abuse involves networks and enablers who allow violence to occur and continue, which maintains a culture of silence and shame. And long after the stories of Sean Combs’s abuse fades from public memory, it will be up to all of us to support survivors and demand that they have justice and healing.”

Mr. Combs’s mother, Janice Combs, has been the most visible attendee, perhaps purposely so. She arrived in a variety of wigs and eye-catching items like leopard-print pants or fur jackets and fishnet stockings; Louis Vuitton and Chanel handbags completed her ensembles. Her “maximal, diamonds-and-furs glamour,” as The Washington Post put it, stood in contrast to the neutral, muted sweaters her son wore as part of a limited trial wardrobe permitted by the judge.

When Mr. Combs was on trial in 2001 over a nightclub shooting that left three people injured, his mother was there every day, sometimes bringing her son a brown-bag lunch. (He was acquitted of gun possession and bribery charges in that trial.) At 84, Ms. Combs is still a near-daily presence at court.

In October, a few weeks after her son’s arrest, Ms. Combs made a statement calling the case against him “a public lynching” and saying “it is heartbreaking to see my son judged not for the truth, but for a narrative created out of lies.”

Mr. Combs’s three adult sons, Justin Combs, Christian Combs and Quincy Brown, have also frequently been in attendance, sitting beside the matriarch in a second-row bench. Christian, also known as King, could sometimes be seen putting an arm around Mrs. Combs’s shoulders. Last week, he released a song with Ye, the rapper and professional provocateur formerly known as Kanye West, called “Diddy Free,” in which he raps about not being able to sleep until he sees his father free.

Mr. Combs’s sister, Keisha, who long worked at Mr. Combs’s record company, Bad Boy, has also been a regular presence.

Mr. Combs’s three teenage daughters — Chance, D’Lila and Jessie — were present for the first two days of the trial, then not seen again until closing arguments.

Three of the mothers of Mr. Combs’s children have sometimes been present: Misa Hylton, the mother of Justin, his oldest son; Sarah Chapman, Chance’s mother; and Dana Tran, the mother of his youngest child, an infant daughter named Love.

When Mr. Combs had turned around in his seat at the counsel table to see family in attendance, he often made a heart sign with his hands; at least once, he blew a kiss to his mother.

Before the verdict was read, Mr. Combs walked into the courtroom and mouthed “We got this” to his family. When the first “not guilty” racketeering count was read, a family member gasped. As the “not guilty” verdicts for the sex-trafficking counts came, members of his family and his legal team began to cry. When the full verdict had been read, Mr. Combs turned to his family and mouthed “I’m going home.” That will be determined by the judge later this afternoon.

Seated with the Combs family each day was Charlucci Finney, who met Mr. Combs through the music industry decades ago and calls himself the mogul’s “godbrother,” and sometimes speaks to the news media as a proxy.

Mr. Combs’s most famous supporter made perhaps the briefest appearance. On June 13, Ye entered the courthouse at about 11:20 a.m., causing a commotion that rippled throughout the building. But he was not able to enter the courtroom, since he was not on the approved list for the day, a document kept by court officers that includes reporters and members of the public who arrive early.

In an overflow room on the 23rd floor, the rap star watched some of the day’s proceedings with Christian Combs and Mr. Finney before throngs of onlookers found him. Ye then took an elevator to the ground floor and climbed into a black sedan shortly before noon that day.

Anusha Bayya and Olivia Bensimon contributed reporting.

On Wednesday, the jury announced that it found Mr. Combs not guilty of the most serious charges against him, sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, while convicting him of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

During 28 days of often wrenching testimony, the jurors were punctual, attentive and, for the most part, impassive.

Jurors heard two of Mr. Combs’s former girlfriends testify about years of sexual encounters with male prostitutes known as “freak-offs” and “hotel nights,” some of which were shown on video. They listened to testimony from former personal assistants, law enforcement officials and a hotel security officer who explained a $100,000 cash payment for incriminating video footage of a hotel assault by Mr. Combs.

In the end, however, the jurors were not persuaded that Mr. Combs had forced two former girlfriends through violence and coercion to have sex with male prostitutes against their will, the core argument of the sex-trafficking charges against him. Neither were they convinced that Mr. Combs and his employees had formed a criminal racketeering enterprise that agreed to commit a number of crimes over the course of a decade, including bribery, arson, sex-trafficking and drug distribution.

When the jurors began deliberating on Monday, they quickly raised concerns to Judge Arun Subramanian, who had sworn them in after a weeklong selection process in May.

About one hour into deliberations, the foreperson reported an issue with one juror, identified as No. 25, “who we are concerned cannot follow your honor’s instructions.” Eleven hours later, the jury said it had reached a verdict on four counts but could not on a racketeering charge because of “unpersuadable opinions on both sides.”

In both cases, the judge told the jury to keep deliberating.

Two weeks ago, Judge Subramanian dismissed a juror after finding that he had given inconsistent answers about his residence, raising concerns that he might have been angling for a role in the case.

Mr. Combs’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that it would unfairly affect their client if that juror, a state corrections department employee who is a Black man, were removed. The original panel had at least two Black women and two Black men; the alternate who replaced the juror was a white man.

During the trial, Mr. Combs was reprimanded by the judge after he nodded vigorously at the panel when his lawyers cross-examined a witness about an violent incident that she said had taken place on a balcony. The judge called Mr. Combs’s behavior “absolutely unacceptable.” At another point, Mr. Combs smiled and mouthed “cold” to a juror who was rubbing his arms; the juror nodded and smiled back.

During jury selection, jurors were asked about their occupations and the types of music they listened to. Many said they enjoyed classical music, rock and jazz, while a few mentioned they liked R&B and hip-hop.

Some jurors have jobs in finance, health care, and social services. There is also a massage therapist, a deli clerk, a dietary aide at a nursing home and a retired Verizon field technician.

Many of the jurors said during voir dire that they were aware of the charges against Mr. Combs and had seen a video of Mr. Combs assaulting his girlfriend, the singer Cassie, at an InterContinental Hotel in March 2016, which CNN aired in 2024. Still, they assured the judge that they could deliver a verdict based on the facts of the case.

“They’re allegations, right?” one male juror said during questioning in May. “I’m old enough to have heard a lot of stories before trial, and then when the evidence is actually presented, things are, you know — the truth comes out.”