Prosecutors have spent the last month trying to convict Sean “Diddy” Combs under an organized crime law usually deployed to go after mobsters and cartels. Trying to stick the landing during closing arguments, a government lawyer used the gangland language of “kingdoms” and “foot soldiers” as she zeroed in on Combs’ alleged racketeering enterprise.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik delivered the closing argument on Thursday (June 26) for the prosecution’s case against Combs, who’s accused of using violence, bribery and blackmail to coerce women into participating in marathon sex shows dubbed “freak-offs.” Combs says his sex parties were entirely consensual.
Combs is charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as “RICO,” a powerful tool that allows prosecutors to tie together various criminal acts into a single “enterprise.” The statute is traditionally used to convict mobsters and cartels, but it’s also been wielded in recent years against alleged sexual predators like R. Kelly and Nxivm founder Keith Raniere.
Slavik focused heavily on Combs’ supposed criminal enterprise as she tried to convince the jury to convict the music mogul of RICO violations on Thursday. She argued that Combs sat atop a large, organized syndicate and described his employees as “loyal lieutenants” and “foot soldiers” — words typically associated with mafia capos who report to gang bosses.
“The defendant was at the top of this enterprise,” Slavik said, according to CNN. “Remember, it’s his kingdom. Everyone was there to serve him.”
To convict Combs under RICO, the jury will have to find that the rapper and his associates committed at least two underlying crimes together. Slavik argued that there’s evidence of Combs’ enterprise engaging in a whole host of illegal acts, including distributing drugs for freak-offs, bribing a hotel security guard with $100,000 for surveillance footage of Combs assaulting his then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, and setting Kid Cudi’s car on fire.
Perhaps most importantly, Slavik said Combs and his employees committed the underlying crime of sex trafficking — which he is charged separately with — by forcing Ventura and another anonymous ex-girlfriend known as “Jane” to participate in the freak-offs.
Slavik told the jury that while both Ventura and Jane may have agreed to some of the freak-offs — dayslong hotel room parties where Combs would masturbate while watching the women have sex with male escorts — many of these events were obviously coerced.
The prosecutor said Combs blackmailed both women into participating in freak-offs by threatening to release their sex tapes. Slavik argued the rapper also plied the women with drugs to make them compliant and manipulated them with money — by paying Jane’s rent and threatening to stop unless she complied, and by controlling Ventura’s music career.
Combs additionally used violence, Slavik said, to traffic the women by making them think they had to participate in freak-offs if they didn’t want to get hurt. The prosecutor pointed to Jane’s testimony that she gave oral sex to an escort in 2024 after Combs dragged her by her hair and choked her, and claims from Ventura and numerous corroborating witnesses that Combs regularly beat her throughout the decade they dated.
“It all comes down to this — what choice did Cassie have in the end?” Slavik said. “Viewed through the entire context of their relationship, Cassie did not have the freedom to make voluntary adult choices.”
Combs’ defense lawyers will get the chance to make their own closing argument to the jury on Friday (June 27), when they’ll likely say Ventura and Jane participated in the freak-offs willingly.
Prosecutors will get a final chance to address the jury with a rebuttal argument after Combs’ lawyers finish on Friday; the judge will then read out lengthy legal instructions. The jury could begin deliberating late on Friday, or when they return from the weekend on Monday (June 30).
