A federal jury on Tuesday delivered a partial verdict in the sex trafficking case against music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, but remains split on the most serious charge — racketeering.
In a note to Judge Arun Subramanian, jurors revealed they had reached a decision on four of the five charges but could not come to an agreement on the first count, racketeering.
“We have reached a verdict on counts 2, 3, 4, and 5. We are unable to reach a verdict on count 1 as we have jurors with unpersuadable opinions on both sides,” the jury wrote.
Judge Subramanian instructed the jury to resume deliberations on the racketeering charge but dismissed them for the day, asking them to return Wednesday.
The racketeering count accuses Combs of leading a criminal enterprise that allegedly forced women into coerced sexual encounters with escorts. If convicted, it carries a potential life sentence.
Alongside racketeering, Combs, 55, faces two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation for the purpose of prostitution.
Combs’s legal troubles intensified after his ex-partner of 11 years, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, filed a civil lawsuit accusing him of repeated abuse — physical, sexual, and emotional. That case was settled out of court for $20 million, but it opened the floodgates to other similar lawsuits and eventually led to criminal charges.
The seven-week trial featured disturbing testimony, with two women, including one identified only as Jane, recounting harrowing experiences at alleged sex parties. Prosecutors backed their case with thousands of pages of digital and financial records, as well as testimonies from former employees who described violent behavior and systemic abuse.
Central to the prosecution’s case is the claim that Combs operated a tightly controlled organization that committed a range of crimes — including forced labor, drug trafficking, bribery, kidnapping, witness tampering, and even arson — to protect his power.
But defense attorney Marc Agnifilo pushed back, arguing that “none of those individuals testified against Combs, nor were they named as co-conspirators.”
He also noted that several prosecution witnesses had been granted immunity.
To convict Combs on racketeering, jurors must unanimously agree that prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he conspired with others in his circle to commit at least two of the eight underlying crimes.
Combs is specifically accused of trafficking Ventura and Jane — both of whom were in long-term relationships with him — using coercion and threats.
Agnifilo acknowledged that Combs had been violent in some of his relationships but insisted it did not amount to racketeering or sex trafficking. He argued Combs was being misrepresented, saying he was a “self-made, successful Black entrepreneur” whose romantic entanglements were “complicated but consensual.”
The defense sought to dismantle the women’s credibility, sometimes even ridiculing their accounts as inconsistent or exaggerated. But prosecutors fiercely countered those claims.
“The defendant never thought that the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud what he had done to them,” said prosecutor Maurene Comey in closing arguments. “That ends in this courtroom. The defendant is not a god.”
“By the time the defendant committed his clearest-cut offenses,” she added, “he was so far past the line he couldn’t even see it.”
The jury, consisting of eight men and four women, will resume deliberations Wednesday on the unresolved racketeering charge.
