Rap superstar Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs forced women to take part in drug-fuelled sex parties which went on for days while he filmed them, a court heard yesterday.
For decades, the music mogul ran a ‘criminal enterprise’ built around trafficking victims, with his ‘inner circle’ helping to cover up his offences, prosecutors told the opening of his trial in New York.
He once stamped on a girlfriend’s head, dangled one woman from a balcony and allegedly tried to set fire to another man’s car, it was claimed.
The musician and businessman ‘viciously attacked’ women who resisted taking part in the sex parties, known as ‘Freak Offs’, or otherwise upset him, jurors were told.
In a bombshell admission, Combs’s lawyers told the court he had beaten up some of his girlfriends – but insisted he was not guilty of sex trafficking.
They admitted he was ‘kinky’ and that his conduct had been ‘horrible, dehumanising and violent’, but claimed it was all driven by jealousy and too many drugs.
Combs, 55, was once worth nearly $1billion and had a string of hits on his Bad Boy Records label in the 1990s, including his 1997 chart-topper with singer Faith Evans, I’ll Be Missing You.
But in September last year, he was arrested – months after an ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, sued him for sexual assault in a civil case.
U.S. Marshalls sit behind Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs as he sits at the defence table alongside lawyer Brian Steel in the courtroom during his sex trafficking trial in New York City, New York, U.S., May 9, 2025 in this courtroom sketch
A supporter of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs enters a federal courthouse as Combs’ trial for sex trafficking, racketeering, and prostitution charges continues in New York, New York, USA, 9 May 2025
Combs’s downfall was hastened by the release of a devastating video of him beating Ms Ventura in the corridor of a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.
The video, which was first broadcast by CNN last May, was played in full to the trial and Ms Ventura, 38, who is heavily pregnant, is expected to testify.
Combs denies racketeering conspiracy, two charges of sex trafficking and two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution. He faces life in jail if convicted.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson said the trial would hear testimony from victims who ‘will tell you about some of the most painful experiences of their lives. The days they spent in hotel rooms, high on drugs, dressed in costumes to perform the defendant’s sexual fantasies’.
Opening the case, she told Manhattan Federal Court: ‘This is Sean Combs. 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.
‘During this trial, you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant’s crimes. But he didn’t do it alone, he had an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees who helped him commit crimes and helped him cover them up.
‘Kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery and obstruction. These are just some of the crimes the defendant and his inner circle committed again and again. You’re going to hear about all of them during this trial.’
Prosecutors described a horrific claim made by Ms Ventura, who said she was left ‘feeling like she was choking’ when Combs allegedly made an escort urinate in her mouth during a ‘Freak Off’.
Ms Johnson also told the court about an incident where the rapper was ‘on the hunt’ for Ms Ventura because she was seeing another man.
The prosecutor said: ‘When he finally found her, he did what he had done countless times before: he beat her brutally. Kicking her in the back and flinging her around like a rag doll. All of that violence was not enough though.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs attends Day 1 of 2023 Invest Fest at Georgia World Congress Center on August 26, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia
A video from a hotel is shown as prosecutor Christy Slavik questions Israel Florez, a former security guard, at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trial in New York City, New York, U.S., May 12, 2025 in this courtroom sketch
‘The defendant had to make sure he had control over Cassie once again so he threatened her. The defendant told Cassie that if she defied him again, he’d publicly release the video of her having sex with a male escort he kept as blackmail. Souvenirs of the most humiliating nights of her life.’
But Combs’s lawyer Teny Geragos countered that prosecutors were trying to twist the star’s romantic relationships into a racketeering and sex trafficking case.
‘Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,’ she said in her opening statement.
Ms Geragos accused the alleged victims of filing lawsuits against Combs as a ‘money grab’.
‘Ask yourself why are they making this allegation now? What is their motive? For many of them, the answer is simple: money,’ she told jurors.
The prosecution’s first witness was Los Angeles police officer Israel Florez, who in 2016 was a security guard at the InterContinental Hotel in LA when the CCTV of the assault on Ms Ventura was filmed.
He said he was called to help a ‘woman in distress’ on the sixth floor, where he found Cassie sitting in the corner covering her face while Combs was slouched in a chair wearing just a towel with a ‘devilish’ look on his face.
‘She was scared,’ Mr Florez added. ‘She was in the corner, hood on, covered up. I couldn’t see her face, she was pretty much in the corner.’
Mr Florez also told the court he used his phone to film the assault video from the hotel security monitor to show his wife.
‘If I had told my wife what had happened, she wouldn’t have believed me,’ he said.
Male escort Daniel Phillip, 41, was the second witness to give evidence. He described in graphic detail how he would take part in ‘Freak Off’ parties with Ms Ventura and Diddy that could last for up to ten hours.
He told the court he was paid up to £4,500 for the parties, and described how he once had sex with Ms Ventura while Diddy watched on in disguise.
Mr Phillip recalled another occasion when Combs had called Ms Ventura from another room – but when she told him to wait a second, Combs came out and Mr Phillip says he saw a liquor bottle fly past her.
People wait on the first day in the trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges at U.S. court in Manhattan, in New York City, U.S., May 12, 2025
The trial continues to fascinate the entire world, and has left New Yorkers enraptured
During the hearing, six of Combs’s children could be seen sitting nervously in the public gallery two rows back from the front. They included his twin daughters D’Lila and Jessie, daughter Chance and his sons King and Justin.
Combs’s mother Janice sat in the middle of them wearing a black blazer with sunglasses and bright orange hair.
The rapper walked in wearing a crew neck, light grey sweater and light grey trousers. He smiled at his family and made a heart symbol with his hands before hugging his lawyers and shaking the hands of his jury consultant, Linda Moreno.
Before sitting down, Combs blew one of his sons a kiss.
Over the course of the two-month trial, jurors are expected to hear testimony from three or possibly four of the rapper’s female accusers, as well as former employees who prosecutors say helped to arrange and cover up his actions.
Just selecting the jury caused a headache after the prosecution and defence both struck out a string of potential jurors.
Combs’s lead counsel, Marc Agnifilo, claimed that the prosecution’s veto of potential jurors was discriminatory because seven out of the nine people they rejected were black.
But Judge Arun Subramanian rejected the claim, saying prosecutor Maurene Comey had given ‘race-neutral reasons’ to explain each rejection.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s son King Combs (R) and his mother Janice Combs, depart federal court in New York on May 12, 2025
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s son, Justin Combs, departs federal court in New York on May 12, 2025
Janice Combs (L), mother of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, and King Combs (R), son of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, exit a federal courthouse as the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial for sex trafficking, racketeering, and prostitution charges continues in New York, New York, USA, 12 May 2025
About 150 potential jurors were vetted before the final 18 were selected, including six reserves. They will remain anonymous, but include an investment analyst, a massage therapist, a scientist, an architect and a United Nations worker.
Born in New York and raised by a single mother, Combs went on to live in mansions in Miami and LA and host lavish parties for the cultural elite in destinations such as the Hamptons and Saint-Tropez in France.
Among the artists he helped launch were Mary J Blige, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez, whom Combs once dated.
The trial continues.
