Federal prosecutors rested their case at Sean Combs’s sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial on Tuesday, and the music mogul announced that he would not be testifying in the case.
After six weeks of letting his lawyers speak for him, the mogul stood up at the defense table and addressed the court, out of the presence of jurors.
Asked by the judge, Arun Subramanian, how he was doing, Mr. Combs said, “I’m doing great, how are you, your honor?” and quickly added, “I wanted to tell you, thank you, you’re doing an excellent job.”
Mr. Combs, wearing a brown sweater and a white collared shirt, told the judge he had discussed the issue “thoroughly” with his lawyers, then confirmed that he had decided not to testify.
“That is solely my decision,” Mr. Combs said, leaning in to speak into the microphone with his hands resting on the defense table. He clarified that the decision was made “with my lawyers.”
The defense then began to present its case after weeks of evidence about drug-fueled sex marathons with male escorts that prosecutors say Mr. Combs coerced two women into over a period of years.
Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his lawyers have vehemently disputed the government’s depiction of him as the leader of a criminal conspiracy responsible for crimes across two decades. They have argued that the women were willing participants in the sexual encounters during yearslong romantic relationships with him.
Over 28 days of testimony at Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, the prosecution called a slate of witnesses who observed firsthand the relationships between Mr. Combs and the women at the core of the sex-trafficking case: Casandra Ventura and a woman known by the pseudonym Jane. Seeking to establish a pattern of criminal activity by Mr. Combs and an inner circle of employees, prosecutors have walked the jury through allegations of kidnapping, arson, drug violations and forced labor.
After making an argument for the court to enter an acquittal on the charges — a routine effort at this stage of a trial — the defense took over. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have signaled that they will be brief, focusing on reading evidence rather than calling witnesses to testify.
But the bulk of the defense’s case has already been made, during vigorous cross-examination of nearly all of the 34 witnesses called by the prosecution. Mr. Combs’s team of lawyers grilled Ms. Ventura and Jane at length, seized on inconsistencies in the accounts of witnesses and elicited testimony in which former employees expressed continued admiration for Mr. Combs.
Seated in between his lawyers in the courtroom, Mr. Combs has been an active member of his own defense team, writing messages on sticky notes and appearing deeply engaged with the evidence. When his lawyers took over questioning from the government, he tended to become more animated, at times nodding emphatically — a habit that once drew a rebuke from the judge after he did so while looking at the jury.
The defense has focused on messages from the women in which they conveyed enthusiasm for the sex with escorts, known to Ms. Ventura as “freak-offs” and to Jane as “hotel nights.”
On Tuesday, Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, spent hours combing through Jane’s messages as she cross-examined the final government witness, Joseph Cerciello, a federal agent who reviewed thousands of pages of records in the case.
“Tonight was amazing,” Jane texted a man who had been flown in for a hotel night in 2023. “Thank you for always bringing that good energy.”
During her testimony, Jane said that she participated in the hotel nights to please her partner, but over time, they made her feel manipulated and violated. She testified that she eventually decided to choose some of the men she had sex with in front of Mr. Combs to assert some control over her situation, and wrote them positive messages because she did not want them to be left feeling “used.”
Much of the cross-examination of Mr. Cerciello consisted of a recitation of similar texts, many of them sexually explicit or sprinkled with emojis. In one exchange with Mr. Combs from later in 2023, Jane took the lead in arranging another night with the same escort, and Ms. Geragos described a collection of accompanying emojis she sent, including a “smirk” face, a “kissy” face, an eggplant, and a “tongue out” face.
“Baby, all is set,” she texted Mr. Combs about the plan, along with heart emojis.
Jane’s relationship with Mr. Combs lasted until his arrest in 2024. When Ms. Ventura sued him in November 2023, the couple briefly broke up amid tensions over the hotel nights. But they soon got back together and she resumed having sex with escorts. As scrutiny of Mr. Combs was building, the encounters took place at their homes instead of hotels, Jane testified.
On Tuesday, the defense played several clips from a sexual encounter between Jane and an escort in summer 2024, which jurors watched on private screens and listened to on headphones. The video dates back to when the government was deep in its criminal investigation into Mr. Combs. He was arrested seven weeks later.
In the final week of their case, prosecutors also focused on showing the role they say Mr. Combs’s employees played in setting up hotel nights, presenting messages in which assistants discussed finding hotel rooms, dropping off supplies such as baby oil and lubricant, and ensuring the presence of a “Gucci bag,” which witnesses said was used to hold drugs.
While arguing for her client’s acquittal on Tuesday afternoon, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Alexandra Shapiro, said the government had failed to prove that those employees had participated in a racketeering conspiracy responsible for sex trafficking Ms. Ventura and Jane. She said the employees had no reason to believe the sex in hotel rooms was anything but consensual.
“The gist of the evidence here about these other employees is that they ran personal errands, they engaged in damage control for Mr. Combs,” she said.
Seeking to rebut the sex-trafficking charges, Ms. Shapiro argued that Mr. Combs was not given reason to believe that the women were not participating voluntarily. After an extensive legal argument from the defense, the judge said he would rule on the request for acquittal at a later time.
The prosecution’s case has narrowed some during the trial. Another former girlfriend of Mr. Combs, who prosecutors had said would testify about sexual coercion, did not appear as a witness. Nor did another woman who was referred to in court as alleged “Victim-5” and whom the defense described as another girlfriend.
Anusha Bayya and Olivia Bensimon contributed reporting.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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