Defense for Sean 'Diddy' Combs: Having an alternative sex life not a crime

Sean "Diddy" Combs carried on an alternative sex life — he enjoyed taking drugs and watching other men have sex with his girlfriends while he recorded the encounters, his defense lawyer said Friday during closing arguments in the hip-hop mogul's federal sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial.

"It’s a lifestyle. You'll want to call it swingers, you'll want to call it threesomes, whatever you want to call it, that's what it is," defense attorney Marc Agnifilo told the jury.

Manhattan federal prosecutors spent six weeks putting 34 witnesses on the stand to prove that Combs, who founded the Sean John fashion brand and Bad Boy Records, used the staff at his businesses to coerce two women with whom he was involved to have sex with multiple male escorts during drug-fueled marathon sex sessions.

Prosecutors allege he committed multiple crimes — arson, kidnapping, forced labor, witness tampering, bribery, drug distribution and other infractions — in concert with his security staff, personal assistants and chief of staff to force the women to continue performing.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transporting for the purpose of prostitution.

Federal agents raided his Los Angeles and Miami homes in 2024, confiscating drugs, guns and cases and cases of baby oil and Astroglide, a personal lubricant.

"Boxes and boxes of Astroglide taken off the streets. Woo hoo, I feel better already." Agnifilo said sarcastically. "Boxes of Astroglide in the garage. The streets of America are safe from Astroglide ... Way to go, fellas."

Yes, Agnifilo acknowledged to the jury, his client had an addiction to painkillers and had his staff and girlfriends fly a Gucci clutch with cocaine, mushrooms, ecstasy, Xanax and other drugs to Los Angeles, Miami, Turks and Caicos, New York and other places, but it was all for personal use.

Combs is an accomplished Black businessman, Agnifilo continued, who built several successful companies but went through a host of personal assistants who burned out after a couple of years from the grueling hours and high demands.

"People didn't always like him," the defense lawyer said. "But they grew, and he was important to them, and it was real, and it was diverse."

Agnifilo accused federal prosecutors of overreaching and targeting Combs' personal life when their investigation turned up nothing criminal about his businesses.

"They go into the man's most private life," Agnifilo said. "Where's the crime scene? The crime scene is your private sex life. That's the crime scene. Nobody invited the government. Nobody went to the police."

The investigation began in the fall of 2023, Agnifilo said in his closing, after former pop singer Casandra Ventura sued Combs for sex trafficking and rape. Combs settled the suit days later for $20 million after a surveillance tape aired on CNN allegedly showed him dressed only in socks and a towel beating and kicking her in the elevator bank of the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles. She won another $10 million settlement from the hotel.

The lawyer said that it was clearly domestic violence and Combs "owns" his behavior in the video.

"If he was charged with domestic violence, we wouldn't all be here having a trial, because he would have pled guilty because he did that," Agnifilo said. "He did not do the things he's charged with. He didn't commit racketeering. He just didn't. He didn't commit racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He didn't kidnap anybody. He didn't obstruct justice, he didn't bribe anyone."

Ventura, who was 21 when she started dating a 37-year-old Combs, enjoyed the sex and carried on affairs with other men as she dated, including rapper Kid Cudi, Agnifilo told the jury.

Another woman who testified under the pseudonym "Jane" to protect her identity said she initially enjoyed sex sessions with the rap producer and other men because they breaking a taboo.

The women both testified that eventually, their relationship with Combs became nothing but a series of debauched, dayslong sex marathons in dim hotel suites having sex with strange men while high on drugs.

Prosecutors said Combs often threatened to release private video to the public showing them during the sex sessions, but Agnifilo said that he would never actually release the video because of the damage to his own reputation.

Lead prosecutor Maurene Comey said in her rebuttal statement that Combs had gotten away with it for years because he thought he was above everyone else.

"In his mind, he was untouchable, a god among men," she said. "The defendant is not a god. He is a person, and in this court, he stands equal before the law. Overwhelming evidence proves his guilt. It is time to hold him accountable."