Federal prosecutors have announced them Against Sean “Didi” Combs With a sensation last year.
They said this was not just a case of celebrities who behave badly. It was a criminal institution, for years, hiding music and fashion pole crimes.
It was a bold maneuver, and it used a strategy usually dedicated to crime cases to trial the myth of music due to alleged violence, threats and bonuses.
But in the end, The jury hears the case in Manhattan He did not buy it.
After two days of deliberations, the jury found safety guilty on only two charges of transportation for prostitution that includes her ex -boyfriend, Cassi Ventura and a second woman who was determined as a gene in a testimony, as well as those working in commercial sex.
The jury found that safety is not guilty of the most dangerous crimes: sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; And blackmail, which carried the sentence of life imprisonment.
“This” victory “for mothers. He was facing a life in prison if he was convicted [racketeering] Fees. “Instead, he is likely to spend a few years in prison and return to his commercial empire,” said David Ring, a lawyer who represents the victims of sexual assault on some prominent cases that have not been discovered in the trial.
Complex
The experiment was characterized by shocking descriptions to abuse compass for women. But some legal experts asked whether the drawing certificate has proven forgery.
“No matter how people might think about behavior as an ethical issue, this jury decided that the government did not meet its burden to prove all the serious criminal charges they brought against Mr. Combs,” said Jeff Kemerski, a former Federal Prosecutor.
The federal indictment claimed that Koms and its companies attracted the victims, and often under the pretext of a romantic relationship. After that, it was claimed that rain used strength, threats of strength, coercion and controlled materials to make women participate in sex work with male prostitutes while sometimes seen in the gatherings referred to as “clarification operations”. Prosecutors said that the compass gave women to kiosine, euphoria and GHB “to keep them obedient and compatible” during the offers.
The alleged “criminal institution” of COMBS threatened, and women used in its organization to engage in sex, forced labor, and transfer between states for prostitution, coercion and temptation to engage in prostitution, drug crimes, kidnapping, bribery, and bribery of justice. In support of their blackmail issue, jury told the opening of the data that Comles had been helped by a staff of the company’s employees, security personnel and assistants who helped organize horror operations and then cover accidents.
By crossing by the government?
“The government has exceeded. They wanted to condemn Rico so that they could then go to the Comes assets under Rico’s confiscation laws. This will not happen now. This is a loss of advertising,” Ring said, referring to Law of affected and corrupt organizations.
“The prosecution’s offer was sewn. They made a number of strategic errors and unacceptable mistakes,” former Federal Prosecutor Nima Al -Rahmi said in an interview before the verdict.
After the ruling, Al -Rahmi added: This was “the most expensive prostitution trial in American history. What a great victory for defense and a tremendous loss to trial.”
Some experts say Rico’s issues are difficult to sue according to design.
“Rico is a rigid and very difficult law to satisfy him,” said Mitchell Ebiner, a former American lawyer in New Jersey who worked in many sex trafficking and uncomfortable slavery cases. “It takes a continuous criminal structure, and the continuity of criminal organization members. It is difficult for the prosecutors to prove, and the defense has done a very good job indicating the shortcomings of Rico’s prosecution at the technical level.”
Defense opposite the federal reserve
Comes lawyers collected the idea that their customers were shipped by the prosecutors.
Mark Agunefilo claimed that diseases have a “fossil” lifestyle and added by drugs. He confessed to diseases committed by domestic violence, but the charge of blackmail and sex trafficking was overcome.
He said, “He is not a lying.”
Prosecutors told the jury that the evidence was clear.
In her closing argument, our help. Christie Slavic said that the blackmail law applies when someone commits crimes as part of a group, and in the compressor case, “the defendant was a strong man, but he became more powerful and dangerous because of his internal circle and his work – the institution,” she told the jury, according to AP.
She said that the rains “go to silence and disgrace” to enable and prolong ill -treatment and use a “small army” of employees to harm and cover up women.
Under Rico, there are 35 specific crimes, including killing, bribery and extortion, and federal prosecutors must show a pattern that includes at least two public acts as part of a criminal institution.
Defense asked why the authorities were not reported at the time at the time, and in some cases they remained in the city orbits.
Smoking pistol?
The jury of 34 witnesses, who presented six weeks of brutality and graphics.
The defense was aggressive in the interrogation, as he distributed witnesses about the reason for not reporting them at the time or simply left it. They also presented text messages for support and love after the alleged attacks. The defense also focused on money and other things they got from rain.
“This is not a crime. This is related to money. It is about money,” said Agnifilo, according to what he said. And AP.
They also indicated that the witnesses did not believe that they were committing a crime, which makes it difficult to prove that the actions of compass add to a criminal plot.
A video of 2016 showed a hole and kicks Ventura as it tries to protect itself in front of the La Hotel Egity Bank. Then he pulls it down to the hall from its heavy -type shirt towards their hotel room.
Eddie Garcia, hotel security goalkeeper at the Intercontinental Hotel, has witnessed that Combs gave him a brown paper bag containing $ 100,000 in cash.
Garcia said that after the supervisor agreed to sell the video recording, he met with Koms, the Chief of Staff Coms, Christina Khuram, and a personal guard. After Garcia raised concerns about the police, the Ventura Compels in FaceTime said, the phone handed it over and Ventura asked to tell Garcia that she also wants to “go video.” After that, Garcia said that he took the money and divided it with the co -workers, According to reports From inside the courtroom.
Prosecutors claim that this indicates the plot.
What does this mean for other cases?
Some experts say that the ruling of the mandate can put the cold on the trials of sex in the future.
“Now that the jury has acquitted the safety of Rico’s charges and trafficking trafficking,” Ebiner said: “This may cause thinking about the Ministry of Justice for a long and difficult period before providing similar charges for sex trafficking.”
Lauren Hersh, the former head of the sex trafficking unit at the office of the Kings County Lawyer in Brooklyn, and the national director of the activist group, the national director of the activist group, the national director of the activist group, the national director of the activist, the national director of the active group The world without exploitation.
After successful prosecutions of numbers such as R. Kelly and Cult Leader Keith Raniere, some experts saw a progress in expanding the popular understanding of how sex trafficking and how victims could respond to it. With this ruling, although “this will affect 100 % on the prosecutors, who will be reluctant to provide similar charges even when the evidence is overwhelming,” Hirsch said.
