Diddy’s Sex Trafficking Trial Opens With Claims of Coercion and ‘Freak Off’ Parties

The sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs kicked off Monday in a Manhattan federal courthouse, where federal prosecutors told jurors that the once-powerful mogul used his music empire for decades to “feed his every desire.”

On the first day of a trial expected to last two months, prosecutors painted a picture of a man who used “coercive and criminal conduct” to force at least two women to engage in drug-fueled sex parties called “freak offs.”

“For twenty years, the defendant, with the help of his trusted inner circle, committed crime after crime,” prosecutor Emily A. Johnson told the jury during her opening statements. “That’s what we’re here about today. That’s what this case is about.”

Related

Diddy Trial: Everything You Need to Know — From RICO Charges to Cassie Tape to ‘Freak Offs…

05/02/2025

Responding for Combs was defense attorney Teny Geragos, who admitted that the star had a “toxic” relationship with former girlfriend Cassie Ventura — including openly acknowledging that it included “domestic violence” — but said he was simply not guilty of racketeering or sex trafficking.

“Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case,” Geragos told the jury. “We take full responsibility that there was domestic violence. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”

Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation that aimed to “fulfill his sexual desires.” The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.

The star, once one of the music industry’s most powerful men, is formally accused of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and violating a federal prostitution statute. If convicted on all of the charges, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.

At opening statements, prosecutors accused Combs of victimizing at least two women, including Cassie and an unnamed victim listed under a Jane Doe pseudonym. They said he used “lies, drugs, threats, and violence” to coerce the women into routinely engaging in sex with male sex workers in “dark hotel rooms.”

To keep both women silent, Johnson told the jury that Combs threatened to release videos of the encounters, one of many moves that she said kept them under his control: “It had the power to ruin her life.”

But Geragos told a very different story, repeatedly stressing that Cassie and other alleged victims had consensually chosen to have relationships with Combs and partake in what she termed his “swinger lifestyle.”

“That may not be what you like to do in your bedroom,” Geragos told the jurors. “She was not being trafficked.”

The trial will continue Monday afternoon, potentially with testimony from Cassie herself.

Billboard will update this story with more details from the trial as it unfolds.