The trial of Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs started with a pretty intense and shocking opening statement on Monday, May 12. The Assistant U.S. Attorney, Emily Johnson, told the jury that Ventura, Combs\u2019 ex-girlfriend, was pressured into taking part in the rapper\u2019s disturbing \u201cfreak-offs\u201d \u2014 which were parties or events meant to please him. But over time, things allegedly turned violent.<\/p>\n
Johnson said that Combs would physically abuse Ventura if she left these events too early or spent too long in the bathroom. One of the most disturbing claims was about an incident where the rapper supposedly asked a prostitute to urinate in Ventura\u2019s mouth. The prosecutor described how this left Ventura feeling like she was choking.<\/p>\n
The opening statement also accused Diddy of threatening to ruin Ventura\u2019s career by threatening to release videos of her having sex with several male escorts. Basically, she was allegedly being blackmailed to stay quiet and compliant.<\/p>\n
On the other side, Combs\u2019 lawyers admitted that their client has a history of having a bad temper and being violent at times. But they argued strongly that this does not mean he\u2019s guilty of sex trafficking. One of the defense lawyers, Teny Geragos, told the jury, \u201cDomestic violence is not sex trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n
For context, Diddy is facing several serious charges: one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, and two counts related to transporting people for prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to all of these.<\/p>\n
The start of the trial got delayed a bit because picking the jury took longer than expected \u2014 the prosecutors and lawyers had a hard time narrowing down the group to the required 12 jurors plus 6 alternates.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the trial has also dragged in mentions of some famous people connected to Combs. Kanye West, who leaked a prison call with the rapper while he was jailed, came up during the hearing. Others mentioned were rapper Kid Cudi and actor Michael B. Jordan, who reportedly dated Ventura.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The trial of Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs started with a pretty intense and shocking opening statement on Monday, May 12. The\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":74188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1137],"class_list":["post-74187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-news","tag-diddy"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}