Diddy’s Top Attorney Admonished by Judge After Sarcasm-Heavy Closing Argument

Diddy’s Top Attorney Admonished by Judge After Sarcasm-Heavy Closing Argument

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lead attorney concluded his powerhouse defense team’s closing arguments at Diddy’s sensational sex trafficking and racketeering trial on Friday afternoon, telling jurors they have the bravery to stand up to the government and acquit the rap and fashion mogul of charges that he used his company as a racketeering enterprise and claiming the prosecution is distorting consensual, nontraditional sex into criminal acts as part of a “fake trial.”

“It takes a lot of courage to acquit,” attorney Marc Agnifilo said on Friday afternoon. “You should feel bold, you should feel the courage that you will need to call this as you see it, and I am asking you to summon that courage and to do what needs to be done and to do the right thing.”

Following the jury exiting the court for a 15-minute break, Judge Arun Subramanian had to admonish Agnifilo for suggesting that the jury would speculate as to why federal prosecutors made certain charging decisions against Combs during his closing salvo. Judge Subramanian stated that this was “a bridge too far” and later told jurors to disregard his statements and focus on the evidence in the case.

Maurene Comey, the feds’ lead prosecutor on the case, complained halfway through the closing argument, before the lunch break, to Judge Subramanian about what she called improper arguments made by the defense that were sarcastic toward the prosecution.

Agnifilo was quick with a reply, telling the judge, “I think I’m allowed to be sarcastic.”

Agnifilo and the team of attorneys that includes Teny Geragos, Brian Steel and Alexandra Shapiro launched into their closing arguments early Friday morning. The defense opted not to call any witnesses after the prosecution rested its case on Wednesday, stating that it would only submit new evidence. The same day, Combs told Judge Subramanian that he would not be taking the stand to testify in his defense. In his final remarks, Agnifilo rebuffed, often sarcastically, the sprawling case laid out over the past six weeks by the federal prosecutors. On Thursday, an attorney for the prosecution spent four and a half hours recapping the elements of the case and explaining to the jury how evidence and testimony relate to the five charges in the indictment issued in September.  

Combs has pleaded not guilty the indictment charges, including sex trafficking and racketeering. He has remained incarcerated without bail in Brooklyn since September and throughout his federal trial.

Agnifilo framed the events on the 23rd floor of the federal courthouse on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan over the past six weeks of testimony as a “tale of two trials.” One version, he said, involved the federal prosecutors twisting the nature of Combs’ nontraditional but consensual sex life into the endgame of multiple criminal acts, while the other is based on the hard evidence presented and saw witnesses who he said spoke of the “successful Black entrepreneur” who is a respected member of his community. 

Of the two trials he spoke of, there was “one from the mouths of prosecutors” and one that consisted of evidence, he told the jurors on Friday.

“This isn’t about a crime. It’s about money,” he said, then referring to the lawsuit filed by the rap titan’s ex-girlfriend in October 2023, the legal move that began the unraveling of Combs’ public persona and caught the eye of the feds: “Cassie Ventura sued Sean Combs for $30 million because he has $30 million.”

Agnifilo told the jury that Combs and Ventura’s romance was a “complicated” 10-year affair that was, at times, brutally violent, but added that it was also “a great modern love story.” From the witness stand weeks ago, Ventura did tell of the ups and downs of her relationship with the larger-than-life pop culture figure, recalling the two meeting and starting a romantic relationship when she was 19 and a singer signed to his label and he was 37 and at the top of his game. From her account during her testimony, Ventura had her career held back and dangled before her by Combs, who was her boss and her boyfriend for a decade and was coerced into the performative sex marathons with strange men via threats and unfulfilled promises; at times, she said she wanted to make Combs happy and other times wanted to avoid the violent repercussions of saying “no” to him. The defense attorney characterized their sex life, which essentially only consisted of freak-offs with other men, as the consensual fun of an open-minded couple. 

“They are swingers,” Agnifilo said. “This is their lifestyle.”

Ventura also told the court during her marathon week of testimony, which came at the beginning of the seven-week-and-counting trial (since jury selection began on May 5), that the $30 million civil case, which was settled the next day, netted her $20 million. She also revealed a lawsuit against the Intercontinental hotel in L.A., where she was filmed being beaten and dragged by Combs in footage that leaked to CNN.

Heightening his display of outrage, Agnifilo mocked prosecutors over their framing of his client’s sex life as criminal. With both Ventura and “Jane,” a victim who used a pseudonym in court, Combs was accused of arranging and filming “freak-off” or hotel night marathon sessions, where a male sex worker or workers would engage partner(s) in lengthy sessions of drug-fueled intercourse, which involved Astroglide lube and baby oil and would frequently be filmed by Combs as he looked on. At a point during “Jane’s” testimony, she floated the idea she’d had that Combs was bisexual but too uncomfortable with the idea to ever engage with a same-sex partner himself; she also referred to Combs as a “cuckold,” which she described on the stand as a man who enjoys watching his female partner have sex with another man. (The term is defined as the husband of an adulterous wife.)

“You wanna call it swingers, you wanna call it threesomes, whatever it is,” he said, adding that it is absurd for the prosecution to frame his sex life as “one of the most serious, complicated, comprehensive” criminal acts.

The attorney also argued that the prosecution has not presented evidence that money was exchanged for sex with the men hired for the “freak-off” events. He pointed to two men called to the witness stand who did not identify themselves as sex workers and emphasized that they were paid for their time (and if sex happens, it happens, being the winking logic here). He also pointed to one escort who testified, Daniel Phillip, who told the court of the $6,000 he was handed after a session with the couple: “I didn’t care if I was paid one way or another. … I didn’t ask to get paid, they gave that to me.”

During his more-than-four-hour closing argument, the attorney dismissed claims that Combs Global (née Combs Enterprises) is a racketeering enterprise, saying the idea is preposterous.

“Are you kidding me? That’s the fake trial I’m telling you about,” the lead attorney told jurors. 

Agnifilo then mocked “Jane,” who dated Combs from 2021 until his arrest in 2024. She had told the court that while she was involved with him, the near-billionaire would pay her $10,000 monthly rent; she also admitted from the stand that her rent is still being paid by the incarcerated mogul. 

“I hope she’s having a nice day. But do you know where she’s doing it? In the house he’s paying for,” Agnifilo quipped. 

He argued that Combs paying the rent bill was always a “gesture of kindness and decency.” Then he reminded the jury of a hotel night in September 2023 when “Jane” rejected an escort who still was paid $1,000.

“The government said they’re not saying every single ‘hotel night’ was sex trafficking,” the counselor said. “Well then, which ones were? And how’s Sean Combs supposed to know the difference?”

On the tropic of the videos Combs made of the “freak-off” parties, his attorney told the jury that they were not the kompromat that Ventura said was used to threaten and control her but innocent “homemade porn” that is far more normal than prosecutors would say. 

“He’s not the only man in America making homemade porn,” Agnifilo said.

The narrative around the now notorious CCTV video from the InterContinental hotel in L.A., in which a robe-clad Combs attacks Ventura as she is attempting to flee a “freak-off” was spun in a new direction, with Agnifilo telling the jury that Combs is clearly on a bad batch of drugs, a consistent defense excuse for this harrowing beating (“He stays in a towel in a public hallway way too long,” Agnifilo told the jury), and that he was more interested in getting his phone back from Ventura than harming her and dragging her back to their hotel room. The defense team leader showed footage of Combs acting calmer when he had taken the phone from Ventura; he did not show the later footage in which Combs appeared to fly into a violent rage again. 

The sensational raid last year of Combs’ properties was the next element of the government’s treatment of the fallen mogul. In March, federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations descended on Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles. At the time, Combs’ attorney criticized the raids as overkill. Agnifilo took a moment to mock the discovery of large amounts of lubricants, a fact that became something of a punchline when news of the raids broke. 

“I guess that’s all worth it,” he said, “Boxes and boxes of Astroglide. They got it, the streets of America are safe from the Astroglide. Thank God for the special response team. They got the baby oil, way to go fellas.”

Continuing to mock the large-scale raid, he added: “You know, it’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws. We need a bigger boat, we need a bigger crime scene tape.”

Judge Arun Subramanian said he will give the jury instructions on Monday before the 12-member panel begins its deliberations.