For 20 years, Sean “Diddy” Combs, the once larger-than-life rap producer and multimillionaire, considered himself untouchable — hiding behind the veil of his celebrity while leading a criminal syndicate that enabled him to control and sexually brutalize women, a federal prosecutor told Manhattan jurors Thursday in closing arguments.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Slavik said evidence presented over more than seven weeks had proven that in the decades before his September 2024 arrest, Combs wielded his industry status and his massive wealth to behave like a mob boss, employing a network of henchmen who shamed and instilled fear in his victims and those who threatened his powerthrough violence and other intimidation tactics.
“The enterprise’s purpose was to protect its leader,” Slavik said.
The prosecutor said there was no doubt from trial testimony that high-ranking members of Combs’ Bad Boy Records empire, like his bodyguards and various assistants, habitually committed crimes like kidnapping, arson, drug distribution, sex trafficking, bribery, transportation to engage in prostitution, forced labor and obstruction and witness tampering to make sure his every desire was met. To find Combs guilty of racketeering conspiracy, Slavik said jurors only needed to determine one of those crimes was committed by the enterprise on at least two occasions, and that evidence relating to drug distribution alone had yielded “hundreds” of examples.
