Federal prosecutors and defense lawyers rested their cases at Sean Combs’s sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial on Tuesday, and the music mogul announced that he would not be testifying in his own defense.
After six weeks of letting his lawyers speak for him, Mr. Combs stood up at the defense table and addressed the court, out of the presence of jurors. Mr. Combs, wearing a brown sweater and a white collared shirt, told the judge he had discussed the issue “thoroughly” with his lawyers, and then confirmed that he had decided not to testify. Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Combs coerced two women into participating in drug-fueled sex marathons with male escorts that he directed, masturbated during and sometimes filmed. Over 28 days of testimony at Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, government attorneys sought to establish a pattern of criminal activity by Mr. Combs and an inner circle of employees, walking the jury through allegations of kidnapping, arson, drug violations and forced labor.
They called a slate of witnesses who observed firsthand the relationships between Mr. Combs and the women at the core of the sex-trafficking case: Casandra Ventura and a woman known by the pseudonym Jane. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his lawyers have vehemently disputed the government’s depiction of him as the leader of a criminal conspiracy responsible for crimes across two decades. They have argued that the women were willing participants in the sexual encounters during years long romantic relationships with him.