The Diddy Verdict — What Went Wrong?

Sean Combs is a bad person, but trials aren't about good and bad

Laura Thompson / New York Daily News via Getty Images

Sean (“Diddy”) Combs has been convicted of two federal felonies but, for all practical purposes, he has won.

Regular readers of this column won’t be surprised by the outcome. As I wrote in this space before the trial, “The jury won’t convict Combs merely if they believe he’s horrible and greedy and grotesque; they’ll convict him only if prosecutors prove he’s a criminal and that he broke the specific laws they’ve chosen to charge.”

In the end, that proof failed. The prosecution’s lead charge, racketeering, turned out to be a grievous overcharge. Prosecutors typically use racketeering laws to take down mob leaders and drug kingpins, though broader and more creative applications are possible. But the prosecution’s proof of a defined organizational structure turned out to be sorely lacking; they showed that Combs was a horrible human being, and an abusive domestic partner, and a purveyor and consumer of interstate prostitution – but not a boss presiding over an organized criminal machine. As I wrote before trial, “From the prosecution’s perspective, a one-man racketeering conspiracy is like a one-man band. It’s technically possible, but it’s far from ideal.”

The bigger surprise is that the jury cleared Combs on two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion relating to two of his long-term romantic partners, Cassie Ventura and the pseudonymous “Jane.” The evidence was a mixed bag; despite incontrovertible proof of physical abuse and threats by Combs, texts and testimony suggested that the women at times participated voluntarily in the infamous “Freak Offs” (capitalized in the indictment). The jury plainly was unpersuaded that, on the whole, Combs overrode the free will of his purported victims.

All that prosecutors achieved here were convictions on the lowest-hanging fruit: garden-variety interstate transportation for prostitution relating to Ventura, Jane, and various male escorts. The prosecution merely had to prove that Combs was involved in moving people across state lines to engage in paid sex acts – here, the “Freak Offs.” Even putting aside the two female alleged victims, the proof at trial was overwhelming that, at a minimum, Combs paid and arranged for the various male escorts to cross state lines for prolonged, lubed-up drug-fueled sex parties. The defense hardly meaningfully contested these counts, and the jury found Combs guilty on both.

Next, Combs faces sentencing, and the outlook is vastly less ominous than it was 24 hours ago. He has dodged the most serious potential outcomes; the racketeering and forcible sex trafficking counts for which Combs was acquitted carried mandatory minimum sentences of fifteen years, and life maximums.

Given the two counts of conviction on interstate prostitution, Combs technically faces a maximum of 20 years – ten years on each count – but there’s no way he gets anything close to that. First, because the two crimes are closely related to one another, the sentences will almost certainly be imposed to run concurrently (at the same time) and not consecutively (stacked up). Second, in an ordinary case, an interstate prostitution conviction standing alone might result in a sentence of probation, or perhaps a year or two, under the federal sentencing guidelines. The judge here might bump up the sentence if he chooses to apply certain aggravating factors – relating to physical abuse, for example – but Combs is now looking at a single-digit sentence, and possibly as little as time-served for the ten months or so he has already spent behind bars.

This outcome is an embarrassment for the Southern District of New York, the office where I once worked. The crown jewel of the Justice Department overcharged the case, and then overdid it by assigning six – yes, six – prosecutors to handle the trial. The SDNY is not used to losing and, despite the two low-level convictions, this one will haunt the office.

Combs’s legal team pulled out a remarkable result, and they deserve enormous credit for their work. They adopted a gutsy and unconventional legal strategy by conceding right up front that Combs was a bad guy who had done bad things. But, the defense urged, the jury’s job was to carefully assess the proof against the actual federal charges that prosecutors chose to bring. And the jury rejected the most serious of those counts.

Sean Combs is not a good person. The jury’s verdict changes nothing about what he has done over his lifetime. But trials are not about good and bad, benevolence and evil. They’re about whether prosecutors can prove their specific charges beyond a reasonable doubt. And here, SDNY prosecutors made a series of heavy allegations that they ultimately could not back up.

Pre-order Elie’s forthcoming book, When You Come at the King – Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump.