Diddy trial live updates: Jury begins deliberations as Sean Combs awaits verdict in sex trafficking case – UK Times

The jury has been instructed and the judge has sent them back to the room for deliberations.

The government needed to prove that Combs knowingly transported or arranged for the transportation of an individual for prostitution – sexual activity in exchange for money or its equivalent – beyond a reasonable doubt in order for jurors to find him guilty of the charge.

Combs is facing two counts of transportation for prostitution purposes – one regarding Ventura and the other regarding “Jane.”

Judge Subramanian said that buying or arranging a ticket is enough to prove transportation, but that the government needed to prove at least one of those acts occurred in the court’s jurisdiction.

For jurors to find Combs guilty of sex trafficking, the government needed to prove that Combs transported one person to another place with reckless disregard that caused a person to engage in commercial sex acts.

Combs was charged with two counts of sex trafficking, one for his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, and another for his ex-girlfriend known under the pseudonym “Jane.”

Jurors must be unanimous in at least one specific instance of sex trafficking.

The jury must determine whether or not Combs conspired with at least one other member of his alleged “criminal enterprise” to commit two crimes within 10 years of each other, Judge Subramanian instructed on Monday.

The first charge brought by the government was racketeering conspiracy – a serious allegation that carries a maximum sentencing of life in prison.

In their indictment, prosecutors alleged that Combs co-conspired to commit arson, transportation to engage in prostitution, kidnapping, bribery of a witness, sex trafficking, forced labor, witness tampering, and possession with intent to distribute controlled substances.

The judge instructed jurors that kidnapping occurs when the victim did not consent. Arson, as defined under California law, is the intentional act of setting or causing fire to something. Bribery requires a conspirator to have given, or promised to give, a bribe to a witness providing information to law enforcement.

Forced labor requires the use of force, or physical restraint, on a person who did not give consent or revoked consent. Witness tampering does not require a person to have become fearful, just that someone threatened a potential witness.

Distribution of narcotics means that a person knowingly and intentionally transferred narcotics to another person.

Jurors also must find that this behavior continued past 2019, because RICO has a five-year statute of limitations.

The defense for Sean “Diddy” Combs described the “tale of two trials” as the music mogul’s sex trafficking trial is soon to enter jury deliberations.

Court has begun for the day and Judge Arun Subramanian is beginning to read jury instructions to the panel of 12 New Yorkers.

Sean Combs is is facing two charges of sex trafficking, two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution and a racketeering conspiracy charge.

Combs faces up to life in prison if he is convicted on the racketeering charge.

If he is found guilty of sex trafficking, he faces another statutory minimum sentence of 15 years.

Transportation to engage in prostitution typically carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The government has proposed 10 predicate acts – a specific crime that forms part of a larger criminal pattern – that support the racketeering conspiracy charge.

A jury must unanimously find that at least two of those acts listed were committed to convict Combs of the specific charge.

One of the predicate acts is sex trafficking, which, if jurors agree happened, they must specify it involved either of Combs’s ex-girlfriends Cassie Ventura – between 2009 and 2018 – or a witness who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” – between May 2021 and 2024.

It is separate from the two charges of sex trafficking and two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution that Combs faces.