• Sean "Diddy" Combs listed his Los Angeles mansion for sale a week before he was arrested.
• As his trial proceeds, the house is still on the market with the same asking price: $61.5 million.
• Cassie Ventura said "freak offs" weren't held there, but its link to Combs might still deter buyers.

Sean "Diddy" Combs is sitting in a Manhattan courtroom, facing off with his sexual abuse accusers at trial.

His mansion in Los Angeles, however, is sitting empty.

Combs listed the 10-bedroom, 13-bathroom mansion in LA's ritzy Holmby Hills neighborhood for $61.5 million a week before his arrest in September 2024 — and it's unlikely to sell anytime soon.

His ex-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, testified last week that Combs' South Mapleton Drive home was not used for any "freak offs," the dayslong sex performances that the trial centers on. In general, homes priced in the eight-figure range don't fly off the shelves that quickly. Still, most homebuyers are put off by its association with an accused sex trafficker, according to a consultant who specializes in selling homes tainted by murder or other disasters.

"When they buy a home at that price point, they like to brag about it," Michael Tachovsky, a partner at Landmark Research Group, told BI. "P. Diddy's reputation, at the current time, really isn't a positive bragging point for a potential buyer. It can play into perceptions, and when there's a negative perception with a property, it just makes it harder to sell."

Two Los Angeles-area real estate agents reached by Business Insider declined to go on record about Combs' property to avoid any association.

Combs has denied all wrongdoing. The music tycoon has consistently argued that all sexual encounters were consensual. The defense also argues that any violence fell far short of sex trafficking and that his accusers have a financial motive to implicate him.

The listing agent, Kurt Rappaport, didn't return multiple requests for comment by email and phone. A rep for Combs and his lawyer also didn't return requests for comment by email.

The history of Combs' LA mansion

Combs purchased the property on Mapleton Drive in 2014 for just over $39 million, according to Los Angeles County property records.

The main house's architecture excludes European vibes and contains a formal dining room, a wine cellar, a theater that fits 35 people, a kitchen, and a separate catering kitchen. A two-story guest house has bedrooms, a gym, and a recording studio.

The grounds, over 1.3 acres, have an oversize statue of a woman seemingly made from similar material to a disco ball, plus a swimming pool with a waterfall and grotto, a basketball court, a spa house, and an outdoor loggia with a barbecue, bar, and pizza oven.

Other homes for sale on the same street are asking similar prices.

Jack Harris, a real estate agent with The Beverly Hills Estate, has an eight-bedroom listing on Mapleton Drive just a few doors down from Combs' house, priced at $62.5 million.

"You normally can't buy into Holmby Hills for less than $20 million — Mapleton being one of the most prestigious streets in Holmby Hills," Harris told BI.

"It's a little pocket that's right between Beverly Hills and Bel Air — there's only a handful of streets," he added.

Combs hosted parties at his house, including a 2017 Grammys afterparty.

Combs also owns a seven-bedroom, 14,800-square-foot home on Star Island in Miami, where Ventura said in court last week that "freak offs" did take place. He bought the home in 2023 for $14.5 million and satisfied the $18.8 million left on his mortgage in August of 2024 to sure up his proposed bond package.

In March 2024, law enforcement officials seized "narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant" from his Los Angeles and Miami residences.

A buyer could be drawn to the renovation potential

Real estate investor Steven "Bo" Belmon made a lowball offer of $30 million in November of 2024.

Belmont said in a press release that he planned to renovate.

"I want to remove the stigma and focus on the charming elegance of this remarkable property," Belmont said in the release.

Belmont is no stranger to controversial properties purchased at a hefty discount. In 2024, he bought Kanye West's abandoned Malibu mansion for $21 million, less than half of its original asking price of $53 million.

Tachovsky pointed to other properties where negative events have taken place that sold years after they hit the market for well below the asking price.

The ongoing legal battles will inevitably limit the pool of buyers, he added.

"At the moment, it doesn't sound like anything nefarious happened at the property, but I don't think there's any certainty yet," he said. "When you've got notorious issues, like the Diddy case, that's not a no-name person. That can linger for some time."

• Cassie Ventura finished her fourth and last day of testimony in Sean Combs' sex-trafficking trial.
• "I think it was $10M," she said, revealing a pending settlement with the InterContinental Hotel.
• The hotel was the location of a caught-on-video 2016 beating she suffered at the hands of Combs.

Cassie Ventura ended her testimony against Sean "Diddy" Combs on Friday, capping four days of detailing what she alleged to be coercive, humiliating sex by dropping a new revelation.

The R&B singer — the prosecution's star witness — revealed on the stand during Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial that she is set to receive a multimillion-dollar settlement from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.

"I think it was $10 million," Ventura told a federal jury in Manhattan of the money she says she's receiving from the hotel.

The InterContinental is where security camera footage captured Combs beating Ventura in a hallway in 2016, after what Ventura and federal prosecutors said was one of Combs' drug-fueled sex marathons, which he called "freak offs."

Under questioning by defense attorney Anna Estevao, Ventura told the eight-man, four-woman jury that she did not know the exact monetary figure, but described the settlement as a done deal.

"And have you reached the end of settlement discussions with the InterContinental?" Estevao asked Ventura to which she replied, "I have."

Representatives for the hotel declined to comment.

Outside of court, Ventura's attorney, Douglas Wigdor, would not confirm the settlement amount, only saying, "The record is the record."

At Combs' trial, which kicked off earlier this week, the jury was shown the 2016 footage of Combs attacking Ventura in the hotel hallway.

Prosecutor Emily Johnson said in her opening statements that at the time, the hip-hop mogul paid a security guard at the hotel $100,000 in a brown paper envelope in exchange for the footage.

Combs apologized for his actions in the video after CNN published the footage last year.

The hotel settlement is the second settlement Ventura revealed during her testimony. She also told jurors that Combs paid her $20 million to settle her civil lawsuit against him in 2023.

In the lawsuit, Ventura accused Combs of of rape, physical abuse, and controlling her during their more than decadelong relationship. She also detailed Combs' InterContinental Hotel attack in the suit and said in the court papers that Combs paid the hotel $50,000 for the footage of it.

While under questioning by Johnson on Friday, Ventura said she would give the $20 million back if it meant never having joined Combs' freak offs.

"If I hadn't done freak offs, I would have had agency and autonomy," she said. "I wouldn't have had to work so hard to get it back."

• A lawyer for Sean "Diddy" Combs is spending Thursday cross-examining the star witness.
• The witness, Cassie Ventura, is being asked about explosive sexts she sent to Combs.
• Ventura had to read aloud one from 2009, telling Combs: "I'm always ready to freak off LOLOL."

Defense lawyers for Sean "Diddy" Combs went on the attack Thursday against the star witness, R&B singer Cassie Ventura — showing jurors explosive texts in which both she and the rapper referred to "freak offs" with graphic enthusiasm.

"I can't wait to watch you," Combs texted her in 2009, two years into their 11-year on-and-off relationship.

He was referring to the drug-fueled, dayslong sex performances at the center of his criminal sex-trafficking trial.

"I want you to get real hott," Combs responded to Ventura's text, misspelling the word.

"Me too," Ventura texted back. "I just want it to be uncontrollable."

The texts were displayed on screens in the Manhattan federal courtroom where Combs is fighting racketeering and sex-trafficking charges that could land him in jail for life.

Ventura, who is eight months pregnant, was repeatedly asked by a defense lawyer to recite the texts out loud from the witness stand. She did so quietly, her voice sounding almost robotic.

"I'm always ready to freak off LOLOL," the singer read aloud to Combs' jury Thursday morning, reciting from a text she had used her Blackberry to send Combs on August 5, 2009.

"You tell me the day. You choose," Combs quickly responded, according to the text. "Name the day."

Ventura's husband, Alex Fine, sat in the courtroom audience while she was on the witness stand. As she began reading through the texts, he stared at his lap. Then he shifted his gaze and looked at her across the courtroom, and to a large TV screen displaying the messages to the public audience.

Thursday is Ventura's third day on the witness stand. Anna M. Esteveo, the defense lawyer handling the cross-examination, has told the judge that she expects to wrap up sometime Friday.

The defense has promised the four-women, eight-man jury that they will prove at trial that Ventura and Combs' other accusers participated in freak offs voluntarily.

On other occasions, Ventura told Combs she would prepare a room for a planned freak off.

"I'm going to Duane Reade to grab candles and then going home to pack us a bag," she said in one August 2009 text message that Combs' attorneys introduced into evidence.

Other texts show Ventura confronting Combs when she felt he was not paying enough attention to her.

"When we used to freak off, we were so in love," she said in one December 2009 message.

"I'm nervous that I'm just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasy off with, and that's it," she said later in the message. "I don't get the other part… Anymore at least."

In a later message, Ventura expressed frustration that Combs wouldn't prioritize her when he was traveling, which she testified happened often.

"I know you can take 3 minutes out of your day to talk to me and you don't even try," Ventura said on the witness stand, reading aloud from a text she sent Combs in 2010. "You're in too much of a rush to get me off of the phone."

Ventura had testified on direct examination that while she loved Combs, she hated freak offs, and only pretended to enjoy them because the encounters were often the only time she had with him.

"I was just in love and wanted to make him happy," Ventura testified earlier in the week.

She told jurors that she felt "worthless" joining in on the freak offs.

"I felt pretty horrible about myself. I felt disgusting. I was humiliated. I didn't have the words at the time to tell him how I felt," Ventura testified. "And I couldn't talk to anyone about it."

• Cassie Ventura testified for more than 20 hours at Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial.
• Her testimony revealed big settlements, "freak off" details, and a Playboy Mansion overdose.
• Here are 8 of the biggest revelations to have come out of the trial so far.

The R&B singer Cassie Ventura — Sean "Diddy" Combs' ex-girlfriend and the catalyst for his public downfall — testified at his criminal trial last week about humiliating sexual violence she says she endured throughout their 11-year relationship.

Ventura spent more than 20 hours on the witness stand over the course of four days, at times giving tearful testimony, in a packed Manhattan federal courtroom as Combs sat opposite her at the defense table.

The singer, while eight months pregnant, played a central role in Combs' ongoing sex-trafficking and racketeering trial as the prosecution's star witness. During the trial's opening statements, a prosecutor told jurors that Combs used "lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce" Ventura and later an anonymous Jane Doe into dayslong sex performances that the hip-hop mogul called "freak offs."

Combs was arrested in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution — the culmination of months of lawsuits and public accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct.

It was Ventura's November 2023 lawsuit that began this avalanche of accusations. Filed about 10 months before the criminal charges, it accused Combs of rape, physical abuse, and controlling her during their relationship. The lawsuit was settled a day later for what Ventura testified was $20 million.

Combs has denied all wrongdoing. The music tycoon is arguing through his defense team that all sexual encounters were consensual, including the drug-fueled freak offs. The defense also argues that any violence fell far short of sex trafficking and that his accusers have a financial motive to implicate him.

Here are some of the most striking moments from the trial so far.

Dawn Richard's testimony highlighted a brutal beating, an alleged death threat, and flowers

Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard was the fifth prosecution witness, and her testimony on May 16 alleged that in 2009, Combs brutally beat Ventura after she took too long to cook him dinner.

"Where's my fucking egg?" Richard recounted Combs shouting in 2009, as he stormed into the kitchen of his rented Los Angeles mansion.

"He took the skillet with the eggs in it and tried to hit her in the head, and she fell to the ground," Richard testified.

Ventura cowered on the floor "in a fetal position" as Combs punched her and kicked her, she said. Then he dragged her upstairs by her hair, she said, adding that she then heard the sound of screaming and breaking glass from the third floor.

The next day, Combs called Ventura and Richard into the mansion's first-floor recording studio, she said.

"He said that what we saw was passion, and it was what lovers in a relationship do," Richard said.

She said Combs told the two women that "he was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk. And then he gave us flowers."

While back on the stand on May 19, Richard re-emphasized that she felt this was a threat to her life.

The details in the testimony came as a surprise to Combs' lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, who called it prejudicial and "just a drop dead lie."

"It didn't happen," the lawyer complained to the judge. "And the reason we know it didn't happen is that Ms. Ventura didn't talk about it" during her four days on the witness stand.

On cross-examination on May 19, Richard agreed that she only recalled the alleged death threat in speaking with prosecutors earlier this month. It had gone unmentioned, she agreed, during a half-dozen prior interviews with prosecutors.

Combs attacked Ventura over bathroom use, prosecutor and ex-bestie say

Ventura was beaten by Combs for the most minor of perceived infractions, including taking too long in the bathroom, prosecutor Emily Johnson said in her opening statement.

"He beat her when she didn't answer the phone when he called. He beat her when she left a freak off without his permission," Johnson said.

Ventura's ex-best friend, Kerry Morgan, was called to the witness stand on May 19 and told jurors about two attacks on Ventura she witnessed, including one while on vacation in Jamaica in 2013.

Morgan said Ventura at one point went to the bathroom at the residence where they were staying, and Combs said, "She's taking too long."

"A few minutes later, I heard her screaming — like guttural. Terrifying," Morgan said. "He was dragging her by her hair on the floor."

Morgan told jurors that she saw Combs push Ventura to the ground, causing her to hit her head on the paving bricks.

"She didn't move. She fell on her side," Morgan said, adding, "I thought she was knocked out."

Ventura, too, had testified that arguments with Combs would regularly result in physical abuse.

Ventura —who dated Combs on and off from 2007 to 2018 — described six separate times when Combs' attacks left her with injuries, with the most severe beating occurring in Los Angeles in 2009 following a party Combs had hosted at a club called Ace of Diamonds.

Ventura said she punched Combs in the face after he called her a "slut or a bitch" for talking to a record producer. Combs retaliated in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury vehicle by punching and kicking Ventura throughout a ten-minute ride to the rapper's rented mansion, she said.

She said she hid under the back seat to escape the attack. Combs demanded she stay hidden in a hotel for a week so her bruises could heal, she said.

The surprising things Combs kept in his luxury NYC hotel room while waiting to be arrested

The prosecution's fourth witness took the witness stand briefly on May 16 to detail what she and other Homeland Security investigators say they found inside Combs' suite at Manhattan's Park Hyatt New York after his September arrest.

Combs had checked into the luxury Midtown hotel, his lawyers have said, in case federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked him to surrender voluntarily.

Special Agent Yasin Binda told the Combs jury she photographed what her colleagues found inside the room.

Those items included a clear plastic bag of baby oil bottles found inside a duffle bag. There were three more bottles of baby oil in his bathtub, alongside two bottles of personal lubricant.

Two more bottles of lubricant were recovered from a nightstand drawer, next to a prescription pill bottle she said held two small baggies containing a pink powder.

On the living room floor was a large blue party light of the kind Ventura testified were used to illuminate freak offs.

Similar bags of pink powder have previously been seized from Combs and tested positive for ecstasy and other drugs, a prosecutor had said in court the day after Combs was arrested.

Ventura's big settlements after her lawsuit and that infamous hallway-beatdown video

In some of her final moments on the witness stand, Ventura was asked by the defense about a legal settlement that she said she is on the verge of receiving from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.

"I think it was $10 million," Ventura said of the settlement, hesitating when asked for the total amount agreed to.

The InterContinental is where security cameras captured Combs beating Ventura in a hallway in 2016, as she tried to flee what prosecutors say was one of Combs' freak offs.

The jury was shown the infamous footage at the beginning of the trial.

Johnson, the prosecutor, said in her opening statements that at the time of the attack, Combs paid a security guard at the hotel $100,000 in a brown paper envelope in exchange for the footage.

Combs apologized for his actions in the video after CNN published the footage last year.

It was the second big-money settlement revealed in Ventura's testimony.

Earlier in her testimony, Ventura told jurors that Combs paid her $20 million to settle her civil suit against him in 2023.

Britney Spears and Michael B. Jordan became the biggest celebrity mentions of the trial

Pop icon Britney Spears and actor Michael B. Jordan were both name-dropped on May 15, on Ventura's third day of testimony.

During a cross-examination, Ventura was asked to tell the jury about the 21st birthday party Combs threw for her in 2007, at a club in Las Vegas.

The party was a significant moment in the Combs-Ventura story. Ventura testified that Combs, who recently signed her to his record label, gave her an uninvited kiss in a bathroom, sparking their relationship.

"I believe there were other celebrities there in attendance?" defense attorney Anna Estevao asked Ventura, who answered yes, there were.

"Sean was there, and he brought Dallas Austin, he brought Britney Spears," Ventura said, referring to the "Oops!… I Did It Again" singer and the record producer. "I think those were the two people that stand out to me," Ventura added.

Asked how a 21-year-old of limited fame was able to attract such big names to her party, Ventura credited Combs, saying, "That was all him."

Jordan's name came up as the cross-examination focused on 2015, when Combs became suspicious that she was having an affair with the actor.

"Is Michael B. Jordan a celebrity?" Estevao asked.

"I would say so," Ventura answered, sounding surprised.

Combs overdosed on opioids at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura said

Both Combs and Ventura were heavy opioid users, the R&B singer testified — and on one late night in February 2012, the pills he took made the rapper seriously ill, she said.

"Was that around the time that Whitney Houston died?" Estevao, Combs' defense attorney, asked about the timing.

"Yes," Ventura said.

That evening, the pair went to a sex club in San Bernardino, California, and then she went home, and Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura told jurors.

"Well, from what he told me, he took a very strong opiate that night, but we didn't know what was happening, so we took him to the hospital," Ventura testified.

There, she said, she learned that he had overdosed on whatever painkillers he had taken, she said.

Combs was said to be enraged over Ventura's romance with Kid Cudi

Ventura told jurors that she briefly dated rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, in 2011 and that it sent Combs into a violent rage.

Combs discovered the relationship during a freak off in Los Angeles when he went through Ventura's phone, she testified.

"I just remember him putting like a wine bottle opener between his fingers and, like, lunging at me," Ventura said, adding that Combs' "eyes blacked out, super angry."

"And I just had to get out of there," she said. "It was actually another time I was able to get out of a freak off."

When Ventura saw Combs at his home later that day she said he was "irate" and threatened to release freak off videos of her and "hurt Scott and I."

On her way out, Ventura said Combs kicked her in the back so hard that she fell to the floor.

Ventura, whose lawsuit first suggested that Combs was responsible for blowing up a car that belonged to Kid Cudi in 2012, told jurors that Combs said Kid Cudi's car "would be blown up" when they were out of the country.

"Sean wanted Scott's friends to be there to see the car get blown up in the driveway," she testified.

Prosecutors alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."

Ventura said she first joined Diddy's freak offs out of love

Ventura testified on May 13 that she was initially nervous, but felt a sense of responsibility to participate in Combs' freak offs.

"I was just in love and wanted to make him happy," Ventura told the jury.

Ventura testified that in 2007, Combs first proposed "this sexual encounter that he called voyeurism, where he would watch me have a sexual encounter with a third man, specifically another man."

"I didn't want to upset him if I said it scared me or if I said anything aside from, 'OK, let's try it,'" she said.

Johnson said in her opening statements that Combs eventually made it Ventura's job to find and book escorts to participate in the sex encounters.

While on the stand, Ventura described in detail what went on during freak offs. Prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded the sex performances.

Ventura testified that Combs would urinate and ask escorts to urinate on her during the freak offs.

"It was disgusting. It was too much. It was overwhelming," she said. "I choked."

• Diddy paid Cassie Ventura $20 million to settle her 2023 sex assault civil suit, she said in testimony.
• The R&B singer also described six times she said Sean "Diddy" Combs beat her to the point of severe bruising.
• Combs flew into a rage over her 2011 romance with Kid Cudi, kicking her to the ground, she said.

Sean "Diddy" Combs paid Cassie Ventura $20 million to settle her 2023 sexual abuse lawsuit, the R&B singer said at his Manhattan sex-trafficking trial on Wednesday.

If Combs, 55, had ever hoped this massive, eight-figure payment would silence Ventura, 38, he would have been mistaken.

Ventura revealed the settlement's previously sealed bottom line at the conclusion of nearly two days of direct testimony against Combs.

During this testimony, she described Combs forcing her to have what she called painful, humiliating sex with male escorts on hundreds of occasions throughout their decadelong relationship, while he filmed her and pleasured himself.

She described these encounters — Combs called them "freak offs" — in far more detail than was in the 35 pages of her bombshell lawsuit, and with far higher stakes than the millionaire hip hop tycoon had faced in civil court.

If convicted of the top charges of racketeering and sex trafficking, Combs could be sentenced to life in prison. Combs has pleaded not guilty; his lawyers are arguing at trial that the sexual encounters were consensual and that his accusers have a financial incentive to falsely implicate him.

"I wanted to be compensated for the time, the pain, the many, many years of trying to fix my life," Ventura said of her efforts to force a payment from Combs, including through a failed attempt to sell him the rights to a tell-all memoir.

Ventura, who is eight months pregnant, has broken down in tears three times during her testimony, which on Wednesday included an accusation that Combs raped her on her living room floor after she broke up with him in 2018.

"I don't think he even noticed" that she was crying during the attack, she told the jury. Asked what happened afterward, she responded, "he got up and he left."

She also described trying to kill herself months before filing the lawsuit. "I just tried to walk out the door into traffic," she said.

Ventura is due to be cross-examined on Thursday and Friday.

She spent most of Wednesday's testimony describing six separate times when she said Combs' jealousy-fueled attacks left her with bruises, black eyes, or a busted lip.

Her relationship with rapper Kid Cudi in 2011, when she was in her mid-20s, sparked back-to-back eruptions of violence, she told Combs' jury of four women and eight men.

The first came during a freak off at Combs' rented mansion in Los Angeles, when he "lunged at me with a wine bottle opener between his fingers," she testified.

She fled the mansion, escaping injury, though not for long, she told the jury. She testified that when she returned to his mansion to talk things over some time later, Combs kicked her in her lower back so hard that she was sent flying to the floor.

Prosecutors say Combs ordered security employees from his Bad Boy Records empire to exact revenge on Kid Cudi, whose given name is Scott Mescudi.

The racketeering count includes an allegation of arson. Prosecutors allege that Combs ordered his underlings to torch Mescudi's vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior," they wrote in September.

Allegations of a severe beating

"I was basically under the back seat of the Escalade," Ventura said of what she described as her most severe beating, which she said happened in Los Angeles in 2009, when she was 22 years old.

Combs spied Ventura speaking to a record producer during a party he had hosted at a club called "Ace of Diamonds."

"Sean called me a slut or a bitch or something when we got into the car," Ventura told jurors. "And I punched Sean's face."

She said she hit Combs "as hard as I could hit somebody when I was drunk."

Combs' retaliation in the back seat of the chauffeured luxury vehicle was brutal, she testified.

"His whole demeanor just switched over," she said. "I remember his eyes went black."

He punched and kicked her throughout the ten-minute ride back to his rented mansion, she said.

"After I punched him and he attacked me, I was basically under the back seat," she told jurors.

"I was trying to cover my face," she said. "Because Sean was stomping on it with his foot."

Combs ordered her to stay at the The London West Hollywood hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. She described being secreted inside by one of Combs' security staffers, with her face covered up.

It took her a week, maybe more, before her injured face healed enough for Combs to allow her to be seen in public, she testified.

Until then, "I couldn't go home," she said. "Absolutely not," she said he'd tell her.

"I don't think I would have gotten out of there smoothly," she added.

• Sean Combs' lawyers objected Tuesday after prosecutors asked Cassie Ventura about baby oil 20 times.
• Details of a private discussion at the judge's bench were released Tuesday night.
• A prosecutor at one point told the judge: "I will not ask any more oil questions."

Sean Combs' defense lawyers objected on Tuesday after prosecutors asked the R&B singer Cassie Ventura some 20 times about the baby oil she said the millionaire rapper demanded be used in multiple "freak off" sex performances.

Details of the private, at-the-bench discussion — during which the two sides debated how many baby oil questions were too many — were released Tuesday night. At one point, Combs' lead lawyer took the opportunity to slide in a wisecrack.

"I was going to say slippery slope," the lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, joked after the judge said prosecutors might be nearing the point of overkill on the topic. "But I'm not going to say it."

The defense objection and sidebar discussion briefly interrupted Ventura's first day of testimony at Combs' federal racketeering and sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan.

Prosecutors are using Ventura's very detailed testimony about items she said were part of the "freak offs" — including baby oil, lubricants, candles, and drugs — to bolster the charge that Combs personally "orchestrated" these elaborately planned, dayslong sex performances.

Combs demanded that heated Johnson's baby oil be available in large quantities for the nearly weekly encounters, during which he would film male escorts and strippers having sex with Ventura, she said in her testimony and the indictment.

Under questioning by prosecutor Emily Johnson, Ventura testified that "everyone" applied the baby oil. Combs, she said, demanded that participants be "glistening."

The defense raised the objection after Ventura described a freak off she said happened at the L'Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills. Combs demanded that a blow-up pool be brought to their hotel suite and "filled with lube and oil," she told jurors.

"Did you get into the pool?" Johnson asked.

"I did, with my outfit, my shoes," she said. "It was quite dangerous."

"It was his idea," she said of Combs. "I couldn't say no," she said, because she feared his violent temper.

"Were there freak offs where you ran out of baby oil?" Johnson asked.

At that point, Anna Estevao, a defense lawyer who's expected to cross-examine Ventura, objected, telling the judge that the testimony was "getting a little cumulative."

"Let's see if we can wrap this up and move on," the judge responded.

But when Johnson's next question involved the lubricant Astroglide, Estevao objected again, and the judge called for a sidebar.

Outside the jury's hearing, the judge asked the prosecutor for "some guidance as to where we're going next."

Johnson responded that she intended to "go through the various supplies that were used, because those are supplies that were demanded by the defendant, that were at every freak off."

These supplies were consistent and "showed how he controlled the events that happened at these freak offs," she told the judge.

"I will not ask any more oil questions," she added.

Ventura's testimony continued Wednesday and is expected to last into Thursday.

On Wednesday morning, Ventura was shown the last of some 15 photos of male strippers and escorts she said were involved in the freak offs over the course of a decade, starting when she was in her early 20s.

"Did you have sex with all the individuals that we saw during those freak offs?" Johnson asked.

"Yes," Ventura answered, her voice quiet and her expression grim.

When asked who paid for the escorts, Ventura said, "Sean's money."

• Cassie Ventura signed a 10-album deal with Diddy's record label at the start of her career.
• He released only one album the whole time and vetoed other job opportunities.
• Prosecutors allege Combs used the resources of his businesses for sex trafficking.

While R&B singer Cassie Ventura was in a decadelong relationship with Sean "Diddy" Combs, her music career was floundering.

Ventura testified in Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial on Tuesday that the hip-hop mogul "stifled" her career over the years.

Instead of working on her music, Ventura told the Manhattan jury, she spent days participating in and recovering from "freak offs" — which she described as drug-fueled, sexual performances with escorts designed to satisfy Combs.

For a time, Combs had the freak offs "weekly," Ventura said.

"The freak offs became my job," Ventura testified.

In early 2006, Ventura signed a 10-album deal with Combs' label, Bad Boy Records.

She recorded "hundreds of songs" in the subsequent years, but many "didn't see the light of day," she testified on the witness stand.

Only a handful of Ventura's songs were officially released following her eponymous first album, the well-reviewed "Cassie," which was released in the summer of 2006 and included the popular single "Me & U."

Aside from the sole album, Ventura released one mixtape and a handful of singles with Bad Boy Records over the years. She said she wasn't paid for the uncompleted nine albums that were part of the deal.

Ventura said most of her time was spent preparing for and physically recuperating from "freak offs," which she also called "partying." She said the sex sessions led to dehydration and exhaustion, and that she took drugs to stay awake for several days in a row in order to have sex with other men at Combs' direction.

"When I wasn't working on my music, I was recovering from partying," Ventura said. "That was a big chunk of my life."

Diddy released just one Cassie album despite a 10-album deal

Ventura took the stand as the third witness to testify in Combs' sex-trafficking trial on Tuesday morning. Eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, she wore a stretchy brown dress and camel overcoat in the lower Manhattan courtroom.

After Ventura first signed onto Bad Boy Records, her relationship with Combs was platonic, she said.

But things changed on her 21st birthday, in August 2007, when they partied in Las Vegas, she said. There, Combs kissed Ventura in his hotel bathroom, she testified.

Ventura wasn't sure what to do, she said. She was new to the music industry and couldn't grasp the power dynamics between herself and Combs, she testified.

"I think I was just confused at the time," she said on the witness stand. "I'm a young, new artist who did not really know the lay of the land."

But her career was moving fast, and she said she recognized that Combs, as the head of her record label, controlled her career.

"He chose what was next for me, basically," she said.

Fine, Ventura's husband, appeared to hold back tears while Ventura testified. His face was ruddy, and he often appeared to swallow and rapidly blink back tears.

Fine sat in the courtroom in the same row as Ventura's attorney, Douglas Wigdor, who represented Ventura in a civil lawsuit she filed against Combs in November 2023. Combs quickly settled the lawsuit, but the US Attorney's office in Manhattan initiated a criminal investigation into Combs.

Combs' attorneys have cast the indictment against him as a distortion of the true events, which they describe as a mutually toxic relationship between Combs and Ventura. Both consented to sex, abused each other, and were unfaithful, Combs' legal team says.

Ventura testified Tuesday in a quiet, deflated voice as she talked about being in love with Combs.

Combs decided on nicknames for the two of them, she said. He told Ventura to call him "Pop Pop" because that's also what she called her grandfather, while he called her "CC" for "Cassie Combs," she testified.

When Combs first suggested "setting up performances" in their relationship, Ventura felt shaken, but agreed to it because she loved him, she testified.

"At that point, Sean controlled a lot of my life," she said. "Whether it was my career, the way I dressed — everything."

Meanwhile, her career was stalling. Ventura said Combs gave her instructions to develop her music, but few songs were released. Ventura testified she came to believe she was doing only "busy work" so Combs could "control" her.

And though Combs was in charge of Ventura's album releases, he blamed her for the lack of output, she said.

"If you're not releasing music, you're not doing your job," Ventura said, characterizing Combs' attitude.

Ventura made money by hosting events in nightclubs, which could net between $7,500 to $20,000 for each appearance, she testified. She also had the occasional modeling job.

Combs still had veto power over those gigs and often instructed her not to take them, Ventura said.

Prosecutors have alleged that Combs used his companies' resources to exploit women and facilitate a sex-trafficking enterprise.

Ventura said Combs instructed his assistants and bodyguards to set up rooms for "freak offs." They were required to bring baby oil, Astroglide lubricant, condoms, colorful lights, and scented candles, Ventura said.

"It was just super pungent and strong," she said.

Combs and Ventura never lived in the same home during their on-and-off relationship, Ventura said. At first, the two were in New York City, and then moved to Los Angeles when Combs decided he wanted to be closer to his children, whom he had with his late ex-wife Kim Porter.

In Los Angeles, Combs paid the rent for Ventura's homes, she said. He had his own set of keys and occasionally dropped by unannounced, she said. Ventura also paid for her own house in Studio City, she said.

Combs eventually assigned James Cruz, a Bad Boys Records employee, to manage Ventura's career, she testified.

Cruz disclosed to her that he "was managing me with one hand tied behind his back," she testified.

"He couldn't work as a normal manager," Ventura said Cruz told her. "He had to make decisions through other parties. It was just a different way of doing things."

Combs' trial is expected to run about eight weeks. If convicted on the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him, he could face up to life in prison.

• Sean "Diddy" Combs came face-to-face in court Monday with his key accuser, Cassie Ventura.
• The R&B singer dated Combs between 2007 and 2018.
• Prosecutors allege Combs sex-trafficked Ventura and another woman.

The R&B singer Cassie Ventura, a longtime girlfriend of Sean "Diddy" Combs, broke down on the witness stand Tuesday as she testified she felt "worthless" joining in on the drug-fueled sex marathons that he called "freak offs."

"I felt pretty horrible about myself. I felt disgusting. I was humiliated. I didn't have the words at the time to tell him how I felt. And I couldn't talk to anyone about it," Ventura, who is eight months pregnant, told a jury in Manhattan, breaking into tears as she sat opposite Combs during his criminal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial.

Ventura testified that she did not want to have sex with the male escorts that she says Combs recruited for the sessions, but she said she wanted to be intimate with Combs. She craved one-on-one time with Combs, and freak offs, she said, were "the only time I could get."

"I wanted him to know that doing this made me feel horrible. It made me feel worthless," Ventura said, adding that he was "pretty dismissive" when she told Combs how terrible she felt, including in emails and texts.

She called him "Pop Pop" in these exchanges — at his request, she said, after he asked her to call him "what I call my grandfather."

Jurors were shown photographs of six men Ventura said were paid by Combs to have sex with her "almost weekly," and sometimes two at a time.

Their names included "Dave," "Jules," and "Daniel," she said, as the images were shown one by one.

"I knew him as 'The Punisher," she said of the photo of one male escort hired "a couple of times."

Ventura said she took drugs, including Molly and Ecstasy, to numb herself to what was happening.

She described in graphic terms the encounters that she said would leave the hotel furniture and linens stained with blood, urine, candle wax, and baby oil.

The air would often be thick with the smell of body odor and the smoke from a half-dozen Glade candles, she said.

"I hated it," she told the jury, calling the hired men "strangers."

Early in her testimony, Ventura told the jury that she loved Combs and felt a sense of duty to join in the freak offs, which are at the core of the indictment against Combs.

"I was just in love and wanted to make him happy," Ventura said.

Ventura, who dated Combs from 2007 to 2018, described herself as a "people pleaser" and told the eight men and four women on the jury that Combs was often violent with her.

She testified that arguments with Combs would regularly result in physical abuse.

"He would bash me in my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me in the head," Ventura said, adding that Combs beat her "too frequently."

"I would get knocked in my forehead, busted lips, swollen lips, black eyes," Ventura said, "bruises all over my body."

When he became violent, "His eyes would go black," she told the jury of Combs.

Ventura is the prosecution's key witness in the case.

Prosecutors allege that for two decades, Combs led a criminal enterprise that involved the sex trafficking of Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe.

Ventura's climb to the witness stand — she is eight months pregnant and wore a stretchy brown dress and mustard-colored overcoat — came amid the first time she and Combs were in the same room since 2018. That's when she attended the funeral of Kim Porter, Combs' long-term girlfriend and the mother to four of his children.

Ventura told the jury that it was soon after she started dating Combs that she learned he had sudden, violent mood swings.

"Make a wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face," she told the jurors.

He would lash out "if I wasn't smiling at him, if I didn't look the certain way that he liked," or if she was being "bratty," she said.

"Watch your mouth," she said he'd tell her if he thought she spoke out of turn.

Ventura's appearance followed a whirlwind first day of the trial.

On Monday, the jury heard opening statements and testimony from the first two witnesses, including an exotic dancer who testified he was repeatedly paid to have sex with Ventura as Combs watched.

The prosecutor Emily Johnson told the jury Combs used "lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce" Ventura and another woman into "freak offs."

Plenty of bathroom breaks

Prosecutors say Ventura, 38, will be on the stand testifying against Combs, 55, for most of this week.

She's due to give birth next month to her third child with her husband, Alex Fine, a source said. She's set to be given breaks every 90 minutes during her testimony.

Fine may be called to the stand as a defense witness, Combs' attorney Teny Geragos told the judge, who is allowing him to watch part of her testimony.

If Fine is asked to take the stand, he'll be asked to impeach the testimony of his wife, Geragos said outside the jury's presence moments before Ventura began testifying.

Fine may be asked about "several very threatening messages" in which he spoke of "beating the F-word out of" Combs, the lawyer said.

The criminal indictment against Combs accuses him of making Ventura engage "in commercial sex acts as a result of force, fraud, and coercion" throughout their decadelong relationship.

Prosecutors have alleged that the commercial sex acts involved the so-called freak offs.

Ventura's account of abuse could be bolstered by security video appearing to show Combs beating Ventura in the hallway of the now closed InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles. Prosecutors say the video shows Ventura struggling to leave the hotel after a freak off held there in 2016. Jurors were shown this video on Monday.

When shown a still from that video on Tuesday in court, Ventura told jurors: "We were having an encounter that we called a freak off."

During the first year of the relationship, "Sean proposed to me this sexual encounter that he called voyeurism, where he would watch me have a sexual encounter with a third man, specifically another man," Ventura testified.

Ventura said she initially agreed to a freak off because she "felt a sense of responsibility, with Sean sharing something like that with me."

"Also, I loved him so much," Ventura said.

Combs apologized after the video surfaced in 2023, and his lawyers have conceded he was violent during the relationship. But they have alleged that Ventura was also violent. They say all sexual encounters were consensual.

"There was hitting on both sides," Combs' attorney Marc Agnifilo said in court on Friday. Ventura's lawyer has declined to comment on this allegation.

Since his arrest in September, Combs has maintained that he's never sexually abused anyone.

If convicted on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, Combs could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

This story was updated with additional testimony throughout the day Tuesday.

• An ex-dancer took the witness stand in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial.
• He testified that he would have sex for money with R&B singer Cassie Ventura while Combs watched.
• Combs faces a potential life sentence if convicted. The trial is expected to last two months.

When a male erotic dancer first met Sean "Diddy" Combs in 2012, the hip-hop mogul was unconvincing in how he described his career, the man testified Monday.

The dancer, Daniel Phillip, told Combs' federal sex-trafficking jury that he would then go on to be paid to have sex with R&B singer Cassie Ventura.

"He told me he was in importing and exporting," Phillip, the ex-dancer, said on the witness stand, giving the Combs jury its earliest firsthand account of what happened at a "freak off" — the elaborate performances at the center of the sex-trafficking case.

Prosecutors say that over the course of two decades, Combs coerced four girlfriends into participating in these staged sex shows, which the indictment describes as commercial sex acts because of the involvement of male strippers or escorts.

Combs has countered that the encounters were consensual.

"The government has no place in his private bedroom," defense lawyer Teny Geragos said in opening statements Monday morning.

On the witness stand in the afternoon, Phillip told rapt jurors that he believed he was called to Manhattan's Gramercy Park Hotel that first night in order to perform as a dancer for a bachelorette party.

"I was expecting to do a little strip tease and that's it," he testified.

Instead, "Cassie opened the door and asked if it was OK if it was just going to be us," he told the jury, describing her attire as red lingerie, red high heels, and a red wig.

"She said her husband wanted to do something special for her," he said Ventura told him.

Phillip testified Ventura told him his assignment would be to rub baby oil on her — and more, if he was up to it.

Combs, meanwhile, sat in the corner of the darkened room, wearing only a bathrobe and the bandana that covered his face from the nose down, he said.

"He wasn't going to try to touch me or anything," Phillip said Ventura told him of Combs. "I said that's good, because I wasn't with that."

In the room, Phillip said he saw velvet couches and a table topped with lit candles, bottles of baby oil, and Astroglide lubricant.

Phillip testified he expected to be paid $200, and that he recognized Combs "as soon as he spoke to me."

"I complimented the room, the hotel that we were in, and I asked him what he did for a living," Phillip testified. That's when Combs said his job was in imports and exports, he added.

"We ended up having sex," Phillip told jurors of his encounter with Ventura.

Prosecutor Maurene Comey asked Phillip, "Before you and Ms. Ventura had intercourse, what, if anything, did you rub on each other?"

Phillip responded, "Baby oil."

He told the jury that during the encounter, Combs sat in the corner and masturbated.

At the end, "Cassie gave me more money. I think a couple thousand dollars more," he said.

Phillip said they had several more similar sexual encounters, including in hotels across Manhattan, in Combs' personal residence in Midtown, and in Ventura's home on Manhattan's west side.

He testified that he would be paid anywhere from $700 to $6,000. The encounters could last half an hour or over 10 hours, with breaks in between.

"I would be sitting there waiting for hours," while Ventura and Combs retreated to another room, he said.

At one point, during an encounter at JW Marriott Essex House, Combs stopped wearing a mask, Phillip said.

"This was the first time that Sean Combs opened the door as himself. You know, dressed in a suit," he said, adding that these encounters went on until late 2013 or 2014.

As the encounters continued, Phillip said he saw an angry side to Combs.

During one, Combs threw a liquor bottle at Ventura because she did not immediately come over when he said, "Babe, come here," Phillip said. Phillip said Combs then dragged Ventura into a bedroom, and that he could hear Combs slapping her.

Several jurors smiled when Phillip described what he called the few encounters where he agreed to take drugs.

"He offered me a Cialis once or twice," Phillip said. Once, he accepted what he believed was a "Molly." It made him "euphoric," he said.

"I went out to Times Square and I handed out $100 bills to every single person I saw," he said, referring to the cash he said he'd received as pay from Combs.

"I handed out every single dollar he gave me," he said.

Combs is on trial for sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He faces up to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

• A jury has been seated for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial in New York City.
• The jurors are eight men and four women.
• Four of them have said they listen to R&B or hip-hop.

A scientist. A massage therapist. A deli clerk.

These New Yorkers are among the eight-man, four-woman panel of jurors who are set to determine Sean "Diddy" Combs' fate in his criminal sex-trafficking case.

Combs, a hip-hop mogul and businessman who was once on the cusp of becoming a billionaire, faces up to life in prison if convicted at trial of all the charges against him.

The 12 jurors, plus six alternates, were seated on Monday following a jury selection process that unfolded over a week in a Manhattan federal courtroom.

Four of the jurors selected for the trial — which is expected to run about two months — said during the process, known as voir dire, that they liked hip-hop or R&B music.

One of them, a 30-year-old woman from the Bronx who works the deli counter at the grocery chain Gristedes, said that her mother was arrested and convicted over 20 years ago for stealing money from a bank.

"She worked in the bank, and they caught her and she got arrested," the woman previously told the court.

Another juror, a retired 68-year-old man from Westchester, wrote in his jury questionnaire that he had viewed the infamous security-camera footage in which Combs appears to beat Cassie Ventura, an R&B singer who was his girlfriend at the time.

Ventura is the prosecution's key witness, and jurors are expected to be shown that footage at trial, among other graphic videos.

That juror also said he had a problem viewing graphic videos showing violence but would force himself to watch if needed.

"I wouldn't be biased. And, to be honest, I'd have to make myself look at it," said the man, who worked for Verizon for 40 years.

At the end of the jury selection, Combs' defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said prosecutors had used their preemptory strikes to unfairly keep Black members out of the jury.

He's previously argued that the Justice Department has targeted Combs because of his race.

"By our count, the government struck seven Black people, which we believe amounts to a pattern," Agnifilo told the judge.

The prosecutor Maurene Comey detailed the reasons she struck each juror, making the case for each one. One attended the same high school as Combs, making him susceptible to unconscious bias, she said. Another talked about how some accusers would jump on a "bandwagon" to accuse famous people of abuse, making it possible she'd be biased against victims, Comey said.

The judge ultimately ruled that Combs' legal team couldn't prove prosecutors tried to exclude jurors based on race.

Meanwhile, Combs' family members, including his children and mother, filled two rows of benches in the courtroom on Monday. They were seated behind the defense table where Combs sat wearing a light-colored sweater and eyeglasses.

At times, he blew kisses to his family.

Combs was arrested and indicted in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has strongly denied all charges and all allegations of sexual abuse.

Prosecutors allege that for decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of two women, Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe.

Combs, 55, is also accused of coercing those women, plus another two, into sex through a pattern of threats and violence.

At the core of the Combs' indictment are allegations that the "I'll Be Missing You" rapper organized elaborate sex encounters that he called "freak offs." In court papers, prosecutors described the events as dayslong, drug-fueled sex performances that Combs directed and often recorded.

Over the course of the trial, jurors are set to be shown hours of graphic sex videos that prosecutors say Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent.

Some of the footage depicts Combs' freak offs.

• Sean Combs plans to make his own alleged victimhood a centerpiece of his sex-trafficking defense.
• Prosecutors say Combs' ex-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, will testify next week.
• "We are absolutely 100%" going to accuse Ventura of hitting Combs, his lawyer said Friday.

Sean "Diddy" Combs wants 12 New Yorkers to see him as a victim.

Central to the millionaire rap mogul's defense at his criminal sex-trafficking trial next week will be the claim that the R&B singer Cassie Ventura — the star witness in the case against him — abused him, too.

"We are abolutely 100% going to take that position," Combs' defense attorney Marc Agnifilo told the trial judge in a final pretrial hearing on Friday.

"There was hitting on both sides," he told US District Court Justice Arun Subramanian. Combs sat at the defense table, nodding his head in approval as Agnifilo alleged there was "mutual violence in their relationship."

"We're probably going to refer to it as domestic violence," the lawyer told the judge."

Subramanian on Friday barred the defense from alleging to jurors that Ventura, Combs' ex-girlfriend of more than a decade, was violent to someone other than Combs. Agnifilo had argued that jurors needed to see that Ventura was a "strong" person who wouldn't have been coerced into sex by Combs.

"Strong people can be coerced, just like weak people," the judge said.

Ventura's attorney, Douglas Wigdor, declined to comment to Business Insider at court on Friday.

Redefining Combs, 55, as a battered man may be tough work for his defense team.

Prosecutors plan to show jurors the infamous security-camera footage where Combs is seen beating and dragging Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway.

Prosecutor Emily Anne Johnson told the judge on Friday that jurors may see five versions of the footage. These will include versions recorded on a security guard's cellphone and others first obtained by CNN.

From Met Gala to MDC

The Combs that jurors will see at the defense table during opening statements in Manhattan federal court Monday will look nothing like the star who graced the red carpet at the 2023 Met Gala, wearing a black Swarovski crystal-studded motorcycle tuxedo with the rapper Yung Miami at his side.

These days, Combs — whose net worth was estimated to be $1 billion in 2022 — is gray-haired and somberly dressed, appearing to wear the same dark slacks and sweater each day of jury selection.

If convicted on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, Combs could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The high-profile trial is expected to last about two months.

Combs was arrested and indicted last September. Since then, he's been locked up at a federal Brooklyn jail.

Prosecutors allege that for two decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of two women, Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe. Combs is accused of coercing those women, plus two additional women, into sex through a pattern of threats, manipulation, and violence.

Ventura is set to testify during the trial about the abuse she says she endured at the hands of Combs. At least two of the other women are also expected to testify, one under her real name and the other using a pseudonym. A fifth woman who's not named in the indictment is also set to testify about alleged past abuse using her real name.

Prosecutors say that Combs and his associates also committed other crimes, including forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, drug offenses, and obstruction of justice.

Violence and 'freak offs'

Much like Combs' lavish, star-studded "white parties" of the late 1990s and early 2000s, his trial is expected to feature a number of celebrities — at least in name.

The jury selection process revealed a list of famous individuals who may be mentioned during the trial. They include: Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West; the rapper Kid Cudi; the actor Michael B. Jordan; the choreographer Laurieann Gibson; and Yung Miami.

Combs' criminal case stems from a November 2023 civil lawsuit that Ventura filed against Combs, accusing him of rape and forcing to her to engage in sex sessions that the music magnate called "freak offs." Combs settled the suit shortly after it was filed.

At the center of the criminal indictment against Combs are accusations that he orchestrated the so-called "freak offs," described by prosecutors in court papers as elaborate, drug-fueled, and sometimes dayslong sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded.

During the trial, jurors will be asked to watch hours of graphic sex videos, including "freak off" footage, that Combs recorded over the years. Prosecutors say some footage was taken without his accusers' consent. The videos are so explicit and sensitive that the public in the courtroom won't be permitted to view them.

Combs has adamantly denied the charges against him, as well as all other allegations of sex abuse. He has been accused of sexual assault, rape, drugging, and other forms of violence in more than 50 civil lawsuits.

His defense attorneys have argued in his criminal case that the sex acts Combs was involved in were fully consensual. The video of Combs beating Ventura, they say, came following a personal dispute about their relationship.

A high-powered legal team

For the sex-trafficking case, Combs parted with his longtime attorney Ben Brafman, who successfully won an acquittal for the hip-hop artist on gun and bribery charges in 2001.

He's now represented by a protégé of Brafman, Marc Agnifilo, who previously defended the NXIVM cult founder Keith Raniere and "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli.

Agnifilo and his wife, Karen Agnifilo Friedman, are also representing Luigi Mangione, who prosecutors say killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last year.

Combs's legal team is stacked with other prominent attorneys, including Alexandra Shapiro, who is handling Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal; Brian Steel, who defended Young Thug in his complicated Georgia RICO trial and has a Drake song named after him; and Teny Geragos, a law partner of Agnifolo's and the daughter of Mark Geragos, a high-profile defense attorney who is advising on the case.

In a recent hearing, Combs confirmed to the judge that he was offered the chance to plead guilty to charges that would have resulted in a lighter sentence but chose to go to trial.

The prosecution, representing the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, is composed entirely of women. Among the prosecutors is Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI chief James Comey, who successfully prosecuted the sex-trafficking trial of Jeffrey Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The trial is the first major criminal case to be overseen by Subramanian, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in 2023. Subramanian is also overseeing a complex antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation, as well as a civil lawsuit filed by Jeffrey Epstein victims against US Rep. Stacey Paskett, who they allege helped facilitate the now-dead pedophile's sex trafficking on the US Virgin Islands.

While prosecutors have depicted Combs as a criminal mastermind who exerted his vast resources to manipulate women and men for his sexual gratification, his attorneys have put forward a more mild picture.

They say Combs had a "swinger" lifestyle that involved multiple sexual partners, and that prosecutors have distorted a personal and complicated relationship into a false criminal allegation.

Combs and Ventura "were in love," Agnifilo said during one bail hearing last year.

"That will be made abundantly clear by the way they speak to each other, by the way other witnesses described their time together, and by the circumstances of how they broke up," Agnifolo said.

"They were in love, but Mr. Combs wasn't always faithful," he continued.

• Wednesday was the third day of jury selection for the Sean Combs sex trafficking trial in Manhattan.
• Dozens of potential jurors were questioned about their ability to be impartial.
• The selection process includes moments of anguish and laughter for those summoned to the courtroom.

There are moments of anguish. And a surprising amount of laughter.

Throughout the week, a random assortment of New Yorkers filed in and out of a federal courtroom in Manhattan after receiving juror summonses for USA v Sean Combs.

Each prospective juror — nearly 100 people, with doctors, school teachers, clerks, and retirees among them — was warned that the eight-week trial would involve evidence of alleged sexual trafficking and violence.

They've all also been asked to describe any personal trauma that could trigger a bias against the rapper, who has maintained his innocence.

"It takes a lot of healing," one woman told the judge of being nearly raped three years ago by a stranger in the Bronx.

Despite these harrowing moments — and the potential life sentence hanging over the millionaire music mogul — there have also been many moments of levity during jury selection, which is expected to conclude Friday.

Laughter has broken out in the otherwise somber courtroom more than a dozen times, including from Combs himself.

Here are some of those lighter moments.

A Tolkien gesture

"I read through the people and places list, which is several pages long," US District Judge Arun Subramanian told the parties before the first 30 prospective jurors filed into his courtroom Monday.

"I felt like I was reading an appendix from, like, 'The Lord of the Rings," cracked Subramanian, who is presiding over the trial.

The judge was referencing a printed list of more than 200 names that was handed to each prospect. It includes every name that may be referenced during the trial, Kanye West and Kid Cudi among them.

The list includes stumpers, such as "Mike Myers." Four people close to the trial — who were not allowed to comment by name — were unable to confirm if this was the actor of "Shrek" and Austin Powers fame. One thought it "probably" was, but could not describe the context.

No Altoids for you

During a break in jury selection Monday, Combs' jury selection consultant, Linda Moreno, was returning to her seat at the defense table directly in front of Combs' seat.

Combs gestured at the little tin of Altoids she carried, as if to ask for a mint. Moreno began opening the tin. Then her eyes met those of two federal marshals who sat directly behind Combs.

The marshals slowly shook their heads, "No," in unison, the tin remained shut, and Moreno took her seat again.

Harry Potter and the purloined merch

Each prospective juror is asked whether they or any significant person in their life has had any contact with law enforcement.

On Monday, this question prompted a former parochial school teacher from the Bronx to admit to her juvenile shoplifting record.

"Um, I was at Universal Studios," she began. "I think I was in Harry Potter World. So, they took me to the back and, um, they kind of, like, put me through all the process."

She was 16, and a lawyer eventually got the case reduced to "just a fine," she told the judge with an embarrassed-sounding laugh. Many of the defense lawyers and prosecutors couldn't resist smiling. Combs, too, smiled.

Then the judge broached the question on everyone's mind.

"OK," he asked, as if eliciting a formal confession. "What did you take?"

"A wand," she answered.

As of Wednesday, the woman remained a contender for the jury.

Juror No. 420

"I'm going to order you not to use marijuana during this trial," the judge told a prospective juror who works as a landlord in the Bronx — and who said he partakes nightly. "Are you going to be able to follow that instruction?"

As smiles flickered through the courtroom, the judge probed further, asking, "Would that be hard for you?"

"Yes," came the answer from the witness box.

"It would be?" the judge pressed.

"Yep."

The prospective juror was excused from service.

The 51-year-old K-Pop stan

Prospective jurors were told to avoid media reports about Combs' case and inform the judge if they had heard anything about it.

One 51-year-old nurse practitioner said she had.

"I became aware because this is my second day, so you told us about the case," she told the judge.

The room erupted in laughter.

The woman later said that her media diet consisted almost exclusively of nurse practitioner trade publications. She also listens to rock and hip-hop, and appears to be a member of the BTS Army.

"I'm actively watching the concert of the group called BTS, or Bangtan Boys," she said.

The judge's pal

Subramanian had the chance to bask in the praise of one prospective juror, an attorney who said he had personally known the judge for a decade.

The prospective juror said the two had worked together on class-action cases. (Before becoming a federal judge in 2023, Subramanian was an attorney at Susman Godfrey, where he was involved in numerous antitrust cases.)

"He is fair, he is gregarious, he is decent, and he's brilliant," he said, ladling plaudits upon the judge. "But we have not always agreed on everything."

Subramanian ultimately dismissed him.

The guy who skipped questions because he was tired after binge-watching 'Andor'

The courtroom was enraptured by one prospective juror, a 64-year-old Black man who works as an X-Ray technician.

He recounted past interactions with law enforcement, including the time he once "got into a scuffle" after a misunderstanding in a laundromat, and another occasion where a police officer accused him of failing to be helpful.

Subramanian said the man appeared to have omitted details on his written questionnaire. Asked about it, the prospective juror said he was tired because he had sleep apnea and was up late binge-watching "Andor," the new "Star Wars" show on Disney+.

"What are you going to do when you are selected as a juror and not be able to binge 'Andor?'" Subramanian asked.

"It's finished, I'm finished with it," the prospective juror assured the judge.

Subramanian moved him along to the next round.

Diddy's jailer

One of the last prospective jurors was on the stand for a short time after explaining where he worked.

"I work at MDC Brooklyn," he said, referring to the federal jail where Combs is incarcerated.

There was an awkward pause in the courtroom as everyone digested what he had just said. And then laughter.

"Can we get longer visiting hours?" Agnifilo asked.

"Are you in charge of that?" Subramanian asked the 20-something-year-old prospective juror, who was wearing a green hoodie.

"Nope," the prospective juror answered.

He was dismissed for cause.

• Diddy's trial judge sharply criticized a lawyer who called prosecutors "a six-pack of white women."
• Mark Geragos, who is working with Sean Combs' legal team, spoke about the case on his TMZ podcast.
• The judge called the remarks "outrageous" in a closed-door meeting.

The judge overseeing the criminal sex-trafficking trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs sharply criticized a member of his family's legal team in a closed-door meeting, calling comments he made on a TMZ podcast "outrageous."

In a Tuesday morning meeting in US District Judge Arun Subramanian's robing room, the judge lambasted the lawyer, Mark Geragos, for describing the all-female prosecution team as "a six-pack of white women."

"When you say things on a podcast like 'six women, all white, my understanding is you've got a six-pack of white women,'" Submaranian told Geragos, according to a court transcript of the meeting. "Like that's not — that's something that you shouldn't — that no one should be saying as an officer of the Court and a member of the bar, right?"

Geragos — a criminal defense attorney who has represented Michael Jackson and Hunter Biden, among other boldfaced names — spoke about the Combs case on a Friday episode of "2 Angry Men," a podcast he co-hosts with TMZ founder Harvey Levin.

In addition to describing them as "a six-pack of white women," Geragos said the prosecutors mischaracterized a surveillance video where Combs beat his former partner Cassie Ventura in a hotel hallway, saying Combs was upset because she took her phone.

"Have you ever had a situation where your significant other took your cellphone?" Geragos said on the podcast. "And does that take you from 0 to 60 really quick?"

Submaranian admonished Geragos for the comments about the prosecutors, saying he violated a court rule barring lawyers involved in ongoing cases from making "extrajudicial comments" about them.

It marks a rough start for the legal team in Combs' case. Prosecutors have accused the "I'll Be Missing You" singer of sexual abuse and racketeering, which he denies. Jury selection began this week, and the trial is expected to last up to eight weeks.

Geragos didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Until the Tuesday morning robing room meeting, Geragos's precise involvement in the case has been unclear. He sat among members Combs' legal team in the lower Manhattan courtroom during the jury selection process on Monday and Tuesday, but he has not formally filed an appearance in the case. Prosecutors addressed the ambiguity of his role in their letter to the judge on Tuesday morning. The letter pointed to his podcast comments and asked the judge to stop him from continuing to speak about the case.

In the robing room meeting, Geragos said he represents Combs' mother and talks with the hip-hop mogul "with great frequency."

Geragos told Subramanian that he believes the rule forbidding "extrajudicial comments" has "been perverted over the years" and interferes with the right of defendants to receive a fair trial. He also said he has refrained from criticizing the lawyers who represent the women who have accused Combs of sexual assault.

"I think when you've got a black man who's being prosecuted and the client feels like he's being targeted, it's a — it's an observation," Geragos said.

"I think this is ridiculous," Submaranian snapped back. "I think referring to the prosecution in this case as 'a six-pack of white women' is outrageous."

One of the prosecutors, Mary Slavik, said that Geragos's podcast had millions of subscribers and that his remarks could reach jurors in the case.

"This TMZ podcast that Mr. Geragos is a part of has several million subscribers," she said. "The danger of Mr. Geragos's statements infecting the jury pool, I think, is very serious."

Submaranian said he would be monitoring "2 Angry Men" for additional comments Geragos may make about the case.

"You have one more listener for your podcast," the judge said.

"As long as you subscribe, I'm all for it," Geragos responded.

• Federal prosecutors want a judge to admonish a lawyer helping Diddy, who also co-hosts a TMZ podcast.
• The attorney, Mark Geragos, said on his "2 Angry Men" podcast that Sean Combs has a "violent temper."
• Geragos appeared to be clued in, correctly predicting another legal hire Combs would make.

Federal prosecutors asked the judge overseeing Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial to admonish a lawyer advising his defense, arguing it was inappropriate for the attorney to discuss the case on his TMZ podcast.

The lawyer, Mark Geragos, co-hosts the "2 Angry Men" podcast with Harvey Levin, the founder of TMZ.

In an episode posted online Friday, Geragos discussed a key piece of evidence expected to be shown at trial — a security video showing Combs beating his then-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a hotel hallway — and described it as "character assassination."

"You give the prosecution props," Geragos said on the podcast. "It's a prosecution by proxy."

Geragos said footage of the video that previously aired on CNN was edited in a misleading way.

The original footage, a version of which is expected to be shown in the trial, may back up a version of events presented by Combs's lawyers, he said.

"I've known Sean for a long time. He has a violent temper, especially when you combine it with the drug use," Geragos said on the podcast. "But that isn't what he's charged with."

In court, Combs's legal team has said that Ventura hit Combs in the head during an argument and then left the hotel room with a bag of his clothing, leading him to chase her in the hallway.

"Have you ever had a situation where your significant other took your cellphone?" Geragos said. "And does that take you from 0 to 60 really quick?"

Geragos hasn't filed court papers indicating he's representing Combs. But he has been in the courtroom sitting with Combs's legal team during jury selection on Monday and Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Geragos's "apparent role as an advisor to the defendant and the defense team" means his podcast comments violated a rule about lawyers giving "extrajudicial statements" while the case is ongoing.

"The need for the Court's admonishment is necessary given that as recently as three days ago, Mr. Geragos spoke at length about the trial in this case in his podcast called '2 Angry Men,' Mr. Geragos's podcast with Harvey Levin, the creator of the tabloid news organization TMZ," prosecutors wrote in their Tuesday letter.

Combs has appeared to be deeply involved in the jury selection process. On Tuesday, he was in constant conversation with his two lawyers beside him and nodded when particular jurors told the judge they believed they could serve fairly.

On the podcast, Geragos said he would continue to discuss the Combs case in future episodes. Neither Geragos nor representatives for TMZ immediately responded to Business requests for comment from Business Insider.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have accused Combs of sex trafficking women, using the resources of his record label and other businesses to stage "freak offs" — elaborate, drug-fueled sexual performances. He has denied the charges and all allegations of sexual abuse.

Ventura, who dated Combs for about a decade, is expected to testify in the criminal trial as a victim. Combs previously settled a civil sexual assault lawsuit she filed against him.

In the "2 Angry Men" podcast episode, Geragos discussed other elements of the case, including what he expected from jury selection and how the prosecutors would handle the case.

"You've got a six-pack of white women," Geragos said of the all-female prosecution team.

He also said he hasn't been able to get information from his daughter Teny Geragos, an attorney at the law firm Agnifilo Intrater, who is representing Combs and has formally filed the appropriate papers to do so.

"You raise it through college and you get nothing," Levin joked.

"I can put it through college and I get not only nothing, I get a lot of pushback," Mark Geragos responded.

Nonetheless, during the Friday podcast episode, Geragos appeared to be clued in on the case behind the scenes.

According to Levin, Combs' legal team "really, really wanted to get a female Black lawyer — I think for kind of obvious reasons" but weren't able to hire one.

Geragos pushed back.

"Well, I'm telling you, I'm not so sure that you're right. I'll leave it at that," Geragos said. "I'm not going to speak out of school, but I've heard very strong rumors."

On Tuesday afternoon, another lawyer filed an appearance to represent Combs: Nicole Westmoreland. She is Black.

Westmoreland previously represented Quamarvious Nichols, a codefendant of rapper Young Thug who pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in Atlanta last year.

• Jury selection began Monday for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan.
• Prospective jurors were shown a list of 200 names that could be mentioned during the trial.
• Combs has denied the charges and other allegations of sexual abuse.

Jury selection for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking case is underway this week, and it has offered a glimpse of which celebrities may be name-dropped at the trial.

During day one of jury selection in Manhattan federal court on Monday, prospective jurors were shown a list of some 200 names of people who the judge said would at least be mentioned during the trial, which is expected to last eight weeks. No jurors were selected by the end of the day on Monday.

Like Combs' "white party" extravaganzas of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the trial too is expected to feature celebrities — at least by name, if not in person.

Combs was indicted in September 2024 on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied the charges against him and all other allegations of sexual abuse. If convicted on all charges, Combs could face up to life in prison.

Each prospective juror is being asked if they personally know anyone on the list. The list has not been made public, but some famous names were revealed during jury selection on Monday.

Notable figures included on the list were:

• Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West
• Rapper Kid Cudi
• Music producer Dallas Austin
• Choreographer Laurieann Gibson
• Music producer Harve Pierre
• Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard
• Former Danity Kane member Aubrey O'Day
• Actress Lauren London
• Destiny's Child alum Michelle Williams
• Actor Michael B. Jordan

Also on the list were members of the Combs family and several of Combs' exes and accusers, including:

• Late longtime girlfriend Kim Porter
• Rapper Yung Miami
• R&B singer and key witness Cassie Ventura

Reps for Ye, Kid Cudi, Austin, Gibson, Pierre, O'Day, London, Williams, Yung Miami, and the Combs family did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Business Insider.

Ventura's attorneys declined to comment.

Richard's lawyer Lisa Bloom, who was in the courtroom during jury selection, also declined to comment. Richard sued Combs last year, accusing him of sexual assault.

At the time, an attorney for Combs said in a statement that Combs was "shocked and disappointed" by the lawsuit.

"In an attempt to rewrite history, Dawn Richard has now manufactured a series of false claims all in the hopes of trying to get a payday — conveniently timed to coincide with her album release and press tour," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Business Insider has learned that Jordan, the "Black Panther" actor, was referenced in the November 2023 lawsuit Ventura filed against Combs, accusing Combs of rape. The case quickly resulted in a settlement.

At one point during Ventura and Combs' on-again, off-again relationship, Ventura's lawsuit said in 2015 that she "began a flirtatious relationship with an actor." BI has confirmed that the actor is Jordan.

"She spent New Years Eve with this actor, but Combs soon found out," the lawsuit said, alleging that Combs then "called the actor and threatened him."

Jordan is not expected to appear as a witness during Combs' trial.

Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, was also mentioned in Ventura's lawsuit. The suit suggested that Combs was responsible for blowing up a car that belonged to the rapper in 2012 after Combs learned of a "brief relationship" that Kid Cudi and Ventura had.

Ventura is expected to be the star witness in Combs' trial. She is referred to as "Victim-1" in the indictment against Combs.

Being on the list of names shown to potential jurors does not mean that these people will be called to testify, but that their names may be mentioned during the trial.

Not one of the more than 30 prospects questioned on Monday said they knew anyone on the list personally.

Many told the judge they had never heard of any of the people, while several said the only one they had heard of was Ye or Kanye West.

The witness lists for both sides have not been made public.

Jury selection in the high-profile trial is projected to take several days.

At the center of the indictment against Combs are accusations he orchestrated "freak offs," which prosecutors describe in court papers as "elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded."

In these alleged drug-fueled sex sessions, prosecutors say Combs "used force, threats of force, and coercion" to get female victims to engage in sex acts with male commercial sex workers.

• Jury selection began in New York on Monday for the Diddy trial.
• Three prospective jurors told the court about their own experiences with sexual assault.
• None of them has been excluded from the jury pool. One accuser's lawyer said that's the right call.

Three prospective jurors in the sex-trafficking trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs shared their own experiences of sexual assault.

Their stories were revealed Monday during the first day of jury selection in Manhattan federal court.

None of the three women, so far, have been removed from the pool of people who may eventually decide Combs' fate. They all told US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, that they could be impartial in weighing the evidence in the trial.

Combs has vehemently denied the charges against him, as well as all other allegations of sex abuse. If Combs — who was once estimated to be worth $820 million — is convicted at trial on all charges, he faces up to life in prison.

The hip-hop mogul has been locked up at a federal Brooklyn jail since his September 2024 arrest and indictment on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

The first jurors may be seated as early as Tuesday morning.

Experiences of sexual assault

As part of the jury selection process, prospective jurors were given a written questionnaire that asked if they had been victims of sexual assault.

Three women among those who responded "yes" to the question discussed their experiences in court on Monday. They answered questions from US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is deciding whether they can be impartial in deciding the case.

The first, who is in her 40s, told the judge that a family member molested her and her sister when they were young. She said she would "feel empathy toward the victims" but that she was "also a very rational person" who could keep a fair and objective view.

"I'm sorry that happened," Subramanian told the woman.

The woman said she works as a photo producer at HBO, which was subpoenaed by Combs' defense lawyers, who wanted to obtain raw interview footage of victims for "The Fall of Diddy" docuseries.

A second woman said she was sexually assaulted around 1996 by a neighbor. They had begun to date, and "he took it too far and sexually assaulted me in the stairwell of my house," she said.

The woman, who said she studied the relationship between sexual assault and women's self-esteem in college, said it was possible to hold nuanced views about perpetrators of sexual assault.

"I don't think it's a good thing, but I don't think it makes the person who did it horrible in all respects," she said.

The third survivor, a white woman in her 60s, said she was sexually assaulted as a teenager when she worked for a dentist for around two years. The dentist was "grossly inappropriate" and kissed and fondled her, she said.

But in more recent years, she has opened her mind to "both sides" of the relationship between perpetrators and victims, she said.

"I work very hard to remain impartial to people every day," she said.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys are trying to find a fair jury

Jury selection in the high-profile trial is expected to take several days, with the trial anticipated to run for about eight weeks.

Combs donned black framed glasses, black slacks, and a sweater with a crisp, white collar peeking through at the neck.

Linda Moreno, a jury selection consultant whom Combs has hired, was the first on the rapper's team to arrive at the courtroom on Monday. As a criminal defense lawyer, Moreno has represented actor Wesley Snipes and Noor Salman, and has done jury consultant work for Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.

The "I'll Be Missing You" singer appeared in good spirits, smiling as he hugged or shook hands with his team of about a dozen defense attorneys and staff before taking his seat.

Among those seated in the courtroom gallery on Monday was Douglas Wigdor, the attorney for Combs' ex-girlfriend R&B singer Cassie Ventura, who is expected to testify at the trial. Ventura is referred to as "Victim-1" in the indictment against Combs.

Also in court were Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali, who represent another of Combs's accusers who expected to testify. Fudali told Business Insider that being the victim of sexual assault should not be disqualifying for jurors.

"What I heard there today is that all three of those jurors, who expressed having experienced sexual or harass sexual assault, also expressed that they could be impartial and they can separate their own experiences from the trial," Fudali said. "And that's what you want in a juror, and that's why I believe none of them were excluded."

At the center of the indictment against Combs are accusations he orchestrated "freak offs," which prosecutors describe in court papers as "elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded."

In these alleged drug-fueled sex sessions, prosecutors say Combs "used force, threats of force, and coercion" to get female victims to engage in sex acts with male commercial sex workers.

Combs and his associates "wielded the power and prestige" of the rapper's success to "intimidate, threaten, and lure female victims" into his orbit "often under the pretense of a romantic relationship," prosecutors said in the indictment.

During the jury selection process, known as voir dire, prospective jurors will be asked if they can objectively deliberate in a case involving graphic sex.

Those who are selected for the jury will be asked during the trial to watch hours of graphic sex videos that Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent. Some of the videos are from Combs' so-called freak offs.

For Combs to win an acquittal, jurors would need to believe these videos depict a consensual good time, as the defense has insisted was the case.

Jury selection will continue Tuesday morning with the sides selecting the first jurors from among 19 prospects — 11 women and 8 men — who were questioned in detail about what they already know about the case from the media. Only three in the group said they listen to hip hop.

This story was updated to include developments from later Monday.

• Letitia James is continuing to look for possible insider trading in Trump's inner circle.
• The NY attorney general's inquiry centers on Trump's markets-roiling flip-flops on tariffs.
• Former AG prosecutors say James' inquiry is an unprecedented use of NY's century-old Martin Act.

New York's Letitia James is easily the most aggressive state attorney general in the country when it comes to suing President Donald Trump.

She's on the front lines of 15 legal actions brought by coalitions of Democratic AGs, all seeking to block executive orders and DOGE cuts, Her $454 million fraud verdict against Trump and his real estate company remains on appeal in Manhattan.

But James' most daring excursion into Trumpworld may be one she has yet to formally announce.

It's an ongoing inquiry into potential insider trading by the president's inner circle, centered on last month's markets-roiling tariff policies.

James' so-called inquiry — the formal name for a kind of probe that falls short of a full-blown investigation — has rounded its second month, an AG spokesman confirmed to Business Insider, declining to divulge details beyond saying the office is "looking at" possible insider trading.

What would an inquiry involve? And, more importantly, what are its odds?

Business Insider asked a half-dozen legal experts, including three former high-level financial-fraud prosecutors from the New York AG's office.

Opinions range wildly.

Some pointed to the perennial concerns over insider trading by members of Congress. They called James' inquiry a proper, even necessary, exercise of the power vested in an attorney general whose Manhattan office sits three blocks north of the Stock Exchange.

Others called her inquiry a politically motivated boondoggle that's doomed to fail. "This is a story of politics, not a story of law," said Richard Epstein, a law professor at New York University.

But there was unanimity on two points. Proving insider trading is notoriously difficult. And whatever is happening behind the scenes is unprecedented.

"There's been nothing like this," said Manhattan attorney Armen Morian, a former financial crimes prosecutor for the New York AG's office who helped defend Trump during James' fraud case.

An 800-pound gorilla of a statute

The inquiry is empowered by New York's Martin Act, a 104-year-old statute that gives state attorneys general extraordinary powers to police Wall Street.

Legal experts call the Martin Act the most powerful state securities-fraud law in the country. It allows the AG to issue subpoenas, grill suspects under oath, and file civil lawsuits or criminal charges.

In a 2018 essay, Epstein called the Martin Act "an 800-pound gorilla," a term he said he still stands by.

It prosecutes securities and real estate frauds and is used only rarely for insider trading, which is the illegal profiting off of stock tips not available to the public.

Legal experts and three veterans of the AG's office who have brought prosecutions under the Martin Act say they've never heard of it being used to investigate insider tips involving government policy, in this case, Trump's on-and-off tariffs.

The novelty of James' inquiry does not, in itself, doom her effort, said a former financial crimes prosecutor who asked not to be named, citing work constraints against speaking to the press.

"There is a body of Martin Act insider trading law — just not on these exact facts — that has been developed over decades," the former prosecutor said. "And remember, the facts of every case are always novel."

What is an AG inquiry, and how does it work?

An "inquiry" is what the New York AG's office calls the earliest stage of a probe — before subpoenas go out, explained former Executive Attorney General Manisha M. Sheth. Now a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Sheth oversaw the AG's Division of Economic Justice.

Securities inquiries can be sparked by whistleblower tips or by allegations that surface publicly in the press or a lawsuit, she told BI.

They are handled by the state investor protection bureau, one of the six divisions Sheth once supervised, she said. There, prosecutors working with the AGs' research analysts and data scientists would begin by reviewing raw trading data, she said. They'll look for suspicious patterns.

Were there spikes in trading, for instance, on April 9, in the hours before Trump posted on Truth Social, "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" triggering a market upswing?

At some point, the bureau would send out a flutter of "inquiry letters," authorized by the bureau's chief or deputy chief and signed by the assistant attorney general handling the matter, Sheth said.

"Such letters can ask for documents, data, or information," she said. "Sometimes the recipient of an inquiry letter may volunteer to meet with the office to provide the requested information."

Cooperating at this early stage is completely voluntary. If a case advances to the point that subpoenas are issued, an inquiry will have graduated to an investigation, Sheth said.

"I do think it's going to start with using trading data to show that no reasonable person would have engaged in these trades without that non-public information," said Anthony Capozzolo, a former federal and state prosecutor.

"You're going to want to, at the least, build an initial case that shows it's very likely that the only motivating factor for these trades was this allegedly inside information."

More roadblocks, these days, for gathering trading data

Compiling trading data will be tougher these days, predicted Capozzolo, a partner at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in Manhattan and a former federal and state-level prosecutor.

Pre-Trump, the AG would routinely and easily ask the Securities and Exchange Commission for trading data that's not already publicly available.

"Now, the SEC is controlled by the Trump administration, and he could potentially instruct the SEC not to cooperate," leading to a subpoena battle, Capozzolo predicted.

Identifying suspicious-seeming trading patterns is only the beginning, legal experts said.

Say, solely as a hypothetical, that a Trump insider reaped a small fortune by buying the dip in Apple stock right before Trump announced the tariff carve-out for electronics from China that sent the stock soaring.

That's not enough to prove insider trading, legal experts said. For that, James would need witnesses willing to testify that specific investments were prompted by improper insider tips.

"They try to force people to tell them who was present in rooms," Capozzolo said of prosecutors. "But the difficulty is a lot of these things may have happened in the presence of very upper-level Trump and MAGA acolytes."

And anyone in Trump's circle would certainly fight an inquiry letter or subpoena — and do so loudly.

"You'll see an immediate challenge," said Morian, who helped prosecute AIG CEO Hank Greenberg in the longest Martin Act case in the AG's history.

"It'll be lock and load. The minute any subpoena goes out, I would immediately intervene if I were in the Justice Department, and say 'Nope. Can't do it. Sorry.'"

Suing, charging, or subpoenaing Trump is a non-starter, given executive privilege and presidential immunity, which bars prosecution for official acts, Morian said. (He predicts presidential immunity would extend to civil cases as well someday, "If that ever gets to the Supreme Court.")

State AG subpoenas issued to members of the executive branch — cabinet members and the like — could also be challenged on executive privilege grounds. And investigating the stock trades of members of Congress would result in challenges as well, Morian predicted.

"If you overreach too far, you could easily see a private litigant taking this up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court limiting the jurisdiction of state attorneys general in ways we've never seen before," he said.

James is being probed by the DOJ for alleged mortgage fraud, an allegation she has called baseless and which her attorney, Abbe Lowell, has called "improper political retribution," according to CBS.

Should her insider-trading inquiry advance, James, a Democrat who campaigned for AG on a promise of investigating Trump, would herself would face accusations of political retribution and bias.

Over the years, Trump has decried James' investigations into his finances and business as baseless, "racist," and part of a "political witch hunt." A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on James' tariff-trade inquiry on Friday.

Then there is the inherent difficulty of proving insider trading — of teasing out any illegality from the chaos of sudden, trillion-dollar market swings.

"There's a huge amount of market turmoil whenever there's a major tariff initiative," said Epstein.

How can anyone call it insider trading if thousands of investors are making similar trades for benign reasons, based on hunches, past experience, or dumb luck, he asked.

"When the markets are this volatile, people make and lose money second to second, for any number of reasons," agreed Morian.

"There are so many contingent variables," he added. "How do you discern the signal from the noise, to prove your case?"

• A new defense filing has been made public in the Manhattan DA's murder case against Luigi Mangione.
• Mangione, accused of killing UHC CEO Brian Thompson, asks a judge to drop a state-level terror charge.
• The 57-page filing includes two newly revealed police bodycam images from his arrest in Pennsylvania.

Luigi Mangione, charged in the December ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is challenging the most serious charges in his state indictment in New York — first degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism.

In a 57-page defense filing made public Thursday night, his lawyers argue that there is no evidence showing Mangione intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, as required to prove those top counts.

"Applying New York's terrorism statute to this case would impermissibly trivialize and redefine the Legislature's definition of terrorism," Mangione's attorneys wrote.

New York state's terrorism charge

The state's terrorism charge was designed for crimes against multiple civilians, and was not supported by the grand jury evidence in this case, the attorneys argued.

Grand jurors heard a single witness testify that UnitedHealthcare workers received threats following the December 4 shooting, according to the filing.

And the same witness told grand jurors that some employees became frightened after the company told them "not to publicly wear clothing with the company's logo," the filing said.

"This testimony, however, has no relevance on the element of whether Mr. Mangione intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population," read the filing, signed by lead defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo, and Jacob Kaplan.

The terror charge also relies on "Mr. Mangione's alleged writings," but these writings do not broadly reference UHC employees and "make clear that Mr. Mangione was not looking to terrorize any community," the filing said.

Mangione, for example, noted in his writings "that Ted Kaczynski was a 'monster' and 'terrorist, the worst thing a person can be'" because his mail bombs indiscriminately targeted civilians.

"As such, these writings cannot be the basis to support a finding that he intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; in fact, they support just the opposite," Magione's lawyers wrote.

The top state charges carry a potential maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. Mangione is also facing federal murder charges; US Attorney Pam Bondi has said she will seek the death penalty.

Prosecutors in Pennsylvania have told Business Insider that they, too, intend to put Mangione on trial for gun and forgery charges relating to his arrest there; they said their trial would be held after the state and federal trials conclude in Manhattan.

Mangione's three indictments

The defense filing reprises previous arguments that Mangione's three indictments represent "unprecedented prosecutorial one-upmanship."

"Mr. Mangione now faces three simultaneous prosecutions in three different jurisdictions — one of which is seeking the death penalty, while another is seeking life imprisonment — all for one set of facts," his lawyers wrote.

The defense filing argues that the state and federal murder prosecutions "violate the double jeopardy clause and Mr. Mangione's constitutional rights" because his defense in one case could potentially be used against him in the other.

Which murder case would go to trial first — the state case brought by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or the federal case under the interim US attorney in Manhattan, Jay Clayton — remains a point of dispute.

The filing asks Mangione's state-level judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, to "appreciate Mr. Mangione's unprecedented situation and concomitant constitutional concerns and allow the death penalty case to proceed first."

The filing further asks Carro to exclude broad swaths of evidence from his Pennsylvania arrest — including a ghost gun and what police there called a "manifesto" — should he be tried on state-level murder and terrorism charges.

It asks the judge to suppress any statements Mangione made to Altoona Police Department officers after he was spotted at a McDonald's after a five-day manhunt.

New images released

The filing includes two previously unpublished still photographs from Altoona police body-worn cameras. The grainy, wide shots show Mangione sitting alone in a corner of the restaurant. One of the stills shows a uniformed officer in what the defense filing called a "strategic position blocking Mr. Mangione's exit."

Manhattan prosecutors, led by Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann, have until May 28 to respond to the defense requests.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all three indictments and is being held without bail pending trial; his next court date is before Carro on June 26.

• Luigi Mangione is indicted in three jurisdictions in connection with the murder of Brian Thompson.
• NY is first in line to try him, but his lawyers want his federal death penalty trial to go first.
• Prosecutors in Pennsylvania say they, too, will try Mangione for charges related to his arrest.

Three jurisdictions want to put Luigi Mangione on trial — and a battle is brewing over who will try him first.

In the four months since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot from behind on a Manhattan sidewalk, Mangione has been charged by three sets of prosecutors.

Federal and state prosecutors in New York have separate murder cases inching toward trials in 2026 or beyond, with the feds seeking the death penalty.

And prosecutors in a central Pennsylvania county, where Mangione was spotted at a McDonald's after a five-day manhunt, tell Business Insider that they intend to take him to trial too.

Mangione is charged in Blair County with state-level weapons and forgery charges, relating to the ghost gun and fake ID that police said he possessed when he was arrested.

"We are not planning to drop our charges," said Nichole Smith, the county's first assistant district attorney.

Her office plans to wait until after Mangione's New York murder trials before taking its turn.

"We're content to bring up the end to this," she said, "and see this through to trial."

The 26-year-old Maryland native is contesting the charges in all three jurisdictions.

Mangione pleaded not guilty to his federal indictment on Friday.

Afterward, defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo complained about the state-federal tug of war over her client, calling it the "unprecedented, simultaneous duel prosecution of Mr. Mangione for the exact same offense."

Order in the (3) courts

So, who gets to take Mangione to trial first for the murder of Brian Thompson — Manhattan prosecutors, or the feds?

Until recently, Manhattan's state-level murder case had unchallenged first dibs.

That's because back in December, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Damian Williams, the outgoing Biden-appointed US attorney in Manhattan, struck a deal: the state would try Mangione first, then the feds.

Then came April 1, when US Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would seek the death penalty. Now the stakes are clearly higher —literally life or death — in federal court than in state court, where the top possible sentence is life in prison.

"We understand that there was a handshake deal between the prior administration and the Manhattan DA's office," that the state goes first, Friedman Agnifilo told US District Judge Margaret M. Garnett during Friday's court appearance.

"We are going to make a request that that no longer be the case," she said. "That's going to be our official position, and we plan on writing on that."

The lead federal prosecutor, Dominic Gentile, told the judge on Friday that he expects the state case will proceed first. But he also asked Garnett to proceed with scheduling as if there were no competing cases, and the judge agreed.

Spokespersons for Friedman Agnifilo and for the US Attorney's Office declined to comment on this story.

Death penalty cases take years

For now, Manhattan's state and federal cases remain on parallel tracks toward trying Mangione in 2026, at the earliest.

The feds lag behind the state. Federal prosecutors didn't win an indictment against Mangione until this month, and their deadlines for pretrial motions and the exchange of evidence are now two to three months behind the deadlines set months ago in the state's murder case.

That gap may widen.

"Death penalty cases take a very long time," much longer than state murder cases, said Shira Scheindlin, a retired judge for the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, and where Mangione would be tried.

Death cases invoke a distinct set of pretrial defense challenges and appeals — "more motions, a much more difficult jury selection process," said Scheindlin, now of counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.

The last federal death penalty case in Manhattan, a terror case, took six years from indictment to final verdict. A 2023 jury ultimately rejected the death penalty.

Could the state's murder case be put on ice, potentially for years, as the defense hopes, while the feds go first?

That's exactly what's going to happen, predicts Charles Solomon, a Manhattan-based state supreme court justice for 33 years.

"They're not going to give him up so the state can go first — why should they?" the now-retired judge told BI, referring to federal prosecutors.

If Bragg and the US attorney in Manhattan — Jay Clayton, who was nominated on an interim basis this month by President Donald Trump — were friendly, the two jurisdictions would work things out amicably, Solomon said.

"The state would say to the feds, OK, you go first, and if you convict him and he gets the death penalty, then we might not try him, or we'll wait to see what happens on appeal," Solomon said.

But there is no love lost between Trump and Bragg. Last May, in the so-called hush-money case, the Manhattan DA's office won the only conviction out of four criminal indictments brought against the then-candidate. Trump is appealing the conviction.

"Trump's not going to let Bragg go first," and steal the publicity of bringing Mangione's first trial, Solomon said. "Trump's not going to let Bragg take something that he wants — that's not going to happen."

The feds also have physical custody of Mangione, the former judge said, and don't even have to make him available to the state.

"The state can get a writ of habeas corpus, demanding Mangione be brought to state court," he said, "and a judge can sign it, but the feds don't have to honor it."

Bragg and his lead prosecutor on the case, Joel Seidemann, will not stand by idly if the feds move to put Mangione on trial first, predicted Solomon and another retired Manhattan judge, Michael Obus, a state supreme court supervising judge before retiring in 2017.

Over the years, Obus presided over dozens of cases where Seidemann was a prosecutor, including a high-profile murder of a millionaire real estate tycoon. The victim had been shot in the back on a Manhattan sidewalk in 1990 in an ambush-style contract hit paid for by his wife. Seidemann pursued the case for decades.

"Given that the feds have him, that the defense agrees, and assuming that the federal prosecutors want to pursue the matter and will do it expeditiously, that's probably the way it's going to go," — with the federal trial going first, Obus said.

"But Joel Seidemann would not give this up without a fight," Obus predicted.

Mangione is due back in federal court on December 5. His next state court date is June 26.

• Friday was a court date for Luigi Mangione, accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
• "Luigi Girls" lined up overnight for a seat in the lower Manhattan courtroom.
• "I've never heard his name mentioned once," a man hoping to scalp his spot on line said of Thompson.

It was well before sunset on Thursday when the first young woman took her place at the front of the line outside a federal courthouse in Manhattan.

"I would prefer not to talk to members of the press," she said Friday morning, giving an apologetic smile.

Luigi Mangione was in court Friday to enter a plea of not guilty in the ambush shooting murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The "Luigi Girls," a term used with fondness and sometimes derision by others in line, had waited upward of 12 hours to see Mangione in his jail khakis and ankle shackles.

As this macabre fandom kept their long vigil — eating takeout and grabbing naps on the pavement — the name Brian Thompson was never spoken, two frequent denizens of the line told Business Insider on Friday.

"It's all talk of 'Luigi,'" said John McIntosh, 43, of Manhattan, who said he waits in lines for money.

"I've never heard his name mentioned once," said McIntosh. He was referring to Thompson, the 50-year-old father of two from Minnesota who Mangione allegedly gunned down on a Midtown sidewalk in December.

This was McIntosh's third time waiting in line for a Mangione court date, he said Friday. The self-appointed line administrator kept a handwritten list of names and numbers for those in line. He himself was number 5, having staked his claim on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

"I'm hoping to sell my spot — I did very well with the Trump trial," he told Business Insider, referencing President Trump's hush money trial from last year.

Number one on the list had given her name as "C.M." Number two declined to give a name. Number three gave the name "R.J."

McIntosh wanted it to be clear that he is not one of them — he is no Luigi Girl. "I don't think the guy deserves any sympathy," he said of Mangione with a laugh.

"For the most part, people are more interested in caring about Luigi than about Brian," agreed Jarva Land, a sketch artist from Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood who made number 6 on the wait list.

Land said she had also waited in line — and then sketched — two of Mangione's prior appearances and had a good sense of "line culture."

Her sketches from the line document snippets of overheard conversations.

"I'm not doing any interviews today," she quoted one woman in line telling another in a sketch from the morning.

"Try dry shampoo," read another overheard snippet from Land's sketchbook. "Dry shampoo is my life saver."

At some point in the morning Land jotted down a conversation between the line waiters and a passing federal Marshall who asked, "How long you all been waiting here for?"

The line waiters jokingly responded, "Two days!" according to Land's sketch. "3 weeks! All our lives in a way!"

"Don't bust my chops in court," he joked back.

Land, too, is no Luigi Girl, she said. Though she admitted, "I love the Luigi Girls — even the mean ones."

She said there was more to them than people may think.

"I've heard there's this impression of these girls that are obsessed with Luigi and think he's just a heartthrob criminal or something," she said. "But that's the thinnest layer of it — I think the appeal is not that basic at all. It's ideas about this country and justice and systems of power."

As for herself, "I'm excited to be in the hearing and get to see Luigi — and sketch his eyebrows," she said. "Of course."

Most of the women at the front of the line obscured their faces with scarves or paper medical masks. By the time the courtroom opened, fewer than half of the 40 or so women in line would get inside.

Unlike on line, Thompson's name was mentioned multiple times in court, including when US District Court Margaret Garnett asked federal prosecutors if the healthcare executive's family members were being kept apprised of what is happening in the case.

They were, Assistant US Attorney Dominic Gentile assured the judge.

Mangione, 26, crisply responded "Not guilty" to the indictment charging him with stalking, murder, and the deadly use of a firearm.

His lead defense lawyer, Karen Agnifilo, told the judge that one of her private phone calls to Mangione, who remains jailed pending trial. had been inadvertently listened to by prosecutors. The judge asked prosecutors to inform her by next month of how that had happened.

The judge also reminded both sides of their obligation to limit their public statements on the case, so as not to "impede or affect Mr. Mangione's ability to get a fair trial and the court's ability to select a fair jury in this case."

The judge instructed prosecutors to pass that reminder on to Jay Clayton, the interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York — which includes Manhattan — and to US Attorney General Pam Bondi "and any of her subordinates."

Mangione's next court date was scheduled for December 5, on which date a death-penalty trial date may be set.