6.Government Rebuttal Closing

MS. COMEY: Thank you, your Honor. We're almost done. The defense just spent a whole lot of energy trying to blame his victims and the U.S. government for his lies, his threats, and his violence. He's tossing up excuse after excuse for inexcusable criminal behavior, trying to explain away the devastating evidence that Ms. Slavik walked you through yesterday. Make no mistake. This trial was about how, in Sean Combs's world, no was never an option. That is the central theme that you heard from witness after witness at this trial. The defendant did not take no for an answer, not from his assistants, not from his other employees, and certainly not from his girlfriends. Whether he had to lie to, threaten, or beat them, the defendant got what he wanted, when he wanted it. Now, the defense has no obligation to do anything at all at this trial. As you heard from the judge, the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt rests with the government. We embrace that burden, and we have met it here.

But when the defense makes arguments like they just did, it is perfectly appropriate for you to think about whether what they said makes any sense at all. And it is also appropriate for the government to respond. Here, the defense's arguments just do not hold up. I'm not going to address all of the stuff you just heard over the last five or so hours. I don't need to, and I don't have time. Instead, I'm going to focus on the defense's three core arguments: First, the suggestion that the defendant didn't pay for sex; Second, the suggestion that he didn't commit any racketeering acts, and if he did, he certainly didn't do it with an enterprise; and Third, that Cassie, Jane and Mia lied to you. Let's start with the payment for sex. The defendant here tries to wiggle out of the transportation charges by claiming he never intended to pay anyone for sex. Sure, he flew escorts across the country; he had them have sex in front of him while he masturbated; and then he handed them wads of cash.

Those things have nothing to do with each other at all. Totally unrelated. It doesn't even pass the laugh test. Common sense alone tells you that when the defendant flew those escorts out and paid them, it was not for their scintillating conversation. It was for sex. And you also know that because the defendant said so in the text Mr. Agnifilo talked about during his closing. Remember his texts with Bridget from Cowboys4Angels. His response, when she says he has to pay full price for that escort who got sent away from the Trump in New York, "He couldn't even perform. He's lucky he got anything." That right there tells you exactly what was in the defendant's mind when he is hiring and flying out an escort. His money is for sex, the sexual performance; not for time, that's prostitution. Now, of course, he had to follow Bridget's rules in that case and pay up, because otherwise, he might lose his steady supply of cowboys. He was a repeat customer. He didn't want to piss her off.

But the thing that tells you that he definitely was only paying for sex is how he treated an escort who was not a cowboy. Remember, Daniel Phillip, at the very beginning of his testimony, one of the very first questions I asked him was what he got paid for. And you can look back at the transcript. He said for sex. He told you, remember, he got paid when he could perform, but that when he had performance issues, after he witnessed the violence in those rooms and couldn't perform anymore, he stopped getting paid. That tells you the money was for sex. And the same thing for Sharay Hayes. He only got $500 when no sex happened, but when sex did happen, he got thousands of dollars because the money was for sex. Now, the defense asks where are all the other escorts, why didn't they come here? I expect that the judge will instruct you that uncalled witnesses were equally available or unavailable to both sides, the prosecutors and the defense. So that argument is just a distraction.

And I expect that you will hear nothing in the judge's instructions suggesting that anyone who is being paid for sex has to call themselves a prostitute or use the word prostitute in order to violate the statute. There is no requirement that they label themselves that way. The requirement is that they are being paid for sex. That is obviously met here. Now, the defense suggests that none of this matters because the escorts would have done it for free and they didn't call themselves prostitutes. But even if that were true, there are two arguments, two problems with that argument. First, as I've already mentioned, what matters under the law is what was in the defendant's mind when he caused escorts to cross state lines. It doesn't matter what Jules Theodore or Kabrale Williams thought. The law does not require them to reach an agreement. What matters is that the defendant intended to pay them for sex when he transported them.

And second, there are certainly people who love their jobs enough that they might say they would do them for free. But when they collect their paycheck, they are getting paid for the work that they have done. Same thing here. Maybe some of these men might have been willing to for free have sex in front of a masked masturbating celebrity. Maybe. But when they collected the cash at the end of the night, they were getting paid for sex. And here's another way you know that the defendant knew that he was engaging in prostitution. He told Cassie to be careful to make sure none of the escorts were undercover cops. Remember that? She testified about it and you saw some texts about it, too. That also tells you what was in his mind. He knows he's hiring people for prostitution. That's why he even texted one of the escorts asking, hey, are you a cop? The only reason to worry about undercover cops is if you know what you're doing is against the law.

The defendant is guilty of Counts Three and Five. Now let's talk about Count One, the racketeering charge. There can't seriously be a dispute that the defendant had an inner circle. The witnesses and the text messages make crystal clear that the defendant's security team and K.K., his chief of staff, served as his most trusted advisers. And there was a structure. The defendant at the top, security and his chief of staff right below him, and then the army of assistants below him. They were loyal to him for years and they had two goals. Get the defendant whatever he wants when he wants it and protect the defendant's reputation at all costs. Now, the defense suggests that there couldn't have been an enterprise because they didn't only have unlawful purposes, but an enterprise can have lawful and unlawful purposes. An enterprise is just a group of people who get together for a common purpose. It doesn't have to be an illegal purpose. Any purpose is enough.

And here, you obviously have that. And they also asked you, where are K.K. and D-Roc and the others, and why didn't they come up here, and why didn't they testify and tell you that they were co-conspirators? Well, again, the judge is going to instruct you that uncalled witnesses are equally available to both sides. That is a distraction. You should focus on the evidence that is in front of you. And the evidence that is in front of you is that K.K. and D-Roc maybe didn't agree with everything that the defendant did, but they certainly played both sides. Mr. Agnifilo focused on Cassie calling K.K. and D-Roc after the InterContinental, and sure, they played both sides. They were friendly to Cassie, because that helped them get her back for the defendant. That helped them serve the defendant. But then look at what they did after Cassie called them. They start orchestrating the bribe payment to Eddy Garcia. They go right into helping the defendant commit another crime.

They played both sides. You have an enterprise here, a core group of people, over a sustained period of time, with a common purpose and structure. Done. That is an enterprise. The law does not require anyone in that group to use the words racketeering enterprise or to walk around saying we're in a racketeering enterprise. They don't have to use any words at all. And they used money from his companies to help further their purposes. They used money from the companies to pay for some of the escorts' travel. They used it for some of the supplies. We're not saying that the companies are illegal themselves. We agree with Mr. Agnifilo. Those were lawful companies. But they used some of the money to further the enterprise. No matter how much the defense tries to twist themselves in knots, there is no escaping that the defendant actually had an inner circle for years, the enterprise.

So then the question is: Did the defendant agree with at least one member of that inner circle that they or someone else in that group would commit at least two of the crimes Ms. Slavik walked you through yesterday? And of course they did. I'm going to do some quick hits to go through what Mr. Agnifilo talked to you about earlier. Let's start with the kidnapping of Capricorn. First of all, she is corroborated by the testimony of Cassie and Kid Cudi. Let's look at what Kid Cudi said. Can you pull up transcript page 2350, please. I'm going to walk over here. He's talking about the call that Capricorn made from the car outside of his house. And he's asked: "Q. What, if anything, did Capricorn say to you and Ms. Ventura on that phone call about what was happening at that moment for her? "A. That Sean Combs and an affiliate were in my house, and she was in a car. She was forced to go along with them over there." Forced to go over there. Kid Cudi backs up what Capricorn told you.

You don't need a gun to have a kidnapping. Here he did. Capricorn told you about it. I'll get to it in a minute. What you need is force. And Kid Cudi confirms that Capricorn said to him in that moment that she had been forced. And it makes sense that she had been forced because the idea that Capricorn went along with this scheme and was trying to help out the defendant in breaking into Kid Cudi's house is laughable. Because if that were true, then why on earth would she be calling the target of the break-in, the target of the attack to warn him? She's calling him because she's not going along with it. Because she wants to warn him, and she wants help for herself. She was kidnapped. And just because she didn't say the word "gun" doesn't mean the defendant didn't have a gun that night. Mr. Agnifilo said that Sean Combs is a hands-and-fists guy, something like that. Sure, with his girlfriends.

But with men, like Suge Knight, you heard from Cassie and David James, he gets guns when he's dealing with men. You saw that he still had guns all the way up until his home was searched in March of 2024. So it makes total sense that when he's going to kill Kid Cudi, kill another man, he's bringing a gun. When he's beating up a woman who's half his size, he doesn't need the gun. But when he's going after a man who can actually match him physically, he's going to bring a weapon. So it makes total sense that he had a gun that night. Next, the London hotel kidnapping with Cassie. The suggestion that she wanted to stay at Combs's home and not go to the hotel is not a defense. The point is she didn't want to go and he made her. And of course she felt forced. He had just stomped on her face for ten full minutes with a shoe on in the car. Her face was mangled. She wanted to go in the house and stay there.

She didn't want to have to get in a car with Bonds, go all the way to a hotel and then stay in the hotel. And then she wasn't allowed to leave when she wanted to go home to her mom. She didn't want to go back to Sean Combs's house after that. She wanted to go see her mom, and they wouldn't let her because Sean Combs said no, and his security team, a member of his enterprise, wouldn't let her. That is a kidnapping. Next, the arson. Can we please pull up transcript page 792. Mr. Agnifilo suggested there's no evidence that the defendant said he was going to blow up Kid Cudi's car. I'll direct you to Cassie's testimony. "Q. Did there come a time after this when Sean mentions Scott's car? "A. Yes. He mentioned that when we were out of the country, that Scott's car would be blown up." Cassie heard the defendant say it and then it happened. Don't let this attempt to raise some mystery glove distract you from that fact. And just briefly on this glove idea.

So, as I understand it, what the defense is saying is that someone, unrelated to Sean Combs, coincidentally put a Molotov cocktail into Kid Cudi's car, but wore a glove that must have been way too big for their childlike hand because it fell off the roof and then fell into the seat, and then Kid Cudi lied to the people investigating the arson of his car and said, oh, yeah, that's my glove, even though it's not. It doesn't make sense because the defense made it up. The glove was Cudi's. The Molotov cocktail came from Sean Combs's direction. He obviously didn't put it in himself, but he said he was going to blow up the car, and lo and behold it blew up. Next, bribery. The bribery of Eddy Garcia. So, first, that agreement that Mr. Agnifilo highlighted for you and read for you is actually the whole point. The point of that passage that Mr. Agnifilo highlighted for you is that Eddy Garcia was contractually bound not to voluntarily report this crime to the police.

If you read those words, what they say is, if he gets a court order, if there's a subpoena, if someone comes to him, then he can comply with that court order. But it doesn't allow him to go to a police station and just report it. And if he gets a court order, if he gets a subpoena, what does he have to do before he complies with it? He has to go tell Sean Combs. All that provision in the agreement tells you is that Sean Combs was worried about law enforcement when he was bribing Eddy Garcia. And the big problem with Mr. Agnifilo's suggestion that all that was on Combs's mind was publicity and the press is what he says to Eddy Garcia when he hands over the cash and walks him out. Don't make any big purchases. The only reason to say that to Eddy Garcia is if you're worried that the cops might come looking for that video, find that it's missing, and then try to figure out how it went missing. So if a security guard with access to it is making big purchases, that raises red flags.

Of course, the police and an investigation were on Sean Combs's mind and K.K.'s mind and D-Roc's mind when they arranged for this bribe. This is bribery. And finally, the witness tampering involving Jane on that phone call. Mr. Agnifilo was trying to suggest that Sean Combs was worried about another civil lawsuit. Here's the problem with that. Plaintiff's lawyers don't get to tap phones. Remember how many times Sean Combs on that recording says, I can't be on these phones, I can't be on these phones, I can't be talking on these phones? What he means is somebody could be listening to my conversation. Somebody might be tapping my phone. Who taps phones? The feds. Who taps phones? Law enforcement. What he's doing on that call is tampering with a witness for a crime. All of those, plus all of the other crimes that Ms. Slavik walked you through yesterday, are crimes that the defendant and his inner circle agreed to commit. They did plenty of other lawful stuff too. We're not denying that.

They had dual purposes, lawful and unlawful. And that is racketeering. And did he commit these crimes alone? Obviously not. This is a guy who can't get himself his own water bottle or plug in his own phone charger. How is he going to maintain a steady supply of drugs for himself and his girlfriends on his own; or kidnap Capricorn on his own; or keep Cassie locked in a hotel on his own; or bribe security guards on his own; or fly escorts across the country, and keep thousands of dollars in cash handy to pay them on his own? He's the general. Not a foot soldier, not a lieutenant. He delegated. And his inner circle handled the dirty work for him. Now, speaking of that inner circle. The defense spent time trying to suggest that K.K. was not a co-conspirator. I guess the suggestion is she had no idea what was going on around her, no idea that her actions were helping the defendant break the law. The evidence and your common sense tell you that is nonsense.

Witness after witness told you that K.K. was the defendant's right-hand woman. She lived in his home. She read his texts. She texted on his behalf from his phones and knew every detail of his life. And when you read K.K.'s texts, it is clear she knows exactly what the defendant was all about, including his crimes. She is arranging drug transports with Jane. She is sending Paul up to the hotel room. She is orchestrating the bribe payment to Eddy Garcia. And make no mistake, she knows wild king nights involve escorts. As early as 2019, she knows about the cowboy escorts. Let's take a look at Government Exhibit C-366, pages 2 and 3, please. You saw this text during the trial. One of the assistants, Ryan Lopez, says: LOL. I think I saw one of the cowboys today. You can spot them in a lobby like an escort. I forgot to tell you about it. And how does K.K. respond? Does she say what are you talking about? Cowboys? Escorts? I don't understand. No.

She sends laughing emojis, because this is so well-known by now that it's a joke to her. And there's even more. You can take that down. Thanks. In 2022, she knows that if Sean Combs is bringing Jane for a wild king night in Vegas, he's going to want to bring Paul too. She knows that the defendant needs thousands of dollars in cash for wild king nights with Jane. You heard a voice mail from Combs to her asking for thousands of dollars in cash when we were walking through the chart with Agent Cerciello. And she also knows that her team will bring the defendant anything he could possibly need, including drugs, to his hotel room. So the only reason he needs thousands of dollars in cash in a hotel room is to pay an escort. So of course, she knows how to help the defendant transport cocaine and escorts for wild king nights. And by November 2023, she knows Jane does not want to be having sex with those escorts. Remember, K.K.

uses her phone to record the conversation where Jane tells him she feels exactly the way Cassie described in her lawsuit. K.K. heard Jane crying on that call just like you did. And then in December 2023, Jane texts K.K. about the defendant's threats to release her videos. And in that text she talks about how coercive those nights were. K.K.'s response tells you she already knew about that. And of course she did. Remember, she reads the defendant's texts. So all those texts you saw where Jane keeps saying I don't want to do this, I need a break, I can't keep feeling threatened about the roof over my head, K.K. had access to those too. So of course, she already knew how Jane felt about these nights, and she knew that Jane was being coerced when she kept facilitating more wild king nights in 2024. And by the way, you also know that she and defendant knew those things were illegal, because after Cassie's lawsuit, after there was attention on them, they stopped doing them in hotels.

They only did them in homes. K.K. is a co-conspirator. Even if you only find her as a co-conspirator -- you have others, obviously, the security members -- but K.K. alone makes the defendant guilty of Count One. Now, you have another racketeering predicate that, as Ms. Slavik pointed out, is the most obvious one of all and that the defense tries very hard to wave away. And that is the drugs. He tries to say it was all just for personal use, so it doesn't count. But there's no requirement that drugs be distributed for profit or in large quantities to be illegal. And I want to say you're going to learn when you hear the judge's instructions that there are three ways that the defendant could have agreed to violate the drug laws that would be a predicate. Mr. Agnifilo showed you two of them. He showed you possession with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute. What he didn't show you is just plain old distribution, just giving a drug to another person.

When you hear the judge's instructions, you will see that that is one of the ways that you can agree to violate the drug laws. Listen carefully to those instructions. Distribution just means giving drugs to another person. That's it. Giving ecstasy to Cassie and Jane is distribution, end up. Here, that happened over and over again for years. D-Roc coordinated with One Stop to get drugs for Combs and Cassie. K.K. coordinated with Guido and other assistants to get drugs for Combs and Jane. And remember, you know that K.K. knew Jane was using drugs because she saw her having OD'd on them on the beach in Turks and talking to her about how to handle the aftereffects in their texts. Faheem brought drugs for Combs and Jane in the hotel rooms. Those drugs were an essential ingredient of the hotel nights. It doesn't matter that Combs gave them to Cassie and Jane for free. He distributed them, and he did it with help from his inner circle. The defendant is guilty of the racketeering conspiracy.

So that brings us to the argument the defense spent most of their time on -- that Cassie, Jane and Mia are liars. And they're liars, first and foremost, because they wanted it. Of course, they wanted it. Cassie wanted an escort to urinate in her mouth. And by the way, can we pull up transcript page 514, please. Mr. Agnifilo suggested to you that we didn't have any support in the record for what Ms. Slavik said to you yesterday. Can we pull up this transcript page, please. "Q. Who directed an escort to urinate on you? "A. Sean." The defense's theory is that Cassie wanted that. The defense's theory is also that Jane wanted to have sex with Antoine when she was bruised and beaten, that Mia wanted her boss coming into her room at night and penetrating her. And with respect to what Cassie and Jane were doing, what we're talking about here is not preferences for lemonade. Or preferences for the beach.

What we're talking about is being in a dark hotel room, awake for days, covered in oil, wearing eight-inch heels, often with a UTI, having your pelvic area sore, sitting in the same position for hours, performing oral sex for hours, having sex for hours, including with strangers; having unprotected sex with stranger after stranger, a rotation of men for days. The defense wants you to believe that Cassie and Jane wanted that -- or were willing to go along with it, like somebody might go along with lemonade. That's ridiculous on its face. Almost as ridiculous is the suggestion that the defendant had absolutely no clue that Cassie, Jane and Mia did not want all of the sex that you've heard about at this trial. What the defense is suggesting is that these women lied to you repeatedly. They lied throughout all of their testimony, including when they told you about times they resisted sex. Remember, Mia told you that she told the defendant no on a plane.

Cassie told you that she told him no on her 29th birthday. Jane told you that she told him no in June 2024. So what the defense is saying here is that these women all lied; they all wanted every single sex act you heard about, and they certainly never told the defendant they didn't want to do it. For the defense to be right, that means that three witnesses came here and committed perjury in front of you. But there's a problem with that. These three women have no reason to lie. None. They don't get anything out of lying at this trial. If you take a step back and think about their incentives in this courtroom, it is obvious they have no motive to lie at all. So let's talk about their incentives, starting with Cassie. The defense talked a lot about her lawsuit, the settlement she's gotten, basically suggesting she's made up her testimony for money. There's a big problem with that argument. She already got paid.

Remember, the defendant paid her $20 million the day after she filed her lawsuit in 2023, more than a year ago. And she reached her settlement with the InterContinental before she ever testified in this case. So before she took that witness stand, she had already been paid. She is not expecting or trying to get a dollar more. And you've heard Cassie's lawsuit caused a media firestorm targeting the defendant. So Cassie had money. She had the media on her side. She was already a famous celebrity. If she'd made up a lie to get all of that, then why would she risk it all by perjuring herself at a federal trial? Common sense tells you she would never do that. If Cassie was just after money, if she made up a story to get paid, she never would have testified at this trial. She would have cashed her check and ridden the wave of positive press coming her way. Mission accomplished.

She certainly wouldn't have sat through four days of grueling testimony, having to read out her old sexts in open court. If it was all a lie for money, she would not have come here in front of you to talk to you about the most intimate, humiliating and traumatic details of her life. So why did she come here? Why did she sit through that cross-examination? Why did she hand over the freak-off videos to be played in front of you? So the truth would come out. This is not a woman out for vengeance or money. This is a woman standing up for what is right. Same thing with Mia. Remember, she already got paid. She settled with the defendant in mediation years ago for a few hundred thousand bucks. Mia is not part of some money grab. She's got no lawsuits, no payday coming. She's not expecting a single cent from testifying here. So same thing. If her only goal was money, if she made up a lie about the defendant's abuse, why would she testify here? She already got paid.

There's nothing more to gain, and she's certainly not doing it for fame or attention. Remember, she asked to testify under a pseudonym for her privacy. You know why she came here. She told you why -- because she felt it was the right thing to do. And on Mia, Mr. Agnifilo mentioned the threat that Mr. Combs made to tell Cassie. You know that Mr. Combs was never going to tell Cassie about what he was doing to Mia. That was a lie, a lie he was telling to Mia to manipulate and control her. He hid all of his other women, including Gina, from Cassie. He's not going to tell her about Mia. But he is going to lie to Mia to try to keep Mia under control. That was a lie, just like all the other lies you heard about the defendant telling to his victims throughout this trial. Mia came here to tell the truth no matter how terrifying it was for her. And let's be clear here -- it was terrifying for her. We all saw how she physically shrank when she described those sexual assaults. That's not acting.

That was Mia reliving the most traumatic experiences of her life in front of you. Her voice shrank each time they came up involuntarily. She physically folded into herself because that was her genuine reaction to reliving those horrible experiences. Mia is not some trained actor putting on a performance. No one's handing out Oscars or Tonys for performances in this courtroom. There's no reason for her to put on a show for you. She was here to tell you what happened to her. And same thing with Jane. She's never sued the defendant. She doesn't plan to. But the defense is desperate to try to convince you she's out to copy Cassie. The theory goes Jane was totally fine with hotel nights, and then she saw Cassie get a payday through her lawsuit and she saw an opportunity for a money grab herself. But the idea that Jane started making up her feelings of coercion after reading Cassie's lawsuit falls apart for two reasons: No. 1, you know she started saying those things before the lawsuit. You saw all of those text messages from August through October of 2023. And she doesn't even know Cassie. Remember, they briefly crossed paths years earlier, but they haven't spoken since.

MS. COMEY: (Continued) But she's described a stunningly similar experience in her texts and to you. The second problem, she never sued. If the only reason she came here and told you about feeling coerced, if the only reason she wrote that in her text was because she was hoping to get some payday, then where's the lawsuit? If she made up a story or -- I'm not sure what Mr. Agnifilo's theory is about June 2024, but if she tried to get herself beat up so that she could get a payday, where's the lawsuit? Where's the demand for money after June of 2024? There is none, because she was never trying to copy Cassie. She was just telling you the truth. The money theory is the defense grasping at straws trying desperately to give you a reason to think these women were lying. But there's no support for it. But if you think a little more deeply about the incentives here, you'll realize Jane does have a financial incentive. But it's to lie in favor of the defendant, to help him.

Remember, the defendant is still paying her rent. The defendant is still paying for her lawyer. So if Jane was going to come here and lie to help herself financially, she's going to do it in a way that helps the defendant, not in a way that makes him guilty of sex trafficking. She has no incentive to help prosecutors in this case at all. That makes her testimony about his coercion, including June of 2024, so powerful. There's no way she's making that up given her incentives here. And even apart from their incentives, the substance of what these three women told you shows you they're telling the truth. All three of them were careful to tell you what they remembered as accurately as they could. They didn't exaggerate. They all told you they loved the defendant. They went through a cycle of happy times followed by abusive times over and over and over again.

And they described for you, all three of them, how confusing that experience was, how they're still grappling with that mix of love and abuse. They may each be in different phases of untangling their experiences, but they're all trying to clear their minds of the brainwashing, thinking that their defendant's behavior was somehow normal or okay. So when they struggle to explain why they took certain actions, it's not because they're lying. It's because they're doing their best to tell you about their experiences of psychological, physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by a man they all worshiped. Now, on this point, the defense tried to suggest that because these women managed to find joy in their lives, and were happy during the years they were also abused, they must be lying. But finding meaning and happiness despite trauma does not mean the trauma never happened. Too many people in this world carry pain and loss, but they don't let it define them.

They still hang out with their friends, go on trips, even post on social media. Refusing to let trauma swallow up everything else in life doesn't erase what happened. It's just part of healing. And that's what you saw in this courtroom: three women struggling to process what happened to them and heal from it. That struggle plus the logic of their incentives tells you these women told you the truth. What you saw on that witness stand was three women who did what once felt impossible to them. They broke free of the defendant's manipulation. They sat there, looked back at what they endured, and told you what they remember. Think about how hard that must have been for them. How much courage it must have taken to walk to that witness stand. But they endured it, and they told you what happened. But despite all this, the defense throws out a bunch of claims about why Cassie and Jane must be lying or the defendant didn't know they felt forced. I'm going to walk through a few of these now.

As I do, I want you to keep in mind what I said about their incentives. Remember, these women have no reason to lie. Let's start with an easy one. The defense talked about their jealousy as a theme here. Jealousy is not a defense to sex trafficking. It's not relevant to commercial sex. It's not relevant to the defendant's knowledge. It's a distraction. Yes, these women were jealous when their boyfriend was with other women. Yes, he was jealous when they were with other men. So what? It tells you nothing about the crimes that were committed here. Jane told you that the contrast between her experience and what she saw the other women in the defendant's lives experienced made her see how abusive her situation was. So yes, that contrast was starkest when she saw posts of him not making other women be in hotel rooms for days on drugs having sex with strangers. And when she saw that, she was able to see her situation more clearly and articulate it more clearly.

When she wrote: I never want to do another hotel night, whether she was saying it after also being jealous about another woman or not, there's no ambiguity about that sentence. Now, the defense suggests that if Cassie and Jane hated freak-offs so much, why they did seek out escorts and set them up? The simple answer is the defendant told them to, but let's dig into it a little more, starting with Jane. You know picking out Kabrale and Antoine was her way of taking back some control over what was happening to her body. She didn't want to have sex with other men, but if she had to, she'd rather it be someone she new and liked. So that's why she reached out to repeat players like Kabrale and Paul, and that's why she was nice to them. She wanted them to come back so she didn't get stuck with some stranger. And yes, she texted escorts to set up hotel nights. Sometimes the defendant told her to.

Sometimes she knew he was about to ask for it or want it, because his desire for these nights was predictable and insatiable. And look, in the first year or two, that might not have always been because of coercion or fraud. Sometimes it was, but not always. But by the time he's paying her rent in 2023, she is doing it out of obligation. Fear she'll lose her home if she doesn't. You saw the texts. She said it herself way back then; she felt she had no choice, so she kept doing the same thing she had been, setting up repeat players so she didn't get stuck with a stranger. That's coercion. When she was afraid she would lose her home if she didn't, that's coercion. For Cassie, the violence and the control came much earlier, when she was only 21 years old. From the start, the defendant had the power to ruin her. He could take away her home, her car, and her career at any moment. He could release her sex tapes. And on top of that, he beat her.

In a case like this, when there is so much violence, sometimes you can lose sight of just how awful it is each individual time. The physical pain of being kicked or hit by someone you love, the anguish mentally of having someone who's supposed to love you hurt you. The fear of never knowing what might set him off, when he might lash out again. So when the defendant told Cassie to set up a freak-off, what choice did she have? This was a man who could and would take away her livelihood and her home, who could and would extort her parents, who could and would beat her. And you know that happened repeatedly just by seeing how Cassie reacted in that Intercontinental video. She falls to the ground, and she lays still, covering her head. She doesn't try to get up. She doesn't try to fight back. That is the reaction of someone with a lot of practice getting beat, who knows the safest way to endure the beating is not to fight back but wait for it to end. He trained her not to fight back.

No was never an option for Cassie. No could mean losing her career, her livelihood, her home, her physical safety. Those fears are not the kind of thing that just slip someone's mind. The defendant didn't need to threaten Cassie each time to get her to comply, to get her to set up a freak-off and act like she was happy to do it. He had trained her; taught her that disobeying him was not an option. Pleasing him was the way to stay safe. The defense has tried desperately from the beginning of this trial to separate the violence from the sex. Being a domestic abuser is not a defense to sex trafficking. If part of the abuse is making your partner participate in a commercial sex act, you're guilty of sex trafficking. And no matter how hard they tried, the defense can't change the facts. The defendant did hit Cassie during freak-offs. She told you that. And Daniel Phillip confirmed it. And in case there was still any question, it's on video.

The defense tried to make up some nonsense about how the Intercontinental beating was about a phone, had nothing to do with a freak-off, that's preposterous on its face. The defendant is in a towel. He isn't even wearing pants. The freak-off is still going on. The escort was still in the room. Jules hadn't been dismissed because the sex was not done. If the sex was done, there's no reason for the defendant to care if Cassie is leaving. The defendant was furious because the freak-off was not done. He had not gotten everything he wanted yet. There's no separating the violence from the sex. But make no mistake, the violence that happened away from hotels and away from freak-offs were about keeping Cassie obedient, controlling her. That control did not just disappear when she walked into a hotel room. If anything, that grip tightened when she was high, naked, and vulnerable. No was never an option.

But the defense tries to suggest that even if Cassie and Jane didn't want these nights, the defendant had no idea; no clue his girlfriend didn't want endless sex with male escorts. To push that narrative, the defense talked about texts that Cassie and Jane sent to Combs, talked about freak-offs and other men, and they point to videos where Cassie and Jane act enthusiastic or smile, and they describe the videos as a date night or a beautiful evening. If you want to watch them all, you can, they're in evidence. You'll see a pattern. These are not beautiful evenings. They are the same thing over and over set up for one man's pleasure. One man's enjoyment. Not for Jane. Not for Cassie. They follow the same pattern over and over and over again. It's the same performance. And remember, those clips of videos are just a tiny fraction of the days on days on days in total that Cassie and Jane spent in those rooms covered in oil, high on drugs, having sex over and over and over again.

The videos only tell you part of the story. Take a step back and think about the context that the defendant had when reading texts or watching sexual performances, and it's clear he knew what was really going on. Yes, there were times when Cassie and Jane sent texts suggesting they were open to or excited about freak-offs. They both told you the defendant wanted dirty talk, wanted them to send those texts. And in their early years of the relationship especially, they went along with it. But when they started trying to resist that, the defendant reacted angrily. And I want to show you one example of where you see this. Can we pull up Government Exhibit A-442-9, page 12 and 13, the redacted version, please. This is a text from August 4, 2023, between Combs and Jane. The defendant asks Jane: Are we getting freaky tonight? And Jane puts a heart on the message, and responds: yeah, of course. Just haven't seen you. Now, on its face, that would seem to be a positive reaction.

But Jane told you this is how she would try to resist hotel nights by subtly signaling that she wanted to be alone with the defendant, not have escorts. The defendant's response here tells you he understood that completely because he gets pissed. He responds: Wow. For real? Well, get over it please. Look at the roof over your head and that pretty smile. I don't want to do anything if that's still an issue. Let it go. Love you. That's a threat. Jane subtly resists the hotel night, so Combs says I don't want to do anything. I don't want to pay your rent if I don't get these nights. And you see that pattern play out again and again across Cassie and Jane's texts. If they don't respond with total enthusiasm, the defendant knows it, and he's pissed. He knew these women weren't actually excited to have sex with other men. He just wanted them to pretend they did by sending him dirty texts. And he got mad when they didn't stick to the script.

Just like you saw the defendant get upset with Cassie in the texts leading up to the Intercontinental, remember? Cassie texts: I want a FO soooooo bad. What am I to do? And the defendant gets annoyed at her, remember? Because that's a way of her subtly trying to get out of a freak-off. And then he pressures her four different times to text Garrett, the guy who ran Cowboys before Bridget. Someone reading those texts, without the context that the defendant had, knowing what had happened before and after might think there was no coercion here. But the defendant knew. He knew he'd been beating and controlling Cassie for years. And he knew that after those texts, he ends up at the Intercontinental. And we all saw what happened there. The texts in isolation do not tell the whole story because in between them is violence and coercion. That's how he got Cassie and Jane to stay on script. And in those rooms for those videos, the defendant expected a specific performance.

This was not about their pleasure. It was about pleasing the defendant. He gave them drugs to keep them awake, compliant, and euphoric. He taught them to what to do in those rooms, trained them with himself first, and then with escorts. And by the end, they knew if they didn't perform the way he wanted, there would be consequences. For Cassie, it included physical beatings and the release of those videos. For Jane, it was losing her home, and then in June of 2024 it was physical violence. But even with those threats, they tried to tell him they wanted to stop, and you know he understood them. This is a very smart, very perceptive man. You can see it in his texts that he knows when Cassie or Jane is resisting. Like the example we just saw, he was good at reading between the lines. And the same thing would happen in those rooms, remember? Cassie and Jane would signal to the defendant when they wanted to stop.

And he understood what they were saying because he would respond by telling them to finish strong, you're not getting tired on me, are you? Here, the defense said, Mr. Agnifilo said, that if all of the freak-offs here weren't sex trafficking, then how could Mr. Combs know when any of them crossed the line? It's preposterous. They didn't need to tell him outright they wanted to stop. He knew. Cassie didn't need to tell the defendant she wanted an escort to stop urinating in her mouth. He knew that. Cassie didn't need to tell him she didn't want to have sex after he beat her in front of Daniel Phillip. And Cassie didn't need to tell him that she wanted to stop when she had an open wound on her face and overdosed in a Long Island hotel. You may have forgotten about that one. Cassie's testimony was a few weeks ago. Remember, she still had that gash in her head from the time with Mia and Deonte in her bedroom. She OD'd in a hotel days later in Long Island.

And then after the defendant and the escort got her to wake up, they still had the freak-off after her overdose and with an open wound on her face. She didn't have to tell him she didn't want that. It's obvious. But Cassie and Jane did try to tell him directly that they wanted to stop. In person, he would talk over them, dismiss them. And you also know that that's why Jane put it in writing, over and over again in words no one could mistake. I didn't hear Mr. Agnifilo have an explanation for how the defendant could read those texts that we all saw and think anything other than this woman wants out. This woman does not want these nights. The defense says, and said in their opening and has suggested to you, that these were strong women. And you know what? They're right about that. They were strong enough to survive what the defendant put them through and testify at this trial. But when they tried to show that strength to the defendant, the consequences were swift and serious.

For Cassie, it was beatings, threats to release those videos. For Jane, it was threats to take away her home, threats to release her videos, and then in June 2024, a beating. Just because someone is strong does not mean they can't also be abused. And to take that to a larger point: Sex trafficking does not require overcoming a no. It is about getting someone to say yes through illegal means. So when Jane said yes because she believed the defendant's lies, that was trafficking. When Jane said yes because she was afraid that she would lose her home if she didn't, that was trafficking. And when Jane performed oral sex on Antoine because the defendant had beaten her that same night, which we'll talk about in a little bit, that was trafficking. When you're getting manipulated or threatened or abused into saying yes, you do not have to say no. Sometimes these women did say no. But they didn't need to for this to be trafficking.

You don't need to find that all of the freak-offs were sex trafficking. We've talked about that. Mr. Agnifilo asked you to draw the line at a number. Is it the 75th freak-off? Was it the 50th? That's not the question before of you. The only question that matters here is whether there was one. That is the only number you need to care about. One freak-off where the defendant knew that force, fraud or coercion, or any combination thereof was used to get Cassie and Jane to a yes. Of course there was one. You know you have many, many more than that, but that's all you need. There is a huge difference between what Cassie and Jane were willing to do early on: Try a freak-off once, maybe on a special occasion, and what happened here. The defendant took these nights to an extreme point that crossed far over into trafficking. By the time he got to the Intercontinental with Cassie in June of 2024 with Jane, he was so far passed the line, he couldn't even see it.

So the defense asks: If it was so bad, if they didn't want it, then why didn't they just leave? I think Mr. Agnifilo even said, she could always leave. Did anything in this case ever actually happen, ever? The answer is they tried to leave. Cassie literally ran away, and she's on video being beaten and dragged back. She told you about other times that the defendant or his inner circle went and got him. She tried to leave. And the suggestion that Cassie was unafraid -- remember when Mr. Agnifilo said that? He had to backtrack on that when he was playing the video for you and you literally see Cassie cowering. The suggestion that she was unafraid of this man who beat her brutally at random times is ridiculous. And on that note, Mr. Agnifilo suggested that Cassie was the winner of a prize. What prize is that? What was her prize? Black eyes? A gash in her head? Sex for days while you have a UTI? Getting urinated in your mouth?

She told you she'd give back every dollar if she didn't have to have those experiences. And how -- how could anyone think of what she experienced as a prize? As something she'd won? It's ridiculous. Cassie and Jane both tried to leave the defendant to break up with him multiple times, and both times, each time he would suck them back in. And you know why they found it so hard. They had a trauma bond with him, that cycle of love and abuse, and love and abuse, made them feel trapped. They were trapped emotionally, physically and financially for all the reasons we've talked about. Now, finally the defense points to the loving and sometimes sexual messages that Cassie and Jane sent to the defendant. The argument goes essentially, how could a real victim love her trafficker? But none of the loving texts that Cassie and Jane sent should come as a surprise. They both loved the defendant very, very much. That was what kept them stuck for so long. Remember, Dr.

Hughes told you love is what keeps a victim in an abusive relationship. If it was all bad, if it was all awful, it would be so much easier to leave. Cassie and Jane stayed because the defendant mixed his abuse and his exploitation with intense love and affection. So yes, they wanted to have sex with their boyfriend. But let's be clear, the texts where they're talking about have sex with the defendant tell you nothing about whether they wanted to have sex with other men. Now, the defense tried to suggest that Cassie and Jane accepted freak-offs as the price they had to pay for the lifestyle that they wanted to be in a relationship with Sean Combs, get career opportunities, money, homes, they were willing to have the kind of sex that he wanted. But it was actually the exact opposite. The money, the career, the house were all tools that the defendant used to control Cassie and Jane. Sure, at first those may have been things that Cassie and Jane wanted or were excited about.

But by the end, those supposed benefits, their homes, the money, kept them trapped. And you know the defendant did that on purpose. Remember, he used that $20,000 payment to force Cassie's parents to take a loan out on their home. And that 20K was pennies for the defendant. And remember, you saw him make Jane beg for money as she told you she was falling into debt. So even if Cassie started out excited for the career opportunities, and even if Jane was thrilled at first that her wealthy boyfriend would randomly send her money and got her this really nice house, that supposed generosity lulled them into becoming dependent on the defendant. It trapped them. That gave him the leverage to coerce them into more hotel nights long after they stopped being willing to do them. And the cost of doing that was just a drop in the bucket for Mr. Number One on the Forbes list, as you heard during this trial. $10- or $20,000 was everything to Cassie, Jane and their families.

Losing that or having to pay that would spin them into crisis. But the defendant would spend that much on a single freak-off. You saw the bills. The hotel bills would cost several thousand dollars. And when he's hiring multiple escorts, he's handing them about $5,000 each. He's spending that night on one hotel night. To him, that money was nothing. He was more than willing to spend it to trap Cassie and Jane. But let's just say the defense is right. Let's say Cassie and Jane decided, yeah, I'll accept these sexual experiences as the cost of the lifestyle I want from Sean Combs. That does not excuse the times they told the defendant they did not want to, and he made them anyway. Like Cassie's 29th birthday, and when Cassie tried to leave hotel rooms, including at the Intercontinental. Like when Jane told him before New York that she did not want to come if he was only going to use her for a hotel night. And on that point, Mr.

Agnifilo focused on Jane putting a thumbs up on the Cowboy's text in the air. Remember on the stand, she was letting him know she'd seen it because it hadn't been loading earlier. What Mr. Agnifilo did not talk about is all the stuff Ms. Slavik walked you through yesterday: How Jane sent him that long texts to both of his phones saying: I don't want to come to New York if you're going to put me in a room with a stranger. I'm tired of feeling obligated to do these nights for fear of losing the roof over my head. That text message is crucial context to the defendant's mindset when he gets her on that plane with his lies. It's just going to be us, baby. We'll go shopping. We'll go to dinner, just us. And when he's doing that, he's texting Paul Arthur and Bridget from Cowboys. He's lying to Jane to get another hotel night.

And when he pulls the rug out from under her when she's midair, that is a completed act of sex trafficking because at that point he knows he has defrauded her into getting on that plane and is intending to cause her to perform a commercial sex act through that fraud. And then when she gets there, and he attempts to carry it out after she tells him again in person, I don't want to do this. It's another attempted act of sex trafficking. It doesn't end up working out over the two hours he's pressuring her, pressuring her to try to have sex with him. And then again, when she's high on ecstasy, it's the day after she sent that text about fearing that she's going to lose the roof over her head when he's there with her saying how are you going to make this up to me? And she texts Kabrale, and they fly him in for sex there, that's another completed act of sex trafficking. What is also inexcusable is when Jane told the defendant in October of 2023 that she hit a wall. I need a break.

He pushed her to keep going even when she vomited. At that point, she'd been telling him for months, months that she was terrified of losing the roof over her head and feeling obligated to do these nights because of it. He knew she was doing it because of coercion. And like in June of 2024, when Jane told the defendant she did not want to have sex with Antoine and he made her. Each of those times so obviously over the line, it's all you need to convict. You don't even have to decide whether the earlier ones were trafficking, even though there were many more. And because the defense knows that some of these incidents are so far over the line, they have tried desperately to spin them. They've contorted the facts endlessly here around what happened, particularly at the Intercontinental and in June of 2024. So I'm going to end by talking about those two. Starting with the Intercontinental. The defense has thrown up everything it can think of to squirm out of this one.

The defendant was too drunk or high to know what was happening. This was a fight over a phone. It was domestic violence, not trafficking. But as you know by now, when violence is paired with unwanted commercial sex, that is exactly when it turns into trafficking, and that's what happened here. The video alone shows you that the defendant knew perfectly well what he was doing the whole time. First, he throws her to the ground to stop her from leaving. Then he kicks her to remind her he has the power. Then later on he sees she's on the phone with security. So he makes a calculated decision to stay. He doesn't drag her back to the room. That would lead security to Jules. But he doesn't leave Cassie alone there either, because he needs to keep control over her, keep her from leaving. So he decides better to stay there in a towel than risk either losing control over Cassie or leading security back to the room where Jules is.

The defense tried to suggest to you that this was all over a phone, and that the defendant was trying to get his phone back from Cassie. But remember what Israel Florez told you is that throughout this interaction Cassie was saying: I want my phone. That's what Israel Florez heard Cassie saying. What you see the defendant do in that video is take Cassie's phone because he knows she won't leave if he has her phone. And then when they go into the room, Israel Florez told you he made the defendant give Cassie her phone. So at that point the next phone he has when he comes out of the room is his phone, which he had left in the room when he first came out to chase after her. So that's the deal with the phone. This fight was not about a phone. This fight was about the fact that the defendant's goal was to get Cassie back into the freak-off. You know Jules was there. Cassie texted about it. Florez saw him. This was a freak-off. You know Combs hit Cassie during the freak-off.

Remember Kerry and Deonte both saw the black eye afterwards. In the video you can see her kind of grabbing at her eye. And in the video, the defendant doesn't hit her in the face. So the black eye must have happened in the room before she left. And you know the defendant was trying to drag her back to continue the freak-off. He literally drags her back there. And what does he say throughout the time Florez is there? You're not leaving. Because the freak-off is not done yet. Just like the other times Cassie testified about leaving hotel rooms and getting brought back to continue the freak-off, the defendant had every intention of finishing that one. Until Florez finally helps Cassie to escape, the defendant is still trying to carry out commercial sex by force. When he grabs her, he is obtaining her, knowing that his force will cause her to engage in a commercial sex act with Jules when the freak-off resumes.

And he's also attempting to maintain her; he's trying to force her back to the room to have sex with an escort. This is a culmination of the ongoing coercive scheme the defendant had been carrying out for years, including all the freak-offs and abuse from Turks, to Spain, to Vegas, to New York, to Miami, to LA. That culmination of that ongoing scheme that went through all of those places, that incident alone makes him guilty of Count Two. And with June of 2024, Mr. Agnifilo threw up just about any excuse he could think of. Jane started it. She could have left. The timeline is off. There's some weird conspiracy with Antoine that has no possible motive. Why are they doing that? Well, that is obvious. This is the most clear-cut example of sex trafficking in this case.

Like the Intercontinental, it meets all the elements, and like the Intercontinental, it is a culmination of a persistent, coercive scheme spanning Turks, Vegas, New York, Miami and LA that the defendant carried out with Jane culminating in June of 2024. That incident alone, as the culmination of that ongoing scheme, makes him guilty of Count Five. So the defense is throwing anything they can think of at the wall hoping something will stick. The defense suggests Jane must somehow be lying because her description of how quickly things happened or how long things took doesn't precisely match the records. But it makes sense that Jane would have experienced such extreme violence in slow motion; the same for when she was hiding without her phone. Have you ever tried to sit in the dark for 30 minutes and figure out how long time is passing? Of course it felt like hours to her. She had no sense of time.

Those are terrifying, traumatic memories when she would have been hyperfocused, and things would have moved in slow motion. Does the fact that she got that timing off mean she's lying? Of course not. And when you think about what Jane remembers happening with that call between Jonathan Perez and Antoine arriving, it actually makes sense. After the FaceTime call, Jane takes a shower where the defendant slaps her again. Jane sits on the bathroom floor while the defendant rants at her for who knows how long. Jane gets dressed in an outfit. The defendant gets the phone set up and starts playing porn -- or the defendant starts playing porn. The defendant reads through Jane's texts with Antoine. He has Jane ice the welts on her face. Jane puts on makeup, styles her hair to cover her bruises. At some point she also has to clean up all the broken glass, all the candles, the splintered wood from the doors. There's a lot to do in that time. All of that would have taken time.

The independent evidence corroborates Jane's account from that night, including her black eye and welts days later. And I want to be clear here, the reason they called Antoine is because by that point the defendant had stopped using the Cowboys. Remember, after Cassie's lawsuit, he starts trying to be much more under the radar. He knows the feds are investigating him by that point. He's not going to hotels. He's not hiring Cowboys. He's using repeat players, and the only ones at that point that they have in LA — because, remember, Kabrale they stopped using after he extorted Jane — are Paul, who travels a lot, and Antoine. So it's not that surprising at all that they used Antoine for this time. Jane told you in her testimony they used Antoine a couple other times before June of 2024 at her house. It is not surprising that they used Antoine. And whatever words Mr.

Agnifilo threw at you about some supposed conspiracy that Antoine and Jane may have come up with, there's no basis for that in the record. There's not a shred of evidence at all that Jane lied to you about anything like that or that she and Antoine had any sort of conspiracy to frame the defendant to get money that they never asked for, to get a lawsuit that they didn't file. It makes absolutely no sense because it's just not true. What makes sense is that the defendant went nuts that night. And by that, I mean he went very, very violent at Jane, an overreaction for the books. The defense tries to suggest that Jane is somehow to blame for what happened that night. Let me be very clear here. Nothing Jane did that night justifies the defendant's actions. Nothing. Should she have hit him? Of course not. Should she have thrown things at him? No. But does that give him the right to kick down four of her doors?

Does that give him the right kick her to the ground, put her in a chokehold, punch her in the face, kick her while she's on the ground? And, by the way, Jane testified that she was being kicked in her body and her legs, not her face at that point. So it makes sense you did not see extra injuries. Does it give him the right to drag her by her hair and slap her so hard in the shower that she collapses? The answer to that question is so obviously no, it is almost insulting to speak it out loud. Jane may have started that fight, but he finished it with a vengeance. By the time Jane collapses to her bathroom floor, the defendant has literally beat her into submission. By the time Antoine shows up, he has given her no choice. Sean Combs won that fight, and he made Jane pay by performing with Antoine. As I said to you earlier, she has no reason to lie about that. But really, even all of that lead up is a distraction.

Because what matter most is the moment when the defendant stands inches from Jane's face, when Antoine is already in the house, and Jane is talking with the defendant in the bathroom. At that moment, did Jane want to have sex with Antoine? Of course not. She was bruised with welts after being chased and beaten. She was sore and tired. She obviously did not want to perform oral sex on an escort for hours. And she told the defendant that. We've talked about how trafficking can be about getting to a yes through illegal means and doesn't require overcoming a no. Here you have a no, and here's the bottom line: How did the defendant respond? When Jane told him in his face "I don't want to do this," how did he respond? He gets up in her face and says, "Is this coercion?" And then he forces her to take an ecstasy pill and told her to get back out there and suck some dick.

In that moment, the defendant fully understood what was happening was coercion, was sex trafficking, and he made a conscious decision to do it anyway. The law does not require a defendant to know what specific statute he's violating, but in that moment he did because he was under investigation for that very same crime. He knew that. By then his homes had already been searched by the feds, and he made a conscious decision to break the law again because in that moment, what choice did Jane have? She was bruised with welts. Her doors were broken. She'd been choked, dragged by her hair, kicked and slapped. She had no choice, and the defendant knew that. Why was the defendant so brazen that night? Why was he willing to force Jane into commercial sex while under investigation for that very same crime? The same reason he didn't stop distributing drugs to her or flying her across the country for nights with escorts until his arrest. The defendant thought he was above the law. Think about it.

Over the past 20 years he had gotten away with crime after a crime, refusing to take no for an answer without facing a single consequence. He kidnapped Capricorn at gunpoint, broke into Cudi's home, and beat Cassie mercilessly in front of Capricorn and Rube, and nothing happened. He crisscrossed the country with ecstasy, cocaine and ketamine, giving it out like candy, and nothing happened. He flew escorts across the country and overseas to have paid sex with his girlfriends countless times, and nothing happened. He coerced first Cassie and then Jane into freak-offs, and nothing happened. He forced Mia to sleep in a room with no lock, screamed at her, threw things at her, forced her to work days on end, raped her, and nothing happened. He beat Cassie in front of his employees, in front of her friends, even in front of escorts at freak-offs, and nothing happened. He attacked Cassie in a hotel hallway, it was caught on video, he bribed security guards to cover it up, and nothing happened.

So of course the defendant was brazen enough to think he could get away with more crimes even while under federal investigation. In his mind he was untouchable. A God among men, as George Kaplan put it. And who would ever stand up to a God? The defendant never thought that the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud what he had done to them. He didn't think that Cassie, Jane, or Mia or any of the other women that you heard from at this trial would dare to face his wrath, and he certainly didn't think men like Kid Cudi, Deonte Nash, Daniel Phillip, Israel Florez or David James would take the stand and back those women up. But he was wrong. For 20 years, the defendant got away with his crimes. That ends in this courtroom. The defendant is not a God. He is a person. And in this courtroom, he stands equal before the law. Overwhelming evidence proves his guilt. It is time to hold him accountable. Find him guilty.