UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ------------------------------x UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. 24 Cr. 542 (AS) SEAN COMBS, a/k/a "Puff Daddy," a/k/a "P. Diddy," a/k/a "Diddy," a/k/a "PD," a/k/a "Love," Defendant. Trial
New York, N.Y. May 13, 2025 9:00 a.m. Before: HON. ARUN SUBRAMANIAN, District Judge -and a Jury- APPEARANCES JAY CLAYTON United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York BY: MADISON R. SMYSER EMILY A. JOHNSON MAURENE R. COMEY MEREDITH FOSTER MITZI STEINER MARY C. SLAVIK Assistant United States Attorneys APPEARANCES
(Continued)
AGNIFILO INTRATER LLP Attorneys for Defendant BY: MARC A. AGNIFILO TENY R. GERAGOS -and- SHER TREMONTE BY: ANNA M. ESTEVAO -and- SHAPIRO ARATO BACH LLP BY: ALEXANDRA A.E. SHAPIRO JASON A. DRISCOLL -and- XAVIER R. DONALDSON BRIAN STEEL NICOLE WESTMORELAND ALSO PRESENT: LUCY GAVIN, AUSA Paralegal Specialist SHANNON BECKER, AUSA Paralegal Specialist RAYMOND MCLEOD, Defense Paralegal Specialist
(In the robing room)
THE COURT: Two juror issues. One is from juror 160, and if you recall, I believe this is the juror who indicated that her son was graduating from high school, I believe, in June. I take it that she wants to make sure that she can attend her son's graduation, which I think is on June 20th. We can figure that out. We could keep people late other days. We'll make up the time. She's going to write a letter to me, which I'll share with you so you can understand what the issue is and we can understand what the issue is, but we haven't received that yet. This morning we received a letter from juror 75. I'll share this with you and we'll make this Court Exhibit 1. He says, I live in Westchester County with my wife, who is 75-plus. She is a cancer survivor. We have been married for 40 years. My wife's caretaking needs are very specific and precise and therefore are present. I am the only one who could take care of her in addition to cooking and cleaning the house on a daily basis. I hope you will take into account my unique situation in which I am responsible for the welfare of my wife who will be greatly appreciated if my request for an excuse from jury duty can be granted. So this is the letter. Share this with the parties. Now I will go get juror 75 so he can come in and explain his situation. But based on this, I would not be inclined to excuse this juror. And I don't think that he's asking necessarily to be excused. I think he doesn't know the situation and whether it's kind of optional. And so he's suggesting that if it is possible to not have him serve on the jury, then he would take that route. However, I don't think this provides grounds to excuse this juror at this time. That's what I'm thinking, but we'll hear from him. I'm just putting that on your radar. Let's get juror 75.
(Juror present)
THE COURT: We received your letter and I read it. First of all, I understand the situation with your wife and that you would like to take care of her. We went through this long process of jury selection to identify issues like this, and this is not something that came out in jury selection. Right now, you are on the jury.
JUROR: All right.
THE COURT: So you have to stay on the jury, okay?
JUROR: Okay. No problem.
THE COURT: If something serious happens, then you can let me know. Right now, what I'm understanding from your letter is that you're letting me know what you're responsible for.
JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Now, unfortunately, once we have the jury, then it's your service, it's what you're required to do. I have no doubt that you're going to do it with the utmost care and concern. Is there anything I should be concerned about? If you're on this jury, do you think you could do it and live up to your responsibilities as a juror?
JUROR: Yes. Yes, I can, sir, yeah.
THE COURT: If something happens, it's serious, you will let me know just like you let me know with this letter?
JUROR: Sure, I will.
THE COURT: Do the parties have any questions for this juror?
MS. SMYSER: No, your Honor.
MR. AGNIFILO: No, Judge.
THE COURT: More communication is always better than less communication. Thank you.
(Juror not present)
THE COURT: I think it was consistent with what I thought, which is he wanted to let me know and, look, he's coming from Westchester. That's just a long trip for him. I think it was consistent with what the letter said, that he's prepared to serve, he's going to be careful and conscientious. He'll let us know if anything more serious happens. I took this more of a heads up than anything else. Any applications from either side?
MS. SLAVIK: Not from the government.
MR. AGNIFILO: Not from us.
THE COURT: We'll continue. I'll let you know if we hear anything from 160 and we can head out and address the issues you've identified for today.
(In open court)
THE COURT: Mr. Agnifilo, should we wait for Mr. Combs or are you prepared to address the evidentiary and other issues without his presence?
MR. AGNIFILO: If he's up, I'd rather bring him out, if possible.
THE COURT: Okay. We have a letter from a juror that we addressed with the parties that will be made Court Exhibit 1. Next, on the issue of access to these sealed exhibits, the videos, when do we anticipate these being offered into evidence?
MS. JOHNSON: Your Honor, anticipate potentially offering images from those videos as early as this afternoon. I do think the government would oppose the application that was filed last night. If the Court would prefer for the government to try to rework its direct examination so that we can reach those issues tomorrow to allow the government an opportunity to put in a submission this evening, I can do that.
THE COURT: Why don't we do that. I have to say that I'm inclined to grant the application that was made for reasons that I previously addressed, which is we've made certain adjustments for certain of the witnesses but in a very limited way, as the government indicated. This issue is different. This is about evidence that's coming into this case and treating that evidence in a different way than the other evidence here because of an understandable and palpable and real issue of privacy and the personal interests of a witness. However, that has to be balanced against the usual First Amendment protections and the rights of the public to know about what is happening at trial. While we've handled a lot of things under seal before trial has started, we are now in trial and there's a heightened First Amendment concern in this context. I'm not seeing how we would navigate that concern in this instance. I'm also a little bit concerned, and maybe the parties are not, that there is a potential impact on the jury when certain evidence, especially given the content and the nature of the evidence, is signaled to them to be of such a nature that the courtroom has to be cleared and they're the only people that can see it, and what message that sends to the jury. So those are my concerns, which I'm happy to give you a chance to address in your response.
MS. JOHNSON: Thank you, your Honor. If I may, may I respond briefly to those and we'll respond more fulsomely later?
THE COURT: Of course.
MS. JOHNSON: I want to be clear at the outset that the government, nor the defense, I believe, anticipates clearing the courtroom. What would happen is that the materials — that are a very small subset of materials — that are entirely sexually explicit or involve nudity of victims and others would not be shown to the public gallery. It would not require any logistics of people leaving the courtroom. To the extent any of those exhibits have any sound that is also sexually explicit, we have arranged for headphones to be available for everyone in the well of the courtroom so that that sound could be played without impacting people needing to leave the courtroom. So there would be sort of no shuffling in and out to the extent the logistics are factoring into the Court's consideration. But just on the nature of what these materials are, they are all sexually explicit or involve nudity, and the parties and I believe the attorneys for the victims, one has already submitted a letter, I believe that another victim will also want to be heard on this issue. We think we're on good standing in the Second Circuit to keep this type of material out of the public record, and we'll certainly put in a submission on that. So I just wanted to flag those two items for the Court.
THE COURT: Mr. Agnifilo.
MR. AGNIFILO: Yes, Judge. I think the timing makes sense. My read of the cases, my close reading of the application for unsealing, really, the focus is on how good we are at narrowly tailoring the materials. I agree. And so it's just a few observations as we think about this through the day and I think it makes sense if the government can get to this tomorrow, we can all have a little more time to figure out how we tailor this. There is no aspect to any of the videos that I think the government is looking to put into evidence that is not in the nature of adult pornography. That's really what it is. It's people who are nude who are having sex or about to have sex. It's all sexually explicit. So it's not the case that anything would be looked to be sealed that's not sexually explicit. So we couldn't really tailor it any more narrowly than that.
Our application, to the extent that we have one and want to see how this all shakes out, is only that the visual images and the audio is within the purview of the sealing order. The parties would be free to tactfully, of course, ask questions about the evidence. So we wouldn't be looking to do anything in regard to testimony. The onus would be on the parties to do this in a tasteful way, obviously. So we're not looking to affect testimony. We're not looking to do anything other than really address the -- it's a privacy issue, but it's also -- I think it's not insignificant that this is all in the nature of pornography. And so my question is: What would the press do with this even if it had it? And I don't know what they -- it's not that they might provide an answer, but I think that's a useful question. What would the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times do with this information if it had it, if it's in the nature of adult pornography?
I think that's a useful way of approaching the issue because it's not as though there's some body of information that can be reported as is, as is the case sometimes, other legal matters are unsealed and the papers can write about the information in there. We're really only looking to address the visual images and what is said. And I agree with my colleague, it's all sexual in nature, completely. So, as we're thinking through the day and the government starts to put together their response and we do the same, I think the focus should be on how we tailor this in a constitutionally exceptional way. There is no doubt that the First Amendment is very much in play in this analysis. So the onus is really on everyone trying to do something that's contrary to some degree to the First Amendment to do this in the most narrowly tailored way possible.
THE COURT: How many exhibits are we talking about and what's the running time of those exhibits?
MS. JOHNSON: With respect to the next witness, there will be no videos that will be at least on direct examination, it would be in the nature of six still images. And, your Honor, I can flag those for the Court if your Honor would like. We've provided chambers with the exhibits. So if you would like to review them, I can direct you to the exhibit numbers.
THE COURT: Do you have the numbers now?
MS. JOHNSON: I can.
THE COURT: You can have them emailed to chambers. That's fine. Briefly, does anyone on behalf of the news organizations wish to be heard on this issue, given what Mr. Agnifilo has said and what Ms. Johnson has offered? Please approach. You can approach the lecturn.
COURT CLERK: Good morning, sir. State your name.
ROBERT BALIN: Robert Balin, B-A-L-I-N, of Davis Wright Tremaine for the news organizations.
THE COURT: You heard Mr. Agnifilo. He says that the approach that the parties were intending on taking is a narrow one. The testimony would be in open court. The only thing that would be under seal would be visual images and video and associated audio that is purely reflecting sexual conduct. So under those circumstances, is there still an objection or, under those circumstances, is it narrowly tailored enough to satisfy the First Amendment interests at stake?
ROBERT BALIN: I think that prohibiting any public or press viewing of these videos would not be narrowly tailored. Your Honor is correct, the First Amendment is at a zenith in this type of case, in a criminal case. There are serious charges. The question is how we accommodate what are unquestionable privacy interests. I would say that the testimony is not a substitute for these videos. If it were, the government would not be putting in stills, would not be putting in videos. They obviously think they have some persuasive value. It is important that the press, the people through the press be able to see justice being done. One of the issues in this case, your Honor, of course, is: Were these acts consensual or coerced? The best evidence of that of course is the videos themselves.
If the Court is not inclined to show the videos in open court, and that is our preference, your Honor, there are other ways, and the Court does have to consider, constitutionally, other ways besides a total sealing to accommodate First Amendment access rights. Another option, of course, would be pool reporters. We could talk about the number of them. But at least some representatives of the press who can see these videos in real time as they're being shown to the jury and be able to report. And the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are not interested in reporting anything salacious. They want to be able, however, to report that this was shown to the jury and here, in a very discrete and appropriate and mature way, is what they show. That's no different than any other trial, your Honor. So we do strongly, strongly object to the total sealing of the exhibits. We think they should be shown to the press and the public. And in the courtroom, I'd add, your Honor, we're not asking for copies of these exhibits. Typically, that would be part of press access. We're not asking for copies. We do understand the serious privacy concerns. We ask the Court to try to craft something that not only has the privacy concerns considered, but the very strong First Amendment access right considered, as well. That's our submission, your Honor.
THE COURT: Ms. Johnson, as you're crafting your response, you'll take account of that proposal from the news organizations.
MS. JOHNSON: Yes, of course, your Honor. And I just wanted to make sure, when I answered the Court's question, I talked about just the next witness. There are videos the government intends to introduce later.
THE COURT: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Let's move on to the exhibits and other issues pertaining to Ms. Ventura. So first on the two incidents, Mr. Agnifilo, we discussed the Rule 404 issue. And just to make sure we're all on the same page, when we discussed this last week, the government agreed that to the extent that they opened the door to the introduction of unrelated acts of violence by asking, for instance, Ms. Ventura if she's a peaceful person — I think that was the example given — then you'd approach, we'd discuss whether the door was in fact opened, and you would potentially be able to address those incidents. Separately, you raised the issue of Rule 404, and we discussed that briefly yesterday. I didn't get a response. So what is your position on the Rule 404 issue?
MS. ESTEVAO: Your Honor, good morning. I'll be cross-examining Ms. Ventura. We are no longer seeking to admit those instances for purposes of showing her character in any way or even for door-opening purposes. As I informed government counsel, we're no longer planning on introducing evidence of her assault of the security guards. However, with respect to her assault -- her brother's birthday party in Connecticut, there is a relevance to that assault because it comes up in the context of messages between Ms. Ventura and Mr. Combs, and it relates to their relationship and their argument stemming from infidelity and drug use in particular. And I can add more specifics, but --
THE COURT: Let's see if there's any issue with that. Ms. Johnson.
MS. JOHNSON: Yes, your Honor. We still strongly oppose that and we reiterate that we are moving to preclude any cross-examination on this incident in its entirety. It is a prior bad act that has very limited admissibility on cross-examination. It does not go to her credibility, and it is simply irrelevant that there are communications about this particular act. Our application is that it should be excluded in its entirety.
THE COURT: Ms. Estevao, how are you getting that in?
MS. ESTEVAO: In the context of a text communication between Ms. Ventura and Mr. Combs, she is in Connecticut at her brother's birthday party at a bar and he is in a separate state. He is upset that she is not answering her phone, and this relates to their arguments about his suspicions that she is cheating on him. In response, she is not answering her phone and eventually says that she did not answer because she got in a bar fight and tried to kill someone. So this relates to their arguments about his suspicions that she's cheating on him and her responses to that. It relates to her -- in addition to her substance use and abuse outside the context of their sexual relationship, and in fact in another state with her family nearby and her support network, and his knowledge of her continued substance abuse. So it all relates to the context of this conversation and their continued arguments. The government's argument is that the violence stem from their sexual relationship, and a large part of the cross-examination is going to establish that that is not true, it's related to infidelity and drug use.
THE COURT: So how is that not trying to introduce evidence about Ms. Ventura's character or character trait?
MS. ESTEVAO: Well, in the context of this conversation, it's irrelevant whether or not she in fact got into a bar fight, but the fact she told Mr. Combs that and he believed that and understood that is relevant.
THE COURT: And connect the dots. You're saying that because he thought this, this would make him jealous or be related to the theme of maybe there's domestic violence, but there isn't coercion? Can you help me understand the relevance.
MS. ESTEVAO: Sure. So, so much of their relationship and their arguments stem from — first I'll take infidelity — her not answering the phone and being unavailable when they're not together. And so this response, it relates to the entire conversation about her not being present. In fact, I believe there are messages -- or there's evidence to suggest that she got into a fight because she believed someone was taking a photograph of her, presumably with someone and that she was -- she did not want Mr. Combs to find out about this.
THE COURT: All right. Understood. Ms. Johnson, you can respond.
MS. JOHNSON: Your Honor, I just want to respond. So I'm trying to be a little circumspect because we are talking about evidence that the government believes is clearly inadmissible, but it is --
THE COURT: Well, the jury's not here, so you don't need to be circumspect.
MS. JOHNSON: The photo, it is pure speculation that a photograph would have shown that she was with someone else. The defendant can cross examine her on infidelity, it can cross examine her on all of these themes. It is entirely irrelevant and it does not overcome 403 to bring up this particular act.
THE COURT: That's what I'm trying to understand, and now I think you're helping me. Your objection is grounded in, now, Rule 403 based on this particular version of the issue, meaning previously we had talked about 608 and 404. I assume Ms. Estevao is saying we're not trying to bring in this evidence on either of those two grounds, it goes to I guess Mr. Combs's intent; is that right, Ms. Estevao?
MS. ESTEVAO: That's right.
THE COURT: And then you're saying, Ms. Johnson, that it's not really relevant to his intent in any meaningful way?
MS. JOHNSON: Correct. It's certainly more prejudicial than probative. The government does still strongly object under 608, but this should not come in. They can cross examine on all these topics, but this particular prior bad act is completely irrelevant for his intent, and there are many other ways of establishing that that are far less prejudicial.
MS. ESTEVAO: May I respond briefly. I believe the government is trying to argue that Mr. Combs was forcing Ms. Ventura to take substances and that was the way that she was induced into participating in their sexual activity, and a large part of the cross-examination of the defense will be that Ms. Ventura independently took many substances on her own, and this shows that she was taking substances in such a way and to such a degree that she was acting erratically and nowhere near Mr. Combs and, in fact, another state and surrounded by her family members, and Mr. Combs knew all of this because it's in the context of the conversation and her telling him this.
THE COURT: All right. Understood. I will overrule the government's objection to the introduction of just that evidence. I understand that as to the other incidents, those are out, correct?
MS. ESTEVAO: That's right. And it is just in the context of this text message exchange.
THE COURT: Now, as to the introduction of prior consistent statements, Ms. Johnson, there's three pieces of evidence. I'm not understanding how the defense addressed these in their opening in a way that would not be just a generalized attack on credibility. So maybe someone can help me with that, because I understand they're the bulleted statements from the opening that you say are more than just a generalized attack on credibility, but none of those statements address even indirectly any of the particular pieces of evidence. Now, all we're really talking about is a sequencing issue. This is just a question of whether these three pieces of evidence can be refused on direct examination or should be reserved for rebuttal. But I'm happy to be convinced that I'm wrong.
MS. FOSTER: Yes, your Honor. So I'll address this point. As your Honor noted, there was clearly a generalized attack on Ms. Ventura's credibility.
THE COURT: Absolutely.
MS. FOSTER: They implied she had a financial motive for testifying. They implied that you would see messages that would contradict her testimony. And so I agree with you on that. As our letter to the Court had made clear, you don't need to attack a specific statement in an opening, you just have to make an attack that is sort of logically related to the prior consistent statement and that would rebut that attack. And you don't need to make the attack explicitly, you can sort of imply it. Here, the opening, the sort of central theme of their opening was that victim 1 — or Ms. Ventura — had agency. This was not coercion. She was the person who made her own choices. She decided what she was doing. In fact, there's a line in their opening that was like, who really had control in this relationship. And that was in the context of discussing Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura's relationship clearly implying the answer of it was Ms. Ventura.
And so in each of these ways -- and I would say this is the central theme. And so when they attacked Ms. Ventura's credibility, generalized, and then made this claim that you're not going to see coercion, you're going to see a grown woman making her own choices, each of these statements -- well, two of them sort of specifically rebut that claim because they show that Mr. Combs, he controlled her career, she had to ask him for permission to take certain actions, he had control over her phone, her laptop, her car, and had the ability to take that away from her when he was angry at her. And so another sort of central thesis of that opening was she was doing various things because they were in her best interests. And so when you have these statements that show, well, actually, if she does something to upset him, he's taking things away from her and he has the power to do that. That does rebut that sort of central thesis that they made in the opening.
I would also say one of these statements was much more specifically attacked during the opening, and that was what is exhibit B-315 where she talks about the threats to release the sex tapes. They said in their opening basically, I'll quote, does Combs release the videotapes that the government was talking about? No, he doesn't. You will hear that the government raided the home, they seized the electronics and the only videos you see or hear came from the devices that she kept. And so clearly that is an attack on any claim that he had the power to release those videos and made those threats to Ms. Ventura.
THE COURT: I'll hear from the defense briefly.
MS. SHAPIRO: Good morning, your Honor. So the statements made in opening were of a very general nature as to the overall defense, and all of these exhibits are very specific statements regarding very specific alleged incidents.
THE COURT: What about with respect to D-315?
MS. SHAPIRO: So a couple of things about that. First of all, to the extent those two exhibits are admitted on direct for non-hearsay purposes, for instance the fact that she said that, and that she sent the email to those people, we do not object. We simply would submit that they're not admissible as hearsay under the prior consistent statements exception until redirect if she's attacked on this particular point.
THE COURT: Well, help me with that. If they come in, then they're coming in. So you're saying you don't object to those?
MS. SHAPIRO: No, we're not saying that. So, to be clear, what we said in the opening was very different and was not specific to the particular alleged incident discussed in this email, which occurred in 2011. All that we said in opening was that Mr. Combs --
THE COURT: You don't disagree with the account of the opening, which I think was quoting from the opening; is that right, Ms. Foster?
MS. FOSTER: That's correct, your Honor.
THE COURT: This is how I see it: There was a suggestion, meaning an implied suggestion to the jury that there was no threat to use the videos in any way because when there ultimately was an investigation and the search warrants were executed, he didn't have those videos. The only people who had them were people like Ms. Ventura. I think that's a fair implication that you're saying that she's lying about there being videos that were used as any kind of leverage against her. And so the government is saying, well, we have this text message exchange that addresses this issue. And so why doesn't that fairly fit within the rule?
MS. SHAPIRO: Well, your Honor, I don't think that's a fair characterization of what we said in the opening because what we said in the opening was very specific to what the government found in 2024, 13 years later, and that the only videos that existed at that point were the ones on her devices, and that shows that he wasn't keeping the videos. We didn't specifically discuss any threats or respond directly to the idea that there was an allegation of a threat in 2011 that's referred to in these emails. So what we would say is that, for that reason, they're not admissible as non-hearsay on direct as prior consistent statements. We would not object to them being admitted for the non-hearsay purposes with a limiting instruction that, at least for purposes of direct, are not coming in for the truth, and then if cross-examination occurs on those topics, then they can be admitted on redirect. Since that hasn't happened yet, the predicate for prior consistent statements hasn't been met by the opening.
THE COURT: So I believe that the predicate for application of the rule on prior consistent statements has been satisfied as to B-315 given the statements made in the opening. And it's not just the statement that Ms. Foster referred to, it's that statement in conjunction with the other statements that are identified in the government's letter. The ending thought of the opening was for the jury to ask themselves about the millions of reasons that people would have had to testify in the way they're about to testify. So that's the general attack on credibility, that's also expressed elsewhere in the opening. That's coupled with a specific reference to the issue of videos and the fact that the defendant didn't have the videos, but that the victims did. And so that is the charge that, well, they had the videos, he didn't, and you have to ask yourself why are we hearing about videos being held over people's heads, because there's a reason for that. It's the fact that things have changed and money has been paid or money has been requested and that's the sort of attack that was raised, and I think that fairly fits within the rule as to B-315. Now, is B-316 the same text thread or what?
MS. FOSTER: Yes, it is. It just, I think, captures just a little bit more of the entirety of it.
THE COURT: So that applies to B-315 and 316. The standard has not been satisfied as to B-332 or B-329, so we have to wait until rebuttal to see what happens on cross-examination. Anything further, Ms. Foster or Ms. Johnson?
MS. JOHNSON: No, your Honor. Thank you.
THE COURT: Why don't we bring Mr. Phillip back so he can be sitting in the witness stand and at the same time we'll have our jury ready in the anteroom.
(Continued on next page)
(Jury present)
THE COURT: Welcome back, members of the jury. Mr. Phillip, you understand that you are still under oath?
DANIEL PHILLIP: Yes.
THE COURT: Mr. Donaldson.