Warning: This story contains distressing details
Prosecutors opened their case by accusing hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs of using fame and violence to sexually abuse women, while the rapper’s attorneys defended his “swinger” lifestyle and rejected sex trafficking claims.
The 55-year-old has pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Following opening statements on Monday, the court heard from prosecutors’ first witnesses, including a security guard from a hotel where Mr Combs is seen in a now-viral video beating his ex-girlfriend in 2016.
His testimony was followed by a man who said Mr Combs abused his ex-girlfriend during paid sexual encounters with the couple.
After seating a panel of 12 jurors and six alternates on Monday morning, the government and Mr Combs’ lawyers outlined their cases.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson accused Mr Combs of using his celebrity status and a “loyal” inner circle of employees to sexually abuse women and run a criminal enterprise.
She focused on the two central victims in the case – Mr Combs’ former girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, and another unnamed former girlfriend.
Prosecutors alleged that Mr Combs used violence and threatened Ms Ventura’s music career to force her to perform nonconsensual, humiliating sexual acts with male prostitutes during so-called “freak-offs” filmed by Mr Combs.
The defendant “had the power to ruin her life”, Ms Johnson said of Ms Ventura.
As prosecutors described the explicit details of the allegations against Mr Combs, he sat in a gray sweater and pants with a blank stare and his hands folded on his lap.
At the heart of the government’s case is a surveillance video that shows Mr Combs beating Ms Ventura and dragging her by the hair in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
Lawyers for Mr Combs said the video was evidence of Mr Combs’ “flawed” character, but not of a larger criminal enterprise. “Domestic violence is not sex trafficking,” said Teny Geragos, Mr Combs’ attorney.
Ms Geragos said Mr Combs has a “bit of a different sex life” – and shifted the focus to the women accusing him, calling them “capable, strong women” who chose to stay with the rapper.
They had “the freedom to make the choices that they made”, Ms Geragos argued.
Prosecutors’ first witness, a former security guard named Israel Florez, worked at the hotel, the site of the now-viral surveillance video showing Mr Combs attacking his ex-girlfriend. The clip, which CNN released last year, was played for jurors on Monday.
Mr Florez told jurors that morning at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 March, 2016, he received a call about a “woman in distress” on the sixth floor.
He said he found Mr Combs there in a towel, slouched on a chair with a “devilish” look on his face, and a broken vase on the floor. Ms Ventura sat cowering in the corner with her face covered, Mr Florez said.
Mr Florez told prosecutors that Ms Ventura kept saying she wanted to leave, but Mr Combs told her she could not.
He testified that Ms Ventura had a purple eye, but did not want to call police and she eventually left in a black SUV with a seven-foot (2.1-metres) driver.
Mr Florez alleged that later, to “make it go away”, Mr Combs tried to hand him a wad of cash, but he declined.
Attorneys for Mr Combs tried to poke holes in Mr Florez’s claims, asking why he did not include certain details – like Ms Ventura’s purple eye – in an incident report he filed afterwards.
His testimony was followed by Daniel Phillip, a former manager of male strippers, who said he met Mr Combs and Ms Ventura after his boss asked him to fill in as a stripper for a bachelorette party.
But, Mr Phillip said, he was greeted at a hotel instead by Ms Ventura, who told him it was her birthday and her husband wanted to give her a gift.
Mr Phillip told the court he would go on to have sex with Ms Ventura on several occasions – encounters that lasted as long as 10 hours, sometimes under the influence of drugs – as Mr Combs watched and filmed.
He alleged that he witnessed Mr Combs attack Ms Ventura at least twice, including one time when he dragged her by her hair as she screamed “I’m sorry”. Mr Combs then came back in the room with Ms Ventura and asked the two to have sex again in front of him, Mr Phillip said.
“I was shocked,” he said. “It came out of nowhere. I was terrified.”
Mr Phillip claimed on the stand that he did not call the police for fear that Mr Combs was “someone with unlimited power” and that he could “lose his life” for reporting it.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Tuesday when Ms. Ventura is expected to testify.
At the crowded courthouse on Monday, Combs’ children – including his daughters – were seen holding hands. His mother also was photographed walking out of court along with his publicist.