UPDATE, 2:28 PM: Next week, a New York City jury of eight men and four women will begin to decide the fate of Sean “Diddy” Combs in the once mini-mogul’s sex-trafficking trial.

Just minutes ago, Judge Arun Subramanian sent the jurors home after the defense concluded its closing argument and Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey finished her rebuttal with a very to-the-point “find him guilty.”

Diddy, who was sitting nearby in the Manhattan courtroom today as he has been every day the past month and a half, faces being behind bars for the rest of his life if found guilty of the racketeering, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and more charges he was arrested for last September.

The jurors will get instructions from the judge at 9 a.m. ET on Monday. Then, if all goes to plan, the 12 will go behind closed doors to hammer out a verdict. Unless they come to a decision by July 3 (and who is to say they won’t?), the jury will then get a few days off for the July 4 holiday before returning to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse on the week of July 7.

At one point, with the defense not offering up any witnesses and ending its case after less than 30 minutes earlier this week, there was hope masquerading as speculation that the jury might enter deliberations today – and even have a verdict before the weekend. But with closing arguments going until after 5 p.m. ET that went out the window.

Running the prosecution show the past several weeks since the trial started, AUSA Comey tried to put the pitch of innocence from the Marc Agnifilo-led defense in some real-world perspective. “Being a domestic abuser is not a defense to sex trafficking,” the prosecutor said, attempting to defang the other side’s mea culpa of sorts.

“If part of the abuse is making your partner participate in a commercial sex act, you’re guilty of sex trafficking,” Comey added with clear reference to Cassie Ventura and “Jane,” both of whom testified in the trial.

Though his body language from Day 1 indicated a high level of engagement, Sean Combs did not take the stand and go under oath.

PREVIOUSLY, 7:33 A.M.: Sean Combs’ main lawyer wasted no time today in his closing argument in the Bad Boy Records founder’s sex-trafficking trial trying to sweep away claims of rape and racketeering, and reducing everything to cold hard cash.

 “This isn’t about a crime, this is about money,” Marc Agnifilo told the jury Friday, pointing to the quickly settled ($20 million) November 2023 lawsuit against Diddy from ex-long-term girlfriend (and prosecution star witness) Cassie Ventura.

Related Stories

“Cassie Ventura sued Sean Combs for $30 million because Sean Combs has $30 million,” the ex- Manhattan assistant district attorney stated this morning of the “All About the Benjamins” performer. “This very investigation came out of that civil case. No $30 million, no lawsuit. No $30 million, no lawsuit, no criminal case. That’s why we’re here. We’re here because of money.”

Initially sidestepping many of the vices and less than appealing character traits of Combs that the defense preemptively raised in their opening statement last month, Agnifilo instead praised his Grammy-winning client for building “wonderful, sophisticated, real businesses that have stood the test of time,” With no apparent irony, the seasoned defense lawyer called Combs a man who “takes care of people.”

A view from the judge’s seat inside a federal courtroom similar to the room where the Sean Combs sex trafficking trial is being held in Federal District Court in New York City. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel-Pool/Getty Images)

On the other hand, Ventura (who testified very very pregnant in the first week of the trial) is a “gangster,” according to the increasingly hyperbolic Agnifilo. In the lawyer’s pitch, as presented to the jury Friday, the Me & U singer’s street cred comes from having a burner phone to get in touch with short-term love Kid Cudi without Combs knowing. “She played him good too,” Agnifilo said, with reference to testimony rapper Cudi gave back in May. “She played them both.”

Attorney Marc Agnifilo arrives to the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan on June 18, 2025 (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

Wearing his customary middle-aged man sweater, Diddy sat today with his 10-lawyer defense team in the lower Manhattan courtroom, as he has at almost every hearing since being arrested last fall and since this criminal trial began.

Up against an ever-increasing docket of civil abuse and assault cases as well as this criminal case, the much-accused Combs entered a not guilty plea, rebuked a deal with the feds, and yet did not testify on his own behalf during this trial. The 55-year old Combs is looking at life behind bars if he is found guilty on the racketeering, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and more, charges.

Set to start at 9 a.m. ET, today’s proceedings were delayed due to a late juror. Surprisingly, such tardiness has only occurred a couple of times before in a trial that has lasted more than six weeks so far.

As expected, making it about money in a very different way, the prosecution meticulously went over the case against Combs in its own closing argument Thursday.

That presentation followed the feds earlier this week culling in a late June 24 letter to Judge Arun Subramanian some of the kidnapping, attempted arson, and aiding and abetting allegations against Combs. The prosecution sad the move was in an effort to “streamline” things for the jury. Despite the claims of some, the modifications do not drop the “theories of liability” outright, but rather fold them into the larger whole of the racketeering count.

Citing the violence, the manipulation, the threats of blackmail and the tight purse strings and of course the drug-driven and filmed “freak-off” sex sessions with male escorts, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik on June 26 came back again and again to the alleged abuse and sexual assaults suffered by Combs’ ex-girlfriends Cassie Ventura and “Jane” and former employees like “Mia.” In a full day of speaking directly to the jury, Slavik alternated between reading from notes on the lectern in front of her and looking straight at the four women and eight men of the panel. “It’s time to hold him accountable,” the prosecutor said of the “fame, wealth and power” protected Combs. “It’s time for justice. It’s time to find the defendant guilty.”

“The defendant doesn’t deny the abuse,” exclaimed AUSA Slavik, adding “but over the course of this trial, his crimes have been exposed” and listing off sexual abuse, “physical, emotional, psychological” abuse. “They just want you to call it ‘domestic violence’ and to believe that it has nothing to do with the crimes charged here,” she went on to say.

“Up until today, the defendant was able to get away with these crimes,” Slavik stated, “but over the course of this trial, his crimes have been exposed.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York will have another kick at the judicial can later today when they are given the opportunity of rebuttal to the defense’s closing argument. The jury is expected at this point to begin deliberations on June 30, thereby meeting Judge Arun Subramanian’s promise early on in the trial of getting the case wrapped up by the July 4 holiday. How long it takes the jurors to reach a verdict is of course TBD.

No word from the White House if Donald Trump is truly mulling a pardon for Diddy or has even taken the time to look into it, as he said he might – which has greatly upset Combs rival 50 Cent.