The split verdict announced Wednesday morning in the federal trial of sexual trafficking and the racketeering of Sean “Diddy” – with boats recognized as guilty of two transport managers to engage in prostitution and acquitted the most serious accusations of sex traffic and racketeering – could be surprised for the observers who thought that the federal prosecutors could have used the case of Study. His company as a criminal company to the circulation of women.
But now that Combs has been recognized as not guilty of the most serious accusations, he examines a much less serious sentence, reduced by a potential life behind bars to what could only be years. What form his sentence will take and what will be the next time after his release (he was refused the deposit on Wednesday) are immediate questions, but the one that burns is more existential for those who fight for the rights of abuses: how does the devil happened?
Given the form that the Combs trial has taken and what we know about the deliberations of the jury in the last two days, a term has become somewhat omnipresent: the overtaking of the prosecutor. Last year, when the federal prosecutors of the Southern New York district announced the success of Combs of Combs, the dossier contained allegations that were surprising, because the theory of the case showed how the combs satisfied its sexual trends using its business and its staff as a means of women’s traffic, which he dated for years. Then, as the government claims, he used a law created to continue Mob’s operations of several members.
This concept of what his business was really up to the task and what Combres and his employees conspired at these very specific and personal ends simply did not seem to fly with the jury, whose members had a lot of crimes to consider here. The elements of Rico’s count was numerous, with some as simple as the day, but it seems that the eight men and four women ultimately took into account none or all the allegations because they probably considered all this as a false proposal. Last week, during the fences of the arguments of prosecutors, all the alleged elements and crimes were mentioned: abduction (of the Combs staff, by force); A criminal fire, for the attack on Kid Cudi’s Porsche; repeated drug distribution instances; and so on. Rico can be a delicate accusation to prove and pursue, and as it seems that it is not bought by these men and women, all that the government did for six weeks pushed square ankles in round holes, then holding the final product in the face of the jury. It is not surprising that they all avoided the visual contact with the main prosecutor Maurene Comey while the closing arguments of the defense team responded.
Not that there were not some recent clues about how it would end. Now, perhaps the jurors of questions sent Monday afternoon concerning the distribution of drugs provide a small key to understand how these deliberations took place over 12 hours. The jury essentially wanted to know if it counts if the person in the distribution of drugs had asked their accused distributor. With the decline on the way in which these 12 souls finally ruled on the charge of racketeering, this question now resembles the result of a juror trying to show that Cassie and “Jane” readily (as regards the juror) took drugs that Combs and his staff bought. And this question of Monday afternoon does not seem to indicate that the jurors-perhaps not all, but enough to convince the rest-would not buy it when Cassie and “Jane” declared to the Court of Coercive Control and could not escape the hellish cycle of “dressings” and hotel nights. And that, it seems, said a total lack of faith in the premise of the whole Rico affair against Diddy.
Of course, it was not only the federal prosecutors of “overtaking” who saw the Diddy affair as a game of racketeering and sex trafficking. Many thought that it was a cut and drying example of a crowd -type business with many parts working towards the end of the harmful game of the working ankle. But Combs’ defense team played in these doubts with its implacable counter-bondage who sometimes turned into intimidation (that judge Arun Subramanian and prosecutors have certainly stressed). The lawyer for women’s rights, Dr Ann Olivarius, founder of the international legal cabinet McAlister Olivarius, said that these accusations may be victims of cultural luggage around stereotypes.
“I am surprised that the jury acquitted Sean’s combs with the most serious accusations of sexual traffic and racketeering, that I believe that the evidence supported. But labels like the ‘` `traffic’ ‘and` racket’ ‘wear powerful cultural baggage – images of poor foreigners locked up in basements or families of dark crimes, “said Olivarius in a press release. “The actions of Combs – although violent, degrading, and in my opinion, clearly in legal definitions – did not correspond to these stereotypes. This disconnection gave the defense room to manipulate the story, and it worked. ”
Or, as the professor of the New York Law Faculty said, Anna Cominsky, “the criminal business was the weak point and the jury did not buy it.”
The jurors did not seem to buy the idea that Ventura and “Jane” were absolute victims of combs because of their participation and their expression of excitement about his “freak-offs” or hotel nights. Before the court, prosecutors questioning them had a difficult battle to convince a New York jury that the women were drained from the agency by Combs. The doubt about their testimony and the evidence presented, which showed joyful texts to the combs, only embarrassed their ability to see the scenario as an example of coercive control, as the prosecutors do.
Then there is the question of the mysterious juror n ° 25. What role did this 51-year-old Manhattanite play during the 12 hours of deliberation? What happened in the first of these 12 hours which led the jury to send a note to the judge, suggesting that their counterpart needed a word from the Subramanian judge? And how did the jury go from the suggestion to be desperately deadlocked when they returned home Tuesday evening to have a unanimous decision on the accusation of racketeering within an hour the next day?
This should soon be public knowledge when a juror decides to express themselves, which seems inevitable. Until then, we can only look at the notes and questions that these 12 men and women have asked questions and theorize on the way in which an unexpected conclusion to a really sensational trial was born. Many things to contemplate before the condemnation of Combs, scheduled for October 3.
