- Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs avoids life in prison after being found not guilty on racketeering conspiracy charges.
The jury has reached a verdict in the high-profile trial of music mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, which has gripped the world for the last two months.
The disgraced rapper, 55, has been found not guilty of racketeering conspiracy and not guilty of the sex trafficking of Cassie Ventura, but guilty of transportation for prostitution.
He was also cleared of the alleged sex trafficking and the transportation for prostitution of his former girlfriend, Jane, after jurors endured an intense eight weeks of listening to harrowing courtroom testimony and viewing a host of graphic evidence.
Diddy was accused of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution after his bombshell arrest last September, which saw his formerly prosperous empire crumble.
He was flanked by his eight lawyers as the verdict was read out, while his family were sat on the second row of the gallery.
Combs has maintained his innocence throughout the trial and had pleaded not guilty to all of the charges levied against him. He did not take to the stand in his own defence.
Jurors reached a verdict on four of the five counts on Tuesday (1 July) but were initially unable to come to an agreement about whether prosecutors had proved the racketeering conspiracy charge.
The 12 men and women informed Judge Arun Subramanian that they had come to an impasse in regards to the most serious of the charges against Combs, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The verdict brings eight long weeks of chaos in the New York courtroom to a close, although Combs’ legal troubles are far from over, given there’s also dozens of lawsuits lodged against him.
Over the last eight weeks, jurors heard from 34 witnesses about what it was like to be part of Combs’ world.
Source: Ladbible
