Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyer claimed Friday that the disgraced mogul’s violent, perverted, decade-long relationship with Cassie Ventura was “kind of a great modern love story.”
“They loved. They loved out loud,” defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo told jurors during closing arguments at the bombshell sex-trafficking trial against the rapper — who Ventura said repeatedly forced her to have sex with different men in front of him and who was caught on camera mercilessly beating her.
“She was always free to leave. She chose to stay because she was in love with him, and he was in love with her,” Agnifilo told the jury in the Manhattan federal courtroom.
The lawyer said jurors would “cry” if they read the “beautiful” text messages between Combs, 55, and Ventura, 38, around their 2018 split.
“If you want to read some beautiful, beautiful language … read the texts. You’ll cry. You will cry. You’ll read evidence with an exhibit sticker on it, and you will cry,” Agnifilo said.
Combs was infamously caught on camera dragging Ventura — his on-and-off girlfriend — by her hair and kicking and punching her in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in March 2016.
Over the course of the rapper’s seven-week sex-trafficking trial, jurors heard from 34 witnesses including star prosecution witness Ventura, who testified that Combs beat her countless other times and forced her to have degrading sex with male escorts in what he called “freak-offs,” before raping her in 2018 after they broke up.
Prosecutors claim that for two decades, Combs used his company and employees to commit a slew of crimes — most notably forcing Cassie and other women to participate in the “freak-offs,” or orchestrated sex-sessions with male prostitutes.
The “I”ll Be Missing You” rapper allegedly watched, filmed and pleasured himself during the drugged-up events that were awash with baby oil and personal lubricant.
The Bad Boy Records founder pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have maintained that the women who partook in the sex-marathons were his girlfriends and willing participants and that this was all part of his “swingers” lifestyle.
Combs has been behind bars since his September arrest on charges of sex-trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He faces up to life in prison if convicted on the top charge.
