In defusing much of the government’s case, lawyers for the music mogul did not dispute that he did bad things. They disputed that they matched the crimes he was charged with.
Over 28 days of testimony, federal prosecutors called witnesses who gave compelling accounts of harrowing violence, acts of intimidation and voyeuristic sex in hotel rooms with oceans of baby oil. Sean Combs, they said, was the ringleader.
Investigators detailed for the jury raids at Mr. Combs’s mansions in Miami Beach and Los Angeles, where they carted away several AR-15-style guns and illicit narcotics. People who worked for Mr. Combs, the music mogul, testified that they had procured drugs for him or had witnessed his physical abuse of a former girlfriend.
In the face of this evidence, the defense presented a case that lasted less than half an hour. Mr. Combs declined to testify, and no other witnesses were called. The rapid turnaround was startling after six weeks of trial.
But in retrospect, the defense’s compact case was a sign that Mr. Combs’s lawyers felt confident the government had not done enough to convince a federal jury that Mr. Combs was, as charged, the boss of a criminal enterprise.
That confidence had appeared to waver on Tuesday afternoon, when eight of Mr. Combs’s lawyers somberly huddled near their client after jurors said they had reached a verdict on all but the racketeering charge. But those same lawyers turned jubilant on Wednesday after the jury declared Mr. Combs not guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy — the two most severe charges against him.
While Mr. Combs’s convictions on two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution could result in his spending years in prison, sex trafficking or racketeering convictions would have carried potential life sentences.
