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Front Burner Transcript for July 4, 2025

Guest Host: Elaine Chau

ELAINE CHAU: Hi, I'm Elaine Chau, in for Jayme Poisson.

[Music: Theme]

EC: After a long and very public trial, producer and music mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs has been found not guilty of the most severe charges against him. On Wednesday he was acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking, but found guilty on lesser charges -- two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. This was widely considered as a huge victory for Diddy.

SOUNDCLIP

MARC AGNIFILO (Attorney): Today is a great day. Today is a win. Today is a victory of all victories for Sean Combs and our legal team.

EC: During the trial, prosecutors had accused him of running an extensive sex trafficking operation. They alleged that he coerced two former girlfriends -- R&B singer Cassie Ventura and a woman who went by the pseudonym "Jane" -- into unwanted sex with male prostitutes, at drug-fuelled sex parties that he would host known as freak-offs. And that he did so with the help of a network of employees. Diddy's lawyers argued that all the sex at issue in the case was consensual. Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty is a BBC journalist and host of the podcast Diddy on Trial. She's here to talk about the verdict, what led to this win for Diddy in federal court, and what it might mean for the Me Too movement more broadly.

[Music: Theme]

EC: Hi Anoushka, welcome to Front Burner.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Hi.

EC: So before we dig into how we kind of arrived at this mixed verdict, I just wanna take a moment to talk about the scenes that we saw inside and outside the courtroom throughout this trial. It's been a real frenzy, um, especially on Wednesday after the verdict came down. And can you describe and kind of contrast that for me?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Yeah, I think the thing that you can't help but notice is the juxtaposition between what's going on inside the courtroom and what's going on outside, which is just pure lunacy. I mean, I can't even describe some of the stuff we were seeing. After the verdict was announced, people stripping their tops off, spraying baby oil on each other, giving out shirts that say ‘It's a Freako not a R.I.C.O.’ I mean, this turned into almost an entertainment-level event. This is a criminal trial that the federal government has accused a private individual of very serious crimes. But outside, you could have mistaken it for a party. I mean, there was dance circles. People were rapping to his music.

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowd noise]

WOMAN: Yes! [laughs]

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Inside the courtroom, it was extremely tense. It was a similar atmosphere that we've seen on those big days -- Cassie, when she testified, Jane, when she testified, as we all waited to hear. The verdict, the jury were very prompt with getting that back to us. But actually, after it was read out, there were cheers and claps in the overflow room, which is not something you usually see. There were cheers and claps inside the actual courtroom itself. So, serious and tense before it was read out, but then after that there was a jubilant atmosphere at the court, which was extremely interesting to see. And the support for Diddy became even more vocal than it had been in previous weeks.

EC: What were some of the things that you heard inside the court room?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Yeah, so I think that the first thing that really stands out is after the verdict was read. I mean, when Diddy was hearing the verdict, he kept his head down, he was kind of slouched in his chair. But afterwards, while his defence team were all congratulating each other, he got onto his knees, faced his chair, put his head on the leather pillow and began to pray. So the reaction from that for a lot of people in the courtroom was, um, you need to make yourself right with God. Yes, it's right-- he needs to talk to God right now. This is between him and God. So there was a lot of sort of positive response to him taking the time to pray after the verdict. And then, people were saying on one half of the room, this is terrible, this is, this is going to reverse everything that we worked for with Me Too and the cultural shifts that we saw with that. And then the other half, it was really, look at what the federal government has done -- the overreaching power, the overreaching arm of the federal government prying into a private individual's sex life and casting judgment where it has absolutely no business being. So, impassioned opinions on both sides. And of course it did get quite heated, which is why they ultimately locked down the block. I mean, there were many, many NYPD officers there, and they were worried about it becoming physically aggressive. And there were instances where it did bubble up. So, impassioned opinions and people willing to fight for them.

EC: Help me understand the mixed verdict here. So, starting with the charges that Diddy has been found guilty on. So that's transportation to engage in prostitution. And what does that mean?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Yeah, so transportation to engage in prostitution is arguably, I don't think anybody would disagree here, the lightest one. It carries the lowest sentence. It is literally, does what it says on the tin. He was transporting people for the purposes of prostitution. In this case, it pertains to Cassie, a former romantic partner, and Jane, who's also a former romantic partner who's using a pseudonym to protect her identity. And they're saying that he was moving people over state lines and, and different countries as well for the purposes of engaging in prostitution. And they outlined that these freak-offs, these days-long drug-fuelled orgies with male commercial sex workers, that was the prostitution, that's where it was happening. And the defence, you know, rebutted this from day one, saying, you're accusing his former romantic girl-- partners of being prostitutes? That's kind of a misunderstanding of what the government is saying. There are laws that are broken there, and then of course that is what the jury ultimately found. There was enough evidence to convict him of that specific crime.

EC: And Diddy could face up to 20 years in prison over those particular charges, right?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Yes. I mean, we have to wait to see what happens with sentencing, because they're both going to put up very robust arguments for why he should get a lot less time. They started to do that yesterday in the bail hearing. The prosecution are gonna come in very hard and talk about the extenuating circumstances and factors, particularly the fact that he has admitted to being so violent over so many years. That's going to come up. So we have to wait and see at sentencing what the judge decides.

[music]

EC: You were mentioning earlier kind of the jubilance in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. And this has been really largely seen as a big victory for Diddy and his legal team. You know, he's been acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking. The jury was really in a deadlock over the racketeering charge, in particular. Diddy was accused of racketeering conspiracy under the RICO Act. This is, of course, just as a reminder, the statute that was originally created to take on mob bosses. And Anoushka, can you remind us of what the prosecutor's case was for this and what evidence were they presenting for it?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: All right, so RICO, racketeering with conspiracy, is an extremely difficult charge to understand, and nobody should feel bad about that because even when it was introduced by the federal government, they didn't quite know what it was. It is a charge designed to take down the mob, criminal enterprises, organized crime networks and target the person at the top. So in order to take somebody down with a RICO charge, you need predicate offences. And you need to prove that there were two, and there was a pattern of racketeering, and that that person had a co-conspirator. So as the prosecution were building their case, they were outlining what these predicate offences were. We have arson on there, we have forced labour on there. Sex trafficking is on there as well, even though that was also a substantive charge separate to the RICO. Um, we have drug trafficking on there. So they were going through these predicate offences and trying to prove that more than one was committed. And then they have to substantiate the idea that Diddy, in this case, had a co-conspirator. So they introduced this, what they referred to as 'loyal lieutenants' -- this inner circle of his security guards, and particularly his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, who they said was his right hand. Um, she knew everything about him, they worked together very closely. And they said that they conspired to run this criminal enterprise that was specifically there to facilitate Diddy's sexual proclivities. So already there, you have about a million caveats, a million different things you have to find him guilty of. And then it has to be another part and another part. So it's very tricky for the jury to, you know, listen to all of that evidence, break it down in their heads -- you know, they're not legal analysts -- and then come out with a verdict. So this is why this has to be the most robust one when it's argued. And clearly they found that it-- just the evidence did just not meet the burden of proof, and it was not there to say that this man ran a criminal enterprise from 2004 to 2024.

EC: Anoushka, some attorneys and experts say that the racketeering charge was an overreach by the government. And is that an argument that you heard as well?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Absolutely. I think from day one people were saying, well, how is this a criminal enterprise? First of all, they didn't call any co-conspirators to the stand. So he was charged by himself in a RICO case, which is very, once again, very confusing for a jury, and led to a lot of very vocal critique where they're saying, well, clearly, they can't prove that there's co-conspirators. And if they can't prove that there's co-conspirators, then they shouldn't be raising this charge against him. And they felt, a lot of people felt, you know, yes, he ran companies, he was a boss, he asked people to do certain things as part of their job. That's not beyond the pale. Lots of bosses do that. 'Oh, go and pick this up from the store for me.' And so when the prosecution are arguing, when a specific assistant has picked up a bottle of baby oil, that is them facilitating the sex trafficking of these women, that's, that-- a lot of people felt that was quite a leap. And when you reword it and you rephrase it and you look at it from another angle, which is, of course, what the defence were working to do in their closing arguments, you can present the idea that this is completely normal. These people were doing this, it was Diddy's personal life. But you-- picking up a bottle of baby oil from a corner shop is not, you know, does not make a co-conspirator. So there's a very vocal critique about the fact that they charged him with RICO from the start. And, you know, legal analysts will tell you that that was what people were most skeptical of and didn't think that they were going to get him on.

EC: Mm-hmm.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Which of course they didn't.

EC: And over the course of the trial, what did we hear from the defence, you know, to persuade the jury that, yeah, this wasn't racketeering?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: I mean, the thing that they went hardest on, in particular, in their closing arguments -- because obviously they didn't really introduce much of a defence, it was about 30 minutes -- was re-narrativizing some of the stuff we'd heard about people like Kristina Khorram. The prosecution were clearly going for Kristina Khorram as the co-conspirator, his chief of staff. And so when Marc Agnifilo, Diddy's lead counsel, got up there on closing arguments, he said, 'Everybody should have a KK' -- they call her KK. 'She's the sweetest person. She's the most helpful person in the world. She can't do enough for people. And her name has been dragged through the mud and she's not like that at all. And all she wanted to do was make everybody happy.' And then they pull out different parts of people's testimony that sort of aligned with that presentation. So, Cassie's former best friend, Kerry Morgan, she also said that Kristina Khorram was very sweet and very nice and very innocent. So it was really picking away at the key elements of RICO that the prosecution had tried to establish. And of course, you can't have RICO without a co-conspirator. So painting Kristina Khorram as this lovely person who could just-- just wanted to help and just wanted to do anything to make her boss happy, well, that really damaged the idea that she was part of a criminal enterprise and a key part of a criminal enterprise.

[music]

EC: And what about the sex trafficking charges? How did the prosecution and the defence make their cases on that front?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: So the sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, is so important. Remember the methods through which they alleged sex trafficking took place, because the key piece of evidence here, which wasn't a shock to anybody, was that CNN footage of Diddy assaulting Cassie in the hallway of a hotel in 2016. [EC: Yes.] Now, the prosecution pointed to that as a direct example of sex trafficking by force. They're saying, they alleged, that that was taking place in the middle of a freak-off, and that when you see Diddy dragging Cassie back down the hallway by her hair, he is literally dragging her back to one of those sexual encounters. And they're saying that is the clearest presentation you could get of sex trafficking by force. Now, sex trafficking by coercion is trickier and sex trafficking by fraud is tricker. They're far more intangible concepts. But for instance, with Jane, who was the second romantic partner we heard from, who's using a pseudonym to protect her identity, they were saying Diddy would promise her trips, he'd promise her alone time, he'd promise her quality time with him, date nights, et cetera, to get her to do these freak-offs.

SOUNDCLIP

SEAN COMBS: Hey, baby, we had a great time. Stay in the light, get your rest. You are the crack pipe. That's my new name for you, Crack Pipe. Or should I call you CP? [laughs] Now go rest up, get in your bag. [kisses into the phone] Got your contract. And um. Yeah, I had a great time.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: And he would reiterate these promises, he would repeat them multiple times. And he knew that she believed -- this is what they allege -- that this was going to happen. And they say she was frauded into taking part in these freak-offs, because she thought after she did it, she would get this one-on-one time, this quality time, this romantic side of him that she loved so much. But that never really came. And so that is sex trafficking by fraud. And then coercion, of course, they spoke a lot about financial coercion, particularly with Cassie. He was her boss. He controlled her career. She'd signed to a 10-album deal with him. So, he had her phones, her cars. Her houses were all paid for by him. And they say that is a clear example of financial coercion because she couldn't say anything or speak out. Otherwise, she would literally be left destitute. So that's kind of how they, they unpacked force, fraud or coercion as methods of sex trafficking.

EC: And the defence's rebuttal around that was to really portray, you know, using a series of text messages that the relationships were consensual and that there was no coercion going on, right?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Yeah. And I think the important thing that we have to remember is, for Diddy, it's knew or should have known. Did he know or should he have known that these women didn't want to participate in these freak-offs, these hotel nights, these Wild King Nights? How was he supposed to know if the messages that they're sending him are extremely graphic and they talk about being sexually aroused by these very encounters and they describe sexual fantasies. And the defence presented so many of them. That does-- It makes you pause and consider, well, maybe he didn't know. And that pause and that consideration, that's reasonable doubt. And if they could make even just one of the jurors have reasonable doubt that he knew or should have known, then you have your way in to say this isn't sex trafficking, because these women are repeatedly expressing their desire to participate in these sexual encounters.

EC: One thing that really stood out to me during the course of the trial is the defence's, like, owning up to the fact that there was violence. That they didn't dispute Diddy's history of domestic violence and really acknowledged, you know, that he had arranged the drug-fuelled freak-offs. And how big of a role do you think that played, that acknowledgement played in the outcome here?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Yeah. I mean, I think they did a very good job in convincing people that if this was a domestic violence case, that we wouldn't be sat in that courtroom. This is a direct quote: we wouldn't be sat here because he would have owned up to it. And putting his hands up and saying, I'm a flawed individual. But a flawed individual does not a sex trafficker make. And saying that, you know, kind of telling the jury everything bad about him before somebody else could say it. It's a tactic we see a lot; defence attorneys do this a lot. But, you know, words in a court of law can and will be used against you. So it might have got him off those two very serious charges that he was facing -- RICO and sex trafficking -- but in the bail decision-making, the judge made-- he cited and quoted the defence attorneys multiple times, saying, how am I supposed to release this person on, on bail? The burden of, the burden of proving that he's not a threat to the community now lies with the defendant, and you have repeatedly through this trial told me that he was a violent individual, told me he had a hair-trigger temper, told me that he could lose it with romantic partners, so that's kind of intimate violence behind closed doors that we don't usually see and can't protect against. The judge was saying, 'You said these things. And you put your hands up and say, we make, you know, no scruples about saying that this man has committed instances of domestic abuse. And therefore, he will not be released on bail.' So it both worked for them and now of course against them, as he has to stay in the Metropolitan Detention Center, a notorious jail that is known for its sub-par conditions.

EC: We spoke with your BBC colleague, Nada Tawfik, last time that we covered this trial. And it was right around the time that the rapper Kid Cudi was testifying in court. And I know that he, you know, testified that Diddy at one point broke into his home after finding out that he was in a relationship with Cassie. And just before we get into kind of what comes next with this trial, I just wanted to get a sense of, you know, what else stood out to you about that particular testimony and how much of an impact do you think it might have made at the time?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: I think it's just interesting. You never know what somebody's going to get up on the stand and say. And of course, Kid Cudi detailed this series of events where he alleges he broke in, he alleges that he got somebody to drop a Molotov cocktail into his car and commit arson. He alleged that Diddy came in and, and opened his Christmas presents that he got for his family.

EC: That was such a strange detail, yes.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: It's a very peculiar detail. And of course, all of these things -- there were many times that we were left absolutely baffled in the courtroom by stuff we were hearing. But then he spoke about meeting Diddy afterwards at Soho House to have a conversation about the relationship with Cassie, and just [unclear] because Cudi thought he'd blown up his car. And he described Diddy as looking like a Marvel supervillain facing the window and looking out across his domain from Soho House. So I think that stood out, because for a defence attorney, that is not what you want somebody to say when they get on the stand. Even though it might not be evidence and it's not saying that this actually happened, introducing the idea to the jury that Diddy was stood like a Marvel supervillain is less than helpful. But although in this case, seems to have not had much of an impact because of course he was acquitted of that charge.

[music]

EC: This trial, all of this really kind of stems back to Cassie Ventura's lawsuit back in 2023. In it, the R&B singer, who dated Diddy on and off for about a decade, accused him of physically abusing her and forcing her into sexual encounters with escorts. And that lawsuit in itself was settled for $20 million. And of course, there was really a deluge of accusations that came after that lawsuit came out. And what have we heard from, you know, Cassie in particular or her legal team after this verdict?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: So we've heard from her lawyer, who said, you know, it was extremely brave what she did, and they are pleased that he's been found guilty of a very serious federal crime.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG WIGDOR (Attorney): A lot of the different organizations that support survivors have reached out to her and to us. Because she is really, you know, not the official spokesperson, but she, what she did was so brave and courageous. And so people see that and um, you know, they have shown fortitude in coming forward as well.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: He said that when she took the stand and what she did was tell her story. And that it was extremely brave to do that both nine months pregnant and also in a trial where you know the eyes of the world's media is watching. But we actually hear from Cassie directly as well, writing a letter to the judge when he was making his considerations about releasing Diddy on bail, saying, please don't release him. I and other people who've testified in the trial would feel unsafe. He is a danger to the community and to individuals. And so, her and also some of her other friends like Deonte Nash who testified as well, wrote these letters that the judge then considered and ultimately used, uh, the sentiment in those letters, part of the sentiment, to make his decision.

EC: Anoushka, I know that you've been following the civil lawsuits as well, and, you know, this verdict that we got this week is for this federal case. There are, I believe, over 70 other lawsuits accusing Diddy of sexual assault, of rape -- claims that he denies. And what do we know, broadly speaking, kind of about how those cases will proceed?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: So for a lot of those cases, it's not just Diddy that's accused in them. It's Diddy and Combs Enterprises, or it's Diddy and another music group. So Diddy still has to go through all of the federal proceedings first. That's what's-- the list of, the list of importance, right? So he has to have his sentencing first. And then they will start to deal with the civil lawsuits, which means he needs to be deposed. Um, a lot of them have been stalled waiting for this federal trial to happen. More are being filed. Three more were filed two weeks ago by Tony Buzbee, who's obviously filed many against Diddy. So we'll start to see some of those spring into action. We'll also start to see some of them being dismissed. I mean, a lot of the issues that they're gonna face with the civil lawsuits is that a lot of them are Jane and John Does. And it will be whether a judge lets them proceed as Jane and John Does, and if not, whether they want to continue to file their lawsuits. So there's still gonna be a lot of activity going on in the civil area when it comes to Diddy.

EC: And do you think this federal, this verdict in federal court has the capacity to affect those cases in any way?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: They can use testimony in in his um, depositions. They can speak about stuff they heard in the trial. They can question him about stuff they heard in the trial. Uh, but ultimately, it will be different instances with different evidence. But I will say that the burden of proof is much lower in a civil court. You just have to um, you just have to convince them that -- you don't have to do it beyond a reasonable doubt. It has to be a preponderance. So, in terms of the burden of proof, it's much, much lower, so you might see more successes in a civil court than you see in the federal court.

[music]

EC: Anoushka, you know, this case really didn't play out in a vacuum. You know, for years now, there was really a lot of hope around how the Me Too movement would spur change and how sex crimes are prosecuted. You know, they've historically been very hard to convict and many people, including survivors of sexual assault, have been asking if maybe the legal system is, you know, too rigid to recognize how complex these cases can be, right? Like where the accusers have sometimes consensual and romantic interaction with the accused. And where do you think, you know, as someone who's been reporting this particular trial out and thinking about this case, you know, where do think Diddy's trial fits into kind of that bigger conversation?

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: I think that um, there's an intangibility around ideas of coercive control and consent. I think that what we've seen with this trial in the ecosystem of social media is almost the memification of very serious accusations.

SOUNDCLIP

LEBRON JAMES: And like we all-- Eh, everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so.

SEAN COMBS: Yeah! That's what's up.

[Sound of clapping]

SEAN COMBS: Yeah!

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: I think that there's an issue with that. That this will now almost pass into joke rather than us examining the severity of what he was accused of and some of the things that he admitted to in court. And that of course can deter other people in other trials from stepping forward because they just don't want to face the ridicule, the memes, you know, the constant conversation and topics on TikTok and Instagram, et cetera. But I also think in relation to this case, and we must remember this: we have to respect what the jury have decided. And we have to respect it even more so in this instance because we watched a totally different trial to what they watched. They were privy to all of the evidence, all of the discovery. The freak-off tapes, the pictures. So, you know, they're hearing about these freak-offs for seven weeks. And then finally, towards the end of the trial, they actually start to see what was going on inside those rooms. And I mean, one of the alternate jurors has just spoken to Laura from CNN, Laura Coates from CNN, saying, it was actually very tame.

SOUNDCLIP

ALTERNATE JUROR: There was, there was sexual activity. But I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't really...

LAURA COATES: Was it forced? Did it appear--

ALTERNATE JUROR: It didn't seem, it didn't seem, it didn't seem forced. It was, it was, it was actually, it was actually like pretty tame.

LAURA COATES: Really?

ALTERNATE JUROR: Yeah.

LAURA COATES: Did she--

ALTERNATE JUROR: It was just a lot of rubbing oil and, and stuff on there. It wasn't, it wasn't anything too graphic.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: I mean, that's one person's perception of what he saw, but that is an indication of the fact that perhaps, you know, this is a completely different trial that they saw. They'd heard all of this stuff about these freak-offs, these Wild King Nights, and when they actually saw what was on the video it showed nothing more in their opinion than a consensual sexual interaction. So, I think that this will both set us back -- I do believe it's gonna set us back in some of the progress we made after Me Too -- but I also think that that reversal had begun long before the Diddy trial started. [EC: Mm-hmm.] And um, it cannot be-- It might be a catalyst, but it's not a cause.

EC: It strikes me that none of Diddy's charges or convictions relate directly to abuse. And I'm just curious as to your thoughts on how significant is it that Diddy hasn't faced criminal prosecution for sexual assault allegations.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: They're not federal crimes. They're state-level crimes. And they were outside of the statute of limitation. That's, that's all I can say to that. I mean, I appreciate that a lot of people have that question. It's really rather frustrating that the jury could consider that perhaps he did commit sexual assault. I mean, we had allegations of rape from Mia and Cassie, um, that he did commit domestic abuse. But even if they found, they thought that they were telling the truth when they testified to that on the stand, that's got nothing to do with what he was actually charged with. And those are state-level crimes that should be prosecuted in a state court. And, for instance, the violence we saw on the CNN video, it's outside of the statute of limitations. So, um, it's good to clear that up because they feel, a lot of people, like, well, why aren't they talking about that? But it really is just-- it's a simple answer. And and and it's frustrating. And I appreciate it's frustrating because it can almost paint domestic abuse as like, oh, well, he was only a domestic abuser, he wasn't a sex trafficker. Which is a terrible narrative to have. But unfortunately, in the way it's played out in the court, it's the narrative that worked in his favour.

EC: Anoushka, thank you so much for your time today.

ANOUSHKA MUTANDA-DOUGHERTY: Thank you.

[Music: Theme]

EC: That's it for this week. Front Burner was produced by Matthew Amha, Cecelia Armstrong, Lauren Donnelly, Joyita Sengupta, Matt Meuse, Marco Luciano, and Mackenzie Cameron. Our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabason. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Lokos. I'm Elaine Chau. Thanks for listening to Front Burner. Jayme will be back Monday.

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How the Diddy case fell apart - Transcript

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