NEW YORK (AP) โ Sean โDiddyโ Combs got a standing ovation from fellow inmates when the music mogul returned to jail after winning acquittals on potential life-in-prison charges, providing what his lawyer says might have been the best thing he could do for Black incarcerated men in America.
โThey all said: โWe never get to see anyone who beats the government,โโ attorney Marc Agnifilo told The Associated Press in a weekend interview days after a jury acquitted Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Combs, 55, remains jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after his conviction Wednesday on prostitution-related charges, which could put him in prison for several more years. Any sentence will include credit for time already served. So far thatโs almost 10 months.
After federal agents raided Combsโ homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area in March 2024, Agnifilo said he told the โIโll Be Missing Youโ singer to expect to be arrested on sex trafficking charges.
โI said: โMaybe itโs your fate in life to be the guy who wins,โโ he recalled during a telephone interview briefly interrupted by a jailhouse call from Combs. โThey need to see that someone can win. I think he took that to heart.โ
Blunt trial strategy works
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The verdict in Manhattan federal court came after a veteran team of eight defense lawyers led by Agnifilo executed a trial strategy that resonated with jurors. Combs passed lawyers notes during effective cross-examinations of nearly three dozen witnesses over two months, including Combsโ ex-employees.
The lawyers told jurors Combs was a jealous domestic abuser with a drug problem who participated in the swinger lifestyle through threesomes involving Combs, his girlfriends and another man.
โYou may think to yourself, wow, he is a really bad boyfriend,โ Combsโ lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors in her May opening statement. But that, she said, โis simply not sex trafficking.โ
Agnifilo said the blunt talk was a โno brainer.โ
โThe violence was so clear and up front and we knew the government was going to try to confuse the jury into thinking it was part of a sex trafficking effort. So we had to tell the jury what it was so they wouldnโt think it was something it wasnโt,โ he said.
Combs and his lawyers seemed deflated Tuesday when jurors said they were deadlocked on the racketeering count but reached a verdict on sex trafficking and lesser prostitution-related charges. A judge ordered them back to deliberate Wednesday.
โNo one knows what to think,โ Agnifilo said. Then he slept on it.
Defense attorneys for Sean โDiddyโ Combs, including from left, Brian Steel, Alexandra Shapiro, Marc Agnifilo and Teny Garagos, Anna Estevao, Nicole Westmoreland and Xavier Donaldson, far right, line up for a group photo outside Manhattan federal court after Sean โDiddyโ Combs was denied bail after being convicted of prostitution-related offenses but acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Morning surprise awakes lawyer
โI wake up at three in the morning and I text Teny and say: โWe have to get a bail application together,โ he recalled. โItโs going to be a good verdict for us but I think he went down on the prostitution counts so letโs try to get him out.โ
He said he โkind of whipped everybody into feeling betterโ after concluding jurors would have convicted him of racketeering if they had convicted him of sex trafficking because trafficking was an alleged component of racketeering.
Agnifilo met with Combs before court and Combs entered the courtroom rejuvenated. Smiling, the onetime Catholic schoolboy prayed with family. In less than an hour, the jury matched Agnifiloโs prediction.
The seemingly chastened Combs mouthed โthank youโ to jurors and smiled as family and supporters applauded. After he was escorted from the room, spectators cheered the defense team, a few chanting: โDream Team! Dream Team!โ Several lawyers, including Geragos, cried.
โThis was a major victory for the defense and a major loss for the prosecution,โ said Mitchell Epner, a lawyer who worked with Agnifilo as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey over two decades ago. He credited โa dream team of defense lawyersโ against prosecutors who almost always win.
Agnifilo showcased what would become his trial strategy โ belittling the charges and mocking the investigation that led to them โ last September in arguing unsuccessfully for bail. The case against Combs was what happens when the โfederal government comes into our bedrooms,โ he said.
Lawyers gently questioned most witnesses
During an eight-week trial, Combsโ lawyers picked apart the prosecution case with mostly gentle but firm cross-examinations. Combs never testified and his lawyers called no witnesses.
Sarah Krissoff, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, said Combsโ defense team โhad a narrative from the beginning and they did all of it without putting on any witnesses. Thatโs masterful.โ
Ironically, Agnifilo expanded the use of racketeering laws as a federal prosecutor on an organized crime task force in New Jersey two decades ago, using them often to indict street gangs in violence-torn cities.
โI knew the weak points in the statute,โ he said. โThe statute is very mechanical. If you know how the car works, you know where the fail points are.โ
He said prosecutors had โdozens of fail points.โ
โThey didnโt have a conspiracy, they just didnโt,โ he said. โThey basically had Combsโ personal life and tried to build racketeering around personal assistants.โ
Some personal assistants, even after viewing videos of Combs beating his longtime girlfriend, Casandra โCassieโ Ventura, had glowing things to say about Combs on cross examination.
Once freed, Combs likely to reenter domestic abusers program
For Combs, Agnifilo sees a long road ahead once he is freed as he works on personal demons, likely reentering a program for domestic batterers that he had just started before his arrest.
โHeโs doing OK,โ said Agnifilo, who speaks with him four or five times daily.
He said Combs genuinely desires improvement and โrealizes he has flaws like everyone else that he never worked on.โ
โHe burns hot in all matters. I think what he has come to see is that he has these flaws and thereโs no amount of fame and no amount of fortuneโ that can erase them,โ he said. โYou canโt cover them up.โ
For Agnifilo, a final surprise awaited him after Combsโ bail was rejected when a man collapsed into violent seizures at the elevators outside the courtroom.
โIโm like: โWhat the hell?โโ recalled the lawyer schooled in treating seizures.
Agnifilo straddled him, pulling him onto his side and using a foot to prevent him from rolling backward while a law partner, Jacob Kaplan, put a backpack under the manโs head and Agnifiloโs daughter took his pulse.
โWe made sure he didnโt choke on vomit. It was crazy. I was worried about him,โ he said.
The man was eventually taken away conscious by rescue workers, leaving Agnifilo to ponder a tumultuous day.
โIt was like I was getting punked by God,โ he said.