Sean 'Diddy' Combs sex trafficking trial begins in Manhattan, as lawyers spar over whether he ran criminal enterprise 

Music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs may be a demanding boss and a terrible boyfriend but he’s hardly the international head of a criminal organization that Manhattan federal prosecutors charge, his lawyer said.

That was the argument Combs' defense lawyer made to the jury Monday as his racketeering and sex trafficking trial began.

Combs, who built his music career into a billion-dollar multinational clothing, entertainment and liquor brand, facilitated a racketeering enterprise he used to coerce women into days-long sex binges called "freak offs," threatening their careers, public humiliation and physical violence if they did not go along, prosecutors said.

He’s also been charged with sex trafficking and transporting persons for prostitution.

"The defendant made women have sex when they didn’t want to. He threatened them, gave drugs to them and threatened violence when they didn’t want to do it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson said in her opening statement.

The staff of his business empire helped feed Combs’ outre sexual appetite, setting up hotel rooms for his freak-offs, which he also called "king parties or hotel parties."

"His inner circle worked to get him everything he wanted," the prosecutor said. "Sometimes that meant committing violent acts and then covering up those crimes."

Johnson said Combs recorded his romantic partners having sex with other men and then threatened to blackmail them by releasing the videos if they didn’t continue.

He faces life in prison if convicted.

The prosecutor mentioned three victims: two former girlfriends of Combs, who they say he forced to have sex with other men while he watched and an employee whom he sexually assaulted on multiple occasions.

Cassie Ventura, a pop singer who performed under the stage name Cassie, started dating Combs when she was 19 and he was 37, the prosecutor said. He locked her into a multi-album record deal  he never fulfilled, she said. Another woman, who will testify under the pseudonym "Jane" was a single mother who fell under Combs’ sway and, they say, was forced to continue having sex with paid escorts or worry about having her rent cut off.

Defense lawyer Teny Geragos told the jury Combs has struggled with anger management issues that were exacerbated by drugs and alcohol.

"This case is about Sean Combs' private sex life, which has nothing to do with his business," Geragos said. "Sean Combs had a temper and when he drank and did the wrong drugs. ... He would get so angry and get so jealous that he would lose control."

She told the jury that at times during the trial they would not like Combs.

Geragos said at times the jurors would think "he’s not a great guy" or "he’s a jerk" or "he’s mean."

"But he’s not being charged with being mean and he’s not being charged with being a jerk," she said.

A key piece of evidence shown Monday to the jury was a surveillance video, previously aired on CNN, that shows Combs on March 5, 2016, grabbing Ventura by the back of the neck in a Los Angeles hotel, pulling her to the ground then kicking her and pulling her by her hoodie across the hallway floor.

Geragos acknowledged the video, saying jurors might think, "Wow, he’s a really bad boyfriend."

She acknowledged the relationship was toxic and the video shows evidence of domestic violence.

"But domestic violence is not sex trafficking," she said. "Had he been charged with domestic violence and had he been charged with assault, we would not be here today."

On Monday afternoon, Los Angeles Police Officer Israel Flores, who worked security at the hotel at the time, testified he found Combs that day in the hotel hallway dressed in only a towel and socks. The shattered remains of a vase lay on the floor.

He said Ventura had a "purple eye" indicating she had been struck and Combs did not want her to leave the hotel.

Flores said he escorted Ventura to the parking garage, where she was driven away by a chauffeur.

He said when he returned to Combs’ room, the business mogul still only wore a towel and offered him a wad of cash to keep the incident quiet.

"It’s just that I don’t want to lose anything," he told Flores, according to testimony. "I can lose it all."

In the afternoon, Daniel Philip, 41, the manager of a "male revue" of dancers that caters to bachelorette parties, took the witness stand to tell the court how he started as a willing partner in the couple’s sex life and then became worried for his own safety and the safety of Ventura.

He said his partner had contacted him to perform at a bachelorette party at the Gramercy Hotel because he couldn’t find another black dancer.

When he got there, he was met by Ventura wearing a red wig, red high heels and red lingerie, he told the court. She told him her husband had hired him for her birthday to give her a massage with baby oil "and if things went on from there."

She handed him $200 and promised to tip him afterward, he said. Another man sat in the corner of the room wearing a hat and a bandanna across his nose and mouth, he said. He didn’t introduce himself, but Philip said "as soon as he spoke to me I knew who he was."

 After the two had sex, Ventura then asked him if he would come back to do it again. He said he got $4,000 for the night, the first time he said he had ever been paid for sex.

For the next two years, he said he would get occasional text messages from Ventura — sometimes with a few days heads up, sometimes with an hour advance notice. Eventually, Combs dropped his mask and revealed himself. He said the rap star took his license and photographed it "for insurance."

"I took that as a threat," he said.

Eventually, he said, he was unable to perform sexually because of the way Combs treated Ventura.

Philip told of an episode during which Ventura took a break from the sex bender to check her computer. When Combs beckoned her to return to him in the bedroom she asked him to wait until she had cleared her computer screen, Philip said. This enraged the rapper and he dragged her by the hair into the bedroom where the witness said he could hear her apologizing and the sound of her being slapped.

"I was shocked," he said. "It came out of nowhere."

He said he was unable to perform and during subsequent calls for freak-offs, he couldn’t continue.

"I asked her why is she staying with this guy if he’s hitting her," Philip said. "I explained that she was in real danger if she stayed."

Ventura is expected to take the stand on Tuesday.