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Two of Mr. Combs’s former girlfriends gave days of harrowing testimony of abuse, but jurors weren’t convinced those experiences with escorts were sex trafficking.
July 2, 2025, 5:08 p.m. ET
Over a combined 10 days, two of Sean Combs’s girlfriends told a jury about some of the most harrowing moments of their lives.
The women, Casandra Ventura and a woman known in court by the pseudonym “Jane,” testified about their affection for Mr. Combs, but also the myriad ways they said he abused them physically, emotionally and sexually. There was what they called drug-dazed sex with strangers in hotel rooms. Violent arguments. Physical abuse. And not-so-subtle reminders about who paid the rent.
Their testimony, however, was ultimately not persuasive to the jurors who were asked to consider whether Mr. Combs had coerced Ms. Ventura or Jane into the extended sex sessions with male escorts that he called “freak-offs.”
When Mr. Combs and his lawyers learned on Wednesday that he was not criminally responsible for sex trafficking or racketeering conspiracy, they were exuberant. There were gasps and tears filled with joy and relief.
Ms. Ventura’s and Jane’s reactions to the same verdict happened out of the public eye.
But some leaders of women’s advocacy groups and organizations that fight sexual violence called it a rollback on the progress that has been made in holding men accountable when they take advantage of women.
Arisha Hatch, the interim executive director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, condemned the verdict as “a stain on a criminal justice system that for decades has failed to hold accountable abusers” and called it “an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.”
