He greets his multimillion-dollar defense team each morning with a round of three-second hugs and a volley of fist-bumps.
Lately, he throws in a small yoga studio’s worth of short, namaste-like bows, hands together as if in prayer. And his smile — as he turns from his lawyers and scans the courtroom — nearly stretches ear to ear.
As his Manhattan sex-trafficking trial nears a conclusion, Sean “Diddy” Combs has been walking into court and taking his seat at the defense table with a show of high energy and still-higher spirits.
“He’s at peak Diddy,” observed courtroom sketch artist Christine Cornell, who has drawn the trial since it began in mid-May.
“It’s like he sees what he thinks is the light at the end of the tunnel,” she told Business Insider.
Federal prosecutors are on track to rest their direct case after calling their final witnesses Friday and Monday.
The defense case will begin as early as Monday, starting with testimony by a pair of executives from Combs Global, the hip-hop entrepreneur’s music and lifestyle empire. The defense also has a forensic psychiatrist on tap to testify as an expert witness. They have not said if they will call Combs, 55, to the stand.
Combs, who is fighting sex-trafficking and racketeering charges carrying a potential life sentence, has often appeared animated throughout nearly six weeks of testimony by 32 prosecution witnesses.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian has at least twice warned Combs to rein himself in when the jury is present, including a specific directive against “nodding vigorously” when he hears testimony he apparently likes.
But as the prosecution case wraps, and his own case nears its start, Combs appears extra amped.
During testimony this week, he has jotted his ideas on a flurry of Post-it notes, handing them out among the eight attorneys seated near him, a team led by Manhattan attorney Marc Agnifilo. Often, he’ll lean in for whispered exchanges with the attorneys sitting to his side.
“Lately he’s been tapping his leg a lot, and he takes copious notes — I’ve never seen a defendant take so many notes,” said Cornell, who’s been sketching trials for 50 years.
Combs continues to push the boundaries of how animated he can be in front of jurors.
On Tuesday, attorney Teny Geragos cross-examined one of three US Attorney’s Office witnesses who will testify for the government.
As Geragos returned to her seat to his right, Combs half stood in his chair. He showily pulled out Geragos’s chair, pushing it back toward the table for her as she took her seat. They were soon deep in whispered conversation.
“He’s done that a couple of times,” Cornell said of the chair-pull. “But this week he leapt out of his own chair, really going out of his way.”
Combs is especially lively when the jurors are not in the courtroom. “Waiving, your honor!” he answered on Friday, smiling as he waved his right hand over his head.
The cheerful display came in response to the judge asking Combs if he was waiving his right to challenge a juror who’d given inconsistent answers about whether he lived in the Bronx, as he said pretrial, or in New Jersey, as he said later.
The juror was excused from the jury on Monday, over the objections of defense lawyers, who argued against booting a Black juror and replacing him with a White alternate juror.
One of the few instances when Combs appeared aggrieved in court came minutes after losing that battle. After the jury departed for the day, Combs shook his head “No” and seemed to say, “It’s bad” to his mother, Janice Combs, who sits three rows behind him.
Otherwise, at any chance he gets when the judge is not on the bench Combs turns to his mother, mouthing, “I love you,” blowing her kisses and making heart shapes with his hands. “Go eat!” Cornell has heard him tell her.
Prosecutors have worked since May 12 to convince the eight-man, four-woman jury that between 2009 and last year, Combs sex trafficked two girlfriends, R&B singer Cassie Ventura and a woman who testified as “Jane,” for Jane Doe. Both described being beaten by Combs.
The indictment alleges Combs forced Ventura and Jane to cross state lines to have sex with male escorts as he watched, masturbated, and made recordings. These dayslong, drug-fueled sexual performances took place almost weekly at luxury hotels in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami, and were called “freak offs,” hotel nights, and king nights, according to the indictment.
“Be strong,” Combs mouthed to his sons behind him, pounding his chest with his fist, during a break in Jane’s testimony, according to Cornell.
Combs is also charged with racketeering. That charge alleges he ran his business empire as a criminal enterprise, using its staff and cash in furtherance of additional crimes — not only sex trafficking, but also bribery, obstruction of justice, kidnapping, forced labor, narcotics distribution, and arson.
Combs has pleaded not guilty and is putting on an energetic defense. His lawyers’ cross-examinations of Ventura and Jane focused on their long text and email histories with Combs, in which they at times showed enthusiasm for freak offs and resentment over his public affairs with rival girlfriends.
Testimony continues Friday with prosecutors expected to call their fifth former Combs personal assistant to the stand.
