DIDDY’S DEFENSE: SEAN COMBS IS A COMPLICATED MAN, BUT THIS IS NOT A COMPLICATED CASE

Today, while sitting in the courthouse listening to Diddy’s defense, I looked at the plush, blue carpeting with its gold leaf emblem underneath my feet. I thought about being in one of those dark hotel rooms the prosecution team described Cassie Ventura being in, sometimes for days, before, during, and after one of those infamous “freak-offs.”

I saw a gray-haired Diddy, watching him kiss his daughters (whom I think were his victims, along with his sons), and giving them the thumbs up. The music mogul put on his glasses and skimmed through his notes—this P. Diddy is a far cry from the playboy persona he created. The pimp he looked like while beating his then girlfriend, Cassie, on a hotel floor in the CNN video is a faded memory. And all of this—gray hair, glasses, and old-man sweater—is probably calculated. He wants the jury to see a Diddy who, as Norman Bates from the film Psycho said, “… couldn’t hurt a fly.” Will the jury buy it?

After the jury numbers were read, the judge stated the trial could go longer than July 4th, but he didn’t think it would. He said the jurors' names would not be revealed, which was typical.

The judge explained the rules to the jurors: Apply the facts to the law. The judge enforced that the jury should consider testimony, documents, and facts. Statements, arguments, and questions by lawyers and the judge are not evidence, nor are objections.

After the trial rules were read, the prosecution opened by introducing Diddy as “Larger than life.” The state continued by telling the jury there is another side to Diddy and that he didn’t act alone. They described the night the Bad Boy Records founder demanded his bodyguard take him, with a gun, to hunt for Cassie because she left without his permission. He found her, beat her, and threatened to expose her sexual escapades with sex workers he saved on video if she didn’t obey his orders.

Before there was Diddy, before there was Puff Daddy, before there was Bad Boy Entertainment and Ciroc, there was an altar boy named Sean Combs. This is who the defense team wants the jury to see. This is who they want the jury to find not guilty.

For more on the Diddy trial, click here.