With Combs not guilty of racketeering, the US is likely limited in what it can seek through asset forfeiture, legal experts and former prosecutors say
What happened when Sean “Diddy” Combs heard his verdict
The judge will decide what’s next for Sean “Diddy” Combs after he was convicted of two out of five counts in his sex trafficking trial.
- On July 2, a federal jury in New York acquitted Sean “Diddy” Combs of the most serious criminal charges he was facing – including racketeering.
- The jury convicted him of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
- That means federal prosecutors may be more limited in how much of Combs’ fortune they can seek through asset forfeiture.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’s acquittal on the most serious criminal charges, including racketeering, doesn’t just mean he’ll likely serve significantly less prison time.
The music mogul will likely also get to keep his vast “Diddy Inc.” empire of mansions, business entities, exotic cars and other perks of his high-flying, near-billionaire lifestyle accumulated over several decades, legal experts told USA TODAY.
“The government overreached. They wanted a RICO conviction so they could then go seize Comb’s assets under RICO forfeiture laws,” said Los Angeles-based civil trial lawyer David Ring, who specializes in high-profile sexual assault cases. “Thats not going to happen now.”
“He was facing life in prison if convicted of the RICO charges,” Ring said of Combs. “Instead, he likely serves a couple years in prison and returns to his business empire.”
The sweeping indictment of Combs under a federal racketeering, or RICO, statute, meant the Justice Department intended to go after anything of Combs’ that was used to help facilitate his alleged crimes, said James Trusty, the former longtime chief of the DOJ’s Organized Crime and Gang Section.
On July 2, in finding Combs guilty only of transportation to engage in prostitution, the jury also effectively shut down the Justice Department’s ability to go after most of Combs’ assets, Trusty said.
“I think that with the acquittal on the most serious counts, the universe of potential harm to his empire is greatly diminished,” said Trusty, who now specializes in representing clients in RICO and other complex federal cases.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment about whether it would seek to go after any of Combs’ assets.
According to Trusty and another former top DOJ official, it is still possible for the U.S. government to seek forfeiture of a far narrower range of Combs’ assets.
To do so, they must prove they were used in furtherance of the two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution in connection with “freak offs” involving Combs’ two former girlfriends, Cassie Ventura Fine and “Jane,” a pseudonym.
But, Trusty said, “I think that the RICO case told a decades-long story” of how Combs allegedly used his empire as part of a criminal racketeering enterprise from 2008 to the present.
Without Combs’ conviction on the RICO and sex trafficking charges, Trusty said, “The forfeiture is going to be much narrower in terms of both time and reach.”
“There may be some property, there may be some financial component, that is considered either facilitating property or proceeds” of those two counts, Trusty said.
What Combs was convicted of, he said, “Is really a glorified prostitution charge. It’s just literally like prostitution across the state lines.”
Trusty told USA TODAY in May that federal prosecutors wrote a “very broadly worded forfeiture allegation.”
That included places where so-called marathon sex “freak offs” between two of his girlfriends and paid escorts occurred and any vehicles used in getting the participants there.
Combs was also indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Hiring a former DOJ asset forfeiture expert
When Combs was first charged, his all-star defense team was so alarmed that it hired as a consultant Stefan Cassella, the former deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, USA TODAY reported exclusively at the time.
At the time of his hiring, and after the verdict, Cassella said he could not comment on the specifics of the case because of his involvement in it.
Broadly speaking, though, he said that by charging Combs under RICO, formally the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the government was taking an aggressive approach to seizing as many of Combs’ assets as possible.
“As alleged in the Indictment, for years, Sean Combs used the business empire he controlled to sexually abuse and exploit women, as well as to commit other acts of violence and obstruction of justice,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said after Combs’ arrest in September 2024.
A forfeiture target with $400 million in assets
By becoming a successful entrepreneur in the music, fashion, liquor and other realms, Combs had amassed a personal wealth of at least $740 million by 2019, according to Forbes magazine. (Combs and his team would later claim he had reached billionaire status.)
At its founding in 2013, Combs Enterprises included his New York City-based Bad Boy Entertainment, Combs Wines and Spirits, the AQUAhydrate water firm, Revolt Media, Sean John fashion and fragrances, Capital Preparatory Charter Schools and The Sean Combs Foundation.
Over the years, it expanded to include new business units and ventures such as Empower Global, Our Fair Share and Love Records, which focused on R&B.
Combs owned multimillion-dollar mega-mansions in Los Angeles and Miami and a Gulfstream G550 jet valued at more than $25 million, which he used to ferry his entourage from one party hotspot to another.
Also potentially open to forfeiture was Combs’ Bad Boy Records, which has generated big profits from recordings and music publishing rights since he launched the company in 1993.
Combs is also believed to have an extensive art collection, including works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. In 2018, he was revealed as the mystery buyer of the renowned painting “Past Times” by Kerry James Marshall for $21.1 million.
And at one time, his fleet of at least 20 luxury cars included a Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini and an ultra-luxury Mercedes known as a Maybach.
‘A much narrower basis’ to go after Combs’ assets
In November 2023, Combs’ empire began to crumble following allegations of rape, beatings and abuse by his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura Fine.
In her testimony against Combs during the trial, Ventura Fine said she settled that case with Combs agreeing to pay her $20 million. He has also lost significant other business after Ventura Fine’s allegations prompted a spate of other lawsuits and accusations. Forbes more recently estimated his net worth at closer to $400 million.
Now it will likely be up to the jury that found Combs not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking to determine whether any of his assets should be forfeited, said Trusty. He said it’s likely that Combs and his legal team could offer up some small piece of his empire to settle that aspect of the case.
“With the acquittal, you just have a much narrower basis, factually and legally, to go after his assets,” Trusty said. “I think it cries out for an agreement where the defense will offer up something like $100,000 or a million, and use that sentencing to say, he’s already paid this severe price. He’s had civil settlements with complainants, and now he’s forfeiting X amount of dollars.”
“So now we’ll see how hyper aggressive the government wants to be about it,” Trusty said.
Combs still faces dozens of civil lawsuits
Besides the federal criminal case, Combs still faces dozens of civil lawsuits from men and women who claim the rapper abused them, which could also cut into his fortunes significantly.
To date, more than 70 lawsuits have been filed against Combs. In October, Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee announced he would represent 120 individual accusers. Alleged victims represented by Buzbee now account for about half of the lawsuits filed so far.
The music mogul was hit with yet another civil suit as jurors began deliberating in the sweeping federal sex-crimes case against him.
In that one, Combs was accused in a civil complaint of drugging and raping an Orange County, California man in 2021, according to the lawsuit obtained by USA TODAY.
In a statement to USA TODAY June 30, Combs’ legal team said, “No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor.”
