Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial: Jury Reaches Partial Verdict but Deadlocked on Racketeering Charge

The jury at Sean 'Diddy' Combs's sex trafficking trial has reached verdicts on four of the five counts the music mogul faces, but is deadlocked on the most serious charge of racketeering conspiracy.

The verdicts have not been revealed.

US District Judge Arun Subramanian instructed the jury to continue deliberating to try to reach unanimous agreement. The jury has since been sent home for the day and will return on Wednesday, local time.

The judge said the jury had communicated with him via a note near the end of its second day of deliberations.

The note said the jury had reached a verdict on two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, the judge said.

But on the charge of racketeering, he said, the jury note read: 'We have jurors with unpersuadable opinions on both sides.'

The judge noted that juries had a right to deliver a partial verdict, but given these jurors only started deliberating a day earlier, he wanted them to continue for now.

Janice Combs, the mother of Sean 'Diddy' Combs, sat through her son's seven-week trial.

Mr Combs had pleaded not guilty to all five counts. The 55-year-old, a former billionaire known for elevating hip hop music in American culture, could face life in prison if convicted of sex trafficking or racketeering.

Before Judge Subramanian read the jury's note, Mr Combs rubbed his eyes and rested his face against his palm while seated at the defence table with his lawyers huddled around him.

One defence lawyer, Brian Steel, rubbed Mr Combs's shoulder. Two of Mr Combs's other defence lawyers put their arms around each other. At one point, lead defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo stepped away from the huddle, returned with a piece of paper and handed it to Mr Combs.

Mr Combs's mother and several of his children returned to the courtroom after the judge announced the jury had reached a partial verdict.

It followed a seven-week trial in which two of the music mogul's former girlfriends testified that he physically and sexually abused them.

Prosecutors said Mr Combs was charged with racketeering because he used his business empire to force the women to take part in marathon sexual encounters known as 'freak-offs'.

It is is the most complicated of the charges against Mr Combs because it requires the jury to decide not only whether he ran a 'racketeering enterprise', but also whether he was involved in committing a range of offences including kidnapping and arson.

The charge falls under the US's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — commonly referred to as 'RICO' — which is best known for being used in organised crime and drug cartel cases.

During the trial, the women said they were pressured to perform with male sex workers in hotel rooms while Mr Combs watched, masturbated and occasionally filmed.

His lawyers acknowledged that the Bad Boy Records founder, once famed for hosting lavish parties for the cultural elite in luxurious locations like the Hamptons and Saint-Tropez, was at times violent in his domestic relationships.

But they said the sexual activity described by prosecutors was consensual.

Earlier on Tuesday, the jury requested to review portions of the testimony from the prosecution's star witness, R&B singer Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura. She had testified about taking part in 'freak-offs' during her decade-long relationship with Mr Combs.

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