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3 Jul 2025 15:33
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  •   Home > News > International

    What does Diddy's racketeering charge mean? What happens next in his trial?

    Jurors in the New York trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs are still deliberating on the most serious charge he's facing. Here's what it means.


    Jurors in the trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs have told the New York court they are unable to agree on the most serious charge he's facing.

    They agreed on four of the five charges against him but, after two days of deliberations, they're still divided on one charge.

    A jury can only give a verdict on a charge if all 12 jurors agree.

    Here's what that means for the trial and what we can expect next.

    What's the latest update?

    The jury is still deliberating on one charge.

    Prosecutors, Mr Combs's legal team and Judge Arun Subramanian agreed that it was too soon to give up on reaching a verdict on every charge.

    Mr Subramanian told the jury to continue deliberating on the remaining charge.

    The court has not heard their verdict on the other four charges.

    What was Diddy charged with?

    • One count of racketeering conspiracy
    • Two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion
    • Two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution

    Jurors have told the court they have agreed on the trafficking and prostitution charges.

    But the jurors can't agree on the racketeering conspiracy charge.

    "We have jurors with unpersuadable opinions on both sides," they said in a note.

    The racketeering charge is the most serious charge against Mr Combs — it carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    What does racketeering conspiracy mean?

    It's a charge under the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)

    The US government introduced this law in 1970 to take down crime gangs — the aim was to tie crime bosses to the offences of those working under them.

    Here's an explanation of "racketeering" and "conspiracy" in the context of US law:

    Why was Diddy charged with racketeering conspiracy?

    The prosecution accused Mr Combs of using his business, the Combs Enterprise, to violently coerce and blackmail women to perform sex acts, among other criminal acts.

    The law allows prosecutors to combine related offences that otherwise would have had to be prosecuted separately in different states, the US Department of Justice website explains.

    It also provides a way for prosecutors to ensure their case "adequately reflects the nature and extent of the criminal conduct involved in a way that prosecution only on the underlying charges would not".

    And, in this case, it allowed the prosecutors to use evidence they would not have been able to use if Mr Combs was charged only with sex trafficking.

    "RICO allows you to bring in the bigger picture," former US prosecutor Bobby Taghavi said.

    "[That includes] his lifestyle, his power, his anger issues, the way people had to obey him — the 360-degree view of his conduct."

    During the trial, the court heard allegations of separate incidents of abuse and other criminal behaviour, but the law focuses on a broader system of criminal acts.

    In order to secure a guilty verdict on a RICO charge, prosecutors must show that:

    Members of a so-called enterprise, or group of people engaged in a common purpose, committed or planned to commit two other crimes in connection with the enterprise within a 10-year period

    What's the verdict?

    We don't know yet.

    All we know is that the jury agreed on four charges.

    But we don't know whether they have found Mr Combs guilty or not guilty of those charges.

    What happens if the jury can't agree?

    The jury may be allowed to deliver a partial verdict.

    A partial verdict means a jury giving a verdict on the charges they did agree on — while a mistrial may be declared for the other charges they didn't agree on.

    The prosecution would have the option of running a retrial on the charge they couldn't agree on, the Legal Information Institute's website says.

    It's difficult to predict what the prosecution would do without knowing the jury's verdict on the other charges.

    If the jury finds Mr Combs not guilty on the other charges, the prosecution might be more inclined to push ahead with a retrial on the racketeering charge.

    But if the jury finds Mr Combs guilty and the prosecution is satisfied with the length of his jail sentence, it might be less inclined to go for a retrial.

    The prospect of a retrial would likely be highly distressing to prosecution witnesses who went through the ordeal of having to relive alleged traumatic assaults in such a public setting.

    Has Diddy been sentenced yet?

    No.

    A person is only sentenced after the jury has delivered a guilty verdict.

    And, at the moment, we still don't know if the jury has found Mr Combs guilty or not guilty.

    Mr Combs is currently behind bars because he was denied bail ahead of the trial — not because he's serving a prison sentence.

    What's the time difference in New York?

    Currently, New York time — which is called Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) — 14 hours behind Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST).

    So when it's 9am in Sydney, it's 7pm in New York.

    This means that any major updates from the trial will probably come either very late at night or early in the morning here in Australia.


    ABC




    © 2025 ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved

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