Decoding the Sex Trafficking Case Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

“I can’t speak to whether the allegations against Combs are true. But reading the indictment, a few things jump out that I can comment on. The first is how—once again—the Mann Act rears its ugly head, making criminal what really should not be a crime. The second is how federal prosecutors are (once again) stretching the application of sex trafficking laws to conduct that goes beyond the sort of actions they were originally pushed to target. And the third is how the racketeering conspiracy charge opens up the government to seizing way more assets than they would otherwise be allowed to seize.”

“Merely transporting someone across state lines to engage in sexual activity should not be a crime. If there’s abduction or coercion involved, that is the criminal activity. We don’t also need a law criminalizing the mere transportation element. It’s like making opening the door to a bank during the commission of a bank robbery its own separate crime.
But the Mann Act lets federal prosecutors charge people whom they don’t otherwise have cause to arrest or, in situations like Combs’ case, to ratchet up the charges, perhaps in service of producing a plea deal.

Combs is charged with violating the Mann Act for allegedly making “arrangements for women and commercial sex workers to fly to [his] location.” The alleged sex workers involved were all men.

The indictment contains no allegation that he forced or coerced these sex workers into anything. But if he arranged for their travel, across state lines and internationally, the feds have him on a Mann Act violation.”

“So what about the other charges? Combs allegedly induced women to participate in sex parties he called “Freak Offs,” which the indictment describes as “elaborate and produced sex performances that COMBS arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.” For these parties, Combs would allegedly hire male sex workers for women to hook up with.

So far, so what? The only potential crime in all that is hiring the male sex workers. But soliciting prostitution is not a federal crime (though it is a state or local crime almost everywhere in the country). And it’s possible no one involved thought of this as prostitution. According to the indictment, Combs would frequently film the sex acts at these “Freak Offs.” Making porn is not illegal if all parties are consenting.

The indictment goes into some detail about these alleged sex parties. But while it’s heavy on lurid description, its light on actual criminal acts.”

“it doesn’t say that he forced anyone to do drugs or gave anyone drugs surreptitiously.

Even many of Combs’ alleged means of coercing women to participate in these parties are likely legal. They include activities that might well be controlling in certain contexts but not necessarily criminal—things like making “promises of career opportunities,” giving them financial support (or threatening to withhold it), “dictating [their] appearance,” and “monitoring their medical records.”

However, that’s not all that Combs is accused of doing. The indictment also says he used “the sensitive, embarrassing, and incriminating recordings that he made during Freak Offs as collateral to ensure the continued obedience and silence of the victims.”

And it accuses him of having assaulted some of the women, “striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them.”

Several women have previously accused Combs of sexual assault. And at least one video was made public last fall of Combs punching and kicking Casandra Ventura, an R&B singer who goes by Cassie. (Ventura sued him in civil court, saying Combs had raped her, physically assaulted her, and forced her to have sex with other men while he filmed. The suit was settled a day after Ventura filed it.)”

“We’ve got one charge for something that should not be a crime (transportation of willing adults). Even if Combs did this, it should not matter, morally or legally.

Then we’ve got allegations of the sort of violence and abuse that definitely should be illegal—albeit not the purview of the federal government. If Combs did these things, they are both morally abhorrent and should be prosecutable under state criminal laws.

Then we’ve got this third, murkier business—the sex parties—that it’s hard to know what to make of.

And this murky third element is the thing that the federal government really needs to justify this case. It’s the area where the indictment has devoted the most attention, and also where the lines between legal adult activity and criminal sex trafficking are blurry.”

” According to the indictment, Combs used his “power and prestige,” along with “the pretense of a romantic relationship,” to “lure” women to him. So…he was a rich and famous dude who women were drawn to and he maybe used that to his sexual advantage? That may be cad-like behavior, but it is not (nor should it be) illegal.”

“the alleged trafficker—Combs—is accused of paying money to consenting sex workers and using force or coercion to find sex partners for them. It’s not the sex workers who are allegedly being trafficked but the people whom the sex workers are paid to have sex with.”

“Is that really sex trafficking? It seems like prosecutors are once again stretching the definition.

Sex trafficking statutes were enacted with a promise of stopping forced prostitution. But prosecutors and people bringing civil lawsuits have found all sorts of creative ways to use them, hurling sex trafficking allegations at social media websites, software companies, and sex workers themselves, as well as people engaged in a wide array of odd or bad behavior adjacent to sex”

“Combs may well have engaged in some nasty, abusive, and criminal behavior. But things can be nasty, abusive, and even criminal without necessarily being sex trafficking.”

https://reason.com/2024/09/18/decoding-the-sex-trafficking-case-against-sean-diddy-combs/

Appeals court upholds but narrows sex-trafficking statute

“The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled..that language in the 2018 Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act — better known as FOSTA — is not unconstitutionally vague and doesn’t violate free-speech rights.

However, the court said it would interpret the threat of criminal punishment for the use of computer services in a manner “facilitating” or “assisting” prostitution to apply as longer-standing statutes traditionally do, to people “aiding and abetting” such crimes.

“We therefore hold that [FOSTA’s] mental state requirement does not reach the intent to engage in general advocacy about prostitution, or to give advice to sex workers generally to protect them from abuse,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote, joined by Judges Harry Edwards and Justin Walker. “Nor would it cover the intent to preserve for historical purposes webpages that discuss prostitution. Instead, it reaches a person’s intent to aid or abet the prostitution of another person.”

Millett conceded that the language could be seen as encompassing all sorts of conduct that arguably promotes or encourages prostitution. But she said the more limited reading was justified in this instance.”

FOSTA’s Failure: The 2018 Sex Trafficking Law Has Been Worse Than Useless So Far

“FOSTA and the takedown of Backpage have made finding and fighting sex criminals more difficult, according to the GAO report.

Since FOSTA’s passage, the commercial sex ad market has become more highly fragmented and more likely to be based overseas. This “heightens already-existing challenges law enforcement face in gathering tips and evidence,” the report says. Those running the newer platforms often “host servers abroad, reside abroad, use offshore bank accounts and financial institutions, or introduce third parties to attempt to obscure or distance themselves from the day-to-day operation of their platforms, according to DOJ officials.”

Whereas sites like Backpage and Craigslist were willing to work with legal authorities—reporting suspicious ads, turning over information relevant to prosecutions, etc.—the new crop of commercial sex ad platforms are much less responsive and helpful. As a result, prosecuting their users has become more difficult, as has finding the victims of sex trafficking.”

ICE Agents Fight Sex Trafficking by Paying Potential Victims for Hand Jobs

“Agents with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Arizona have been “fighting” human trafficking by sending federal immigration agents to coerce suspected victims into paid sex acts. These acts were later used by authorities to justify arresting women who agreed to them, seizing their assets, and telling the press it was these women who were the real predators.”

“Absurd and horrifying? Obviously. But also a scenario that is far from an isolated incident.”

No, 1 in 3 Kids Coming Across the Southern Border Are Not Victims of Sex Trafficking

“In a recent short video for PragerU, Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican running for Congress in Florida, suggested that one third of the immigrant kids coming over our southern border are being sex trafficked.
She said it in a kind of garbled way—conflating the fact that some kids aren’t related to their smugglers, with the fact that “sex trafficking exists”—but her conclusion was clear: Separating kids from the adults bringing them over the border is for their own protection, because otherwise they are being sold into prostitution.

This notion is preposterous”

“in 2018, the government started doing DNA tests on a limited group of people crossing the border who had aroused particular suspicion. “It wasn’t a random sample of people coming over the border,” she says.

Indeed, many of them were not related to the people they said were their relatives. But that was only a small subset of migrants, and the results were neither surprising nor damning. Unrelated groups often cross the border together, because many times the biological parent is already in the U.S. They left their child behind to be raised by an aunt or grandma until the child was old enough to come over, or the parent was well-established enough to provide them a decent home. The parent then pays for the child’s passage north. Maybe the child is accompanied by an aunt, or even a neighbor who is also migrating. This person might lie about their relationship to the child, but that doesn’t mean their true purpose is sex trafficking.”

“In any case, the government has currently come up with a new excuse for separating children and sending them back across the border: COVID-19. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the feds are deporting hundreds of migrant kids and teens without any chance to plead their case. The government is citing a 1944 law that lists disease-prevention as a reason to bar foreigners from entering the country, but many of these kids were already here when the pandemic began.”