Diddy is finished

In the end, the verdict in the most talked-about trial of the year, perhaps the decade, came in far quicker than most commentators had expected. Judge Arun Subramanian had wisely suggested that he wanted a unanimous verdict on the charges that Diddy had been arraigned on and that he wanted this verdict to come in before the 4th of July holiday.

Many had assumed, given the sheer weight of evidence against Diddy (real name, as we were informed many times, Sean Combs), that it would take at least a week to sort through the often sordid and distressing material that the jury were presented with over the course of the seven-week trial. In the end, however, it took just over a day of deliberations. Had the jury not been temporarily deadlocked over the question of the racketeering charge, the verdict would have come in yesterday.

Many people – including me – had expected that the verdicts would be straightforward; five guilty or five not-guilty. But the event was more complicated. Diddy was acquitted on the three most-serious charges (one count of racketeering and two of sex trafficking) but was found guilty of the two more-minor – although still consequential – charges of transportation to engage in prostitution, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment. The once-mighty music mogul could, theoretically, serve two decades in prison. Still, this is far from the life sentence that he would have received had he been convicted of the most-serious offenses he was on trial for, so it was little wonder that his friends, family and supporters rejoiced at the verdict. For them, it could have been a lot worse.

For Diddy, however, it is hard to see how the reputation-shredding trial could have been more harmful. His defense adopted the (in retrospect, wise) strategy of presenting him as a deeply flawed, even reprehensible human being who had, in their words, “a bit of a different sex life,” but stressed that he was not on trial for his moral character or the revolting-sounding “freak offs” that he engaged in, but on charges that could be hard to prove were actually criminal offenses. They succeeded, but at a cost. Had he been acquitted on all counts, then he would be the hero of the hour, a self-professed “bad boy” who had fought the law and won. Now, however, he is a convicted felon who will be lucky to escape a prison sentence, even allowing for time already served on remand. The details of his extracurricular sex life have made it into the public domain, and the sheer number of pending civil suits against him will only be lengthened by the guilty verdicts. A wounded lion is a more tempting target than a dead one.

Nobody has ever pretended that major figures in the hip-hop world are boy scouts. It is a subsection of the music industry that has often been in thrall to criminality, whether it’s the glorification of violence, the subjugation of women or the apparent idolatry of narcotics. Diddy – the most powerful man in the industry, save Jay-Z – once bestrode this particular tower like a colossus, and he made himself seem like a figure who was untouchable, whatever his personal penchants. These fetishes have now made it into the public domain, and most people – even his most dedicated fans – will forever look at him with contempt.

Whether or not he is going to spend the next two decades of his eventful life in jail, it’s all over for Diddy now. He knows it, and everyone around him knows it. All that remains to be seen is whether he can bluster and bluff his way out of a jail sentence that will take him into his old age, but the greatest damage has already been done.