The public knew Sean "Diddy" Combs as a larger-than-life music and business mogul, but in private he used violence and threats to coerce women into drug-fueled sexual encounters that he recorded, a prosecutor said Monday in opening statements at Combs' sex trafficking trial. "This is Sean Combs," Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told the jury, pointing at Combs, who leaned back in his chair in a Manhattan courtroom. "During this trial you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant's crimes." Those crimes, she said, included kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery and obstruction. Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos, though, described the closely watched trial as a misguided overreach by prosecutors, saying that although her client could be violent, the government was trying to turn sex between consenting adults into a prostitution and sex trafficking case. The judge said he expects the trial to take eight weeks. "Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money," Geragos told the jury of eight men and four women. "There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise." Geragos conceded that Combs' violent outbursts, often fueled by alcohol, jealousy and drugs, might have warranted domestic violence charges, but not sex trafficking and racketeering counts. She told jurors they might think Combs is a "jerk" and might not condone his "kinky sex," but "he's not charged with being a jerk." Witnesses allege observing violence from Combs Prosecutors seized on Combs' violence as they questioned their first witness and showed jurors a key piece of evidence: a now-infamous video without audio of him... Read More