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In recent years, the major sex trafficking trials of the powerful have fallen into a pattern: An accuser steps forward with a lawsuit. Several, if not dozens, of others follow. Federal prosecutors take notice of the litigation and avalanche of media attention.
Titans fall.
The pattern played out already for Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and R. Kelly, and now Sean “Diddy” Combs hopes not to be the next on the list. The Combs racketeering and sex trafficking trial has been underway for two weeks, roughly a quarter of its anticipated eight-week length.
Last Monday, I spoke to
about the social significance of this trial and others like it. In 2003, long before Epstein’s prosecution, Ward ran a watershed profile of him in Vanity Fair. Epstein’s serial sexual exploitation of minors had not yet crossed prosecutors’ radars, but Ward could not help but notice: “Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women—lots of them, mostly young.”Moreover, Ward raised systemic questions about how Epstein obtained his wealth and power that enabled his predation, scouring Securities and Exchange Commission records and Epstein’s “special relationship” with billionaire Les Wexner.
Of course, there are differences among these trials. Combs, unlike Epstein or R. Kelly, is not accused of exploiting minors.
In our conversation, Ward and I discuss how a wide focus helps discuss the broader significance of these cases beyond the daily headlines.
Two of the top charges against Combs are the same as the ones against R. Kelly: racketeering and sex trafficking. That’s no accident, and in this conversation, we break down why that is and what that means for the public.
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