Prosecution Rests as Sean Combs Trial Nears End

Federal prosecutors rested their case against Sean Combs on Tuesday after presenting 34 witnesses during the music mogul’s sprawling sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial.

In the seventh week of the trial, the government used a trove of financial records and text and audio messages to weave together its case, which is centered on drug-fueled sex marathons with male escorts; prosecutors say Mr. Combs coerced two women into these encounters, and used employees to help facilitate them.

Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his lawyers have vehemently disputed the government’s depiction of him as the leader of a criminal conspiracy. They have argued that the women were willing participants in the sexual encounters during yearslong romantic relationships with him.

Over 28 days of testimony at Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, the prosecution called a slate of witnesses who observed firsthand the relationships between Mr. Combs and the women at the core of the sex-trafficking case: Casandra Ventura and a woman known by the pseudonym Jane. Seeking to establish a pattern of criminal activity by Mr. Combs and an inner circle of employees, prosecutors have walked the jury through allegations of kidnapping, arson, drug violations and forced labor.

After making an argument for the court to enter an acquittal on the charges — a routine effort at this stage of a trial — the defense is expected to present its case. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have signaled that they will be brief, focusing on reading evidence rather than calling witnesses to testify.

But the bulk of the defense’s case has already been made, during vigorous cross-examination of the witnesses called by the prosecution. Mr. Combs’s team of lawyers grilled Ms. Ventura and Jane at length, seized on inconsistencies in the accounts of witnesses and elicited testimony in which former employees expressed continued admiration for Mr. Combs.