
Defense says Combs is 'not charged with being mean,' mentions Combs' 'swinger's lifestyle'
In opening statements, Combs' defense attorney, Teny Geragos, said Combs may come across as mean but reminded jurors that he's "not charged with being mean, he's not charged with being a jerk."
Geragos insisted that the criminal charges Combs faces relate to his private, personal sex life. "The government has no place here," she said.
The defense conceded Combs "has a temper" and "got violent" when they say he drank or used drugs but insisted domestic violence was not part of any RICO conspiracy or was meant to coerce women into sexual acts.

The defense said the 2016 hotel security video of Combs and Cassie, in which Combs physically attacks her, shows a fight over a phone. Geragos said what is depicted in the video "is dehumanizing and violent and terrible" but not evidence of sex trafficking.
"It is evidence of domestic violence," Geragos said.
Geragos said Combs led a "swingers' lifestyle" and downplayed "freak offs" as consensual threesomes.
"That may not be what you like to do in your bedroom," Geragos said. "But you are not here to judge him for his sexual preferences."
Prosecutor Emily Johnson urged the jury not to believe how the defense characterized the evidence, which they said shows, among other things, Combs violently forcing Cassie and 'Jane' to participate in freak-offs under the threat of releasing videos of the event. Prosecutors have previously pointed to the 2016 video of Combs kicking and dragging Cassie as evidence of allegedly sex trafficking his then-girlfriend for a "freak off" in which she was forced to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes.