What it was like covering both Diddy trials

Business Insider’s Senior Legal Correspondent Laura Italiano breaks down what it’s been like reporting on both Diddy trials.

Transcript

00:00I'm Laura Italiano, a legal correspondent for Business Insider, and I have now watched Sean

00:06Diddy Combs beat the odds twice. In 2001, he was acquitted of gun possession and witness bribery

00:13charges. Back then, he was puffy, and he was out on bail for that one. For two months, he strode

00:19into his trial wearing a different crisp and shiny suit each day, as defense attorneys Johnny

00:25Cochran and Ben Brofman sat on either side of him, fixing his cufflinks. If it doesn't make sense,

00:31you must find for the defense, Cochran, known for his role, of course, in the O.J. Simpson trial,

00:37told reporters. Combs, then 31, won a full acquittal after his lawyers convinced a jury that he did not

00:44fire a bullet from a 9mm Smith & Wesson into the ceiling of a Times Square nightclub.

00:50This has changed me and matured me, he promised after this happy outcome, saying he has given

00:56up nightclubbing in favor of churchgoing. On Wednesday, I watched as a very different-looking

01:02Combs won surprise acquittals on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges. Each day of the trial,

01:08he was wearing jail-approved khakis and a succession of five blandly-colored sweaters over white-collared

01:15shirts. His hair is mostly gray now, deprived by his jailers of the Just For Men brand hair dye that

01:22his personal assistants had testified he kept in his toiletry bags. A quarter century ago,

01:27Puffy exuded swagger in court, even something close to menace. But Sean Diddy Combs could be

01:35Puffy's uncle. Combs' recklessness is a through line. His own lawyers conceded in closing arguments

01:41last week that Combs used drugs and committed domestic violence. This week's acquittal means

01:47this very complicated man no longer faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a

01:53possible maximum prison sentence of life.