What the Diddy Jury Got Wrong, According to a Trafficking Prevention Advocate

The verdict in Sean “Diddy” Combs' federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial, in which he was acquitted of the most serious charges, including sex trafficking, sparked celebration outside the Manhattan courthouse when it was announced. But Halle Carr was angry.

Carr is an Oklahoma City-based advocate and public speaker who specializes in trafficking prevention. She has a degree in Crime Victim and Survivors Services and up until recently, she worked as a sex trafficking victim outreach coordinator for an area organization.

She saw familiar things in Combs’ case: patterns, especially in his relationship with Cassie Ventura, that matched what she’d heard from trafficking victims. Details that corresponded to what she’d learned in the extensive state-mandated training she’d received about trafficking.

Carr was fed up. So she took to the internet.

“I’m angry,” she began, in (of all things) a LinkedIn post. “And I’m done being quiet about it.”

After reading Carr’s take on the trial, Complex reached out, in order to see why someone in the trenches of anti-trafficking work was willing to say bluntly, and publicly, “If your understanding of trafficking doesn’t account for Cassie, you don’t understand trafficking.”

Read our interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, below.

How often do trafficking victims think of themselves in that way?

In my experience, people who are experiencing trafficking often do not know they've experienced trafficking. If they do, that usually comes after the experience or if they were able to find some type of support. It's not about them not understanding what happened to them or not having the same intellect as you and me. What it really is, is traffickers are amazing manipulators. They are really good at making somebody think that what they're doing was their choice, when in fact it's done through coercive control, fraud, sometimes force.

Why I find outreach so important and I'm so passionate about talking about it, is because survivors watch the same movies we do. They're watching the movie Taken. They saw Sound of Freedom. They saw these movies, and they saw that that's what trafficking is.

So maybe I'm somebody who's being trafficked by my boyfriend, and it's happening without violence, through coercive control and manipulation; or it's violence, but I don't think it's that bad. And then I saw the movie Taken, and that's trafficking: Somebody kidnaped, taken across the border, extreme violence. Their dad is coming to save the day, or their boyfriend’s coming to save them.

I would never think as a survivor that that's what I'm going through, because if my boyfriend or dad’s the one trafficking me, that story just doesn't line up. They're not going to experience what happens in these Hollywood movies.

Why did you start paying attention to the Diddy case?

Why this case brings out so much passion in me is, this was the ideal case. This was the case where we actually saw the violence. And even then, it wasn't enough.

A part of it is, there's not education. If you were to Google “human trafficking prevention,” you're going to see posters of people with bruises, with hands across their mouth, in chains. Somebody who feels like they're living a pretty good life but maybe there's just a couple things wrong with their relationship with their boyfriend, they are not going to relate to those posters of, “Are you being held captive? Are you able to make your own choices?” Because they do feel like they can, but they also know that there's consequences with every decision they make.

In that answer, you alluded to the Intercontinental Hotel video. Take me through your reaction to seeing that, both when it first came out and then when the context became clear—that it was in the middle of a freak off with an escort.

I'm not speaking for anybody else, but I have felt the sentiment across different people who do this type of work: To see that video for the first time, having context for understanding any sort of interpersonal violence, it did not come as a shock.

I did not grow up with a bunch of knowledge around Diddy. I'm 25. People were making fun of me because I didn't even know he had a clothing line. All of the past speculation around him not being the best guy, I didn't know much about it.

The first time I saw that video, without even knowing much about him: it's very clear that's not a first time incident. When you’ve sat with survivors who have experienced domestic violence, when you've heard them give the police reports, when you've seen the bruises, when you've sat in on the exams, the violence has a pattern. This looked similar.

It was hard because this is what people have been waiting for. People want video footage if they're going to convict somebody on anything, whether it be domestic violence or trafficking. So now we have it. But I had immediate anxiety of, how is this going to be spun or received?

I have so many thoughts about different things that happened with this case, but that video should have been a piece that people took more seriously. That's not a one-off act. We got a unique glimpse into what was Cassie’s normal. People need to understand that context when talking about her.

What was the turning point in the case? Was there a particular moment when it seemed clear Diddy might be acquitted of trafficking charges?

It was when his lawyers mentioned that Cassie had said in regards to that video, this is a case about domestic violence. [Ed. note: In a May, 2024 Instagram post after the video of Diddy beating her at the Intercontinental Hotel became public, Cassie wrote, in part, “Domestic violence is THE issue.” This was a sentence Combs’ team referenced repeatedly during the trial, including in their closing argument.] When Diddy’s team brought that up, I didn’t want it to be true, but I realized how this is going to go. I think they did a good job with that.

Obviously, the only language Cassie has to explain what happened to her is going to be domestic violence. But professionals in this space who know what we're talking about, they needed to explain that trafficking looks like domestic violence. Diddy’s team did a really good job at turning it into, “Yeah, he might have done domestic violence, but that's not trafficking, right? He wouldn't do that.” Because it looks the same.

What convinced you that that wasn't only domestic violence, but that Cassie and Jane Doe were made to perform these commercial sex acts by some combination of force, fraud and coercion, as the government claimed?

The instances of when they had to perform under certain circumstances, like they're sick, they're on their period, they're exhausted. When they can't consent while being in their right mind because of various substances. All of those things.

I've always said, coercive control is when we don't understand the decisions people make, but it's because they're making the ones that have the least consequences. That's what Cassie was doing. [Ed. note: More about the psychological concept of “coercive control” and its place in the Diddy trial can be found here.]

The texts showed it. Every text that said, “I love you” proved it more and more. You don't tell somebody who does things like that to you that you love them and support them unless you don't find another form of safety. I think that's hard for people to understand.

When your world is constantly filled with violence, and also substances that make things really hard to understand, all of that is going to create a situation where somebody cannot consent.

You talked about texts a second ago. The defense presented a number of messages where Cassie appeared to be enthusiastic about freak offs, suggested them, or took part in setting them up. Tell me about what you see when you look at those messages.

I see coercive control playing out. I see human trafficking disguised as domestic violence. And even then, domestic violence is hard to identify when you're in it.

One of the things about the texts that’s so important is, we always talk about how people have this fight-or-flight response. But we don't talk about when people have the response to fawn over somebody: to try to divert violence or negativity by praising them in some way, affirming what they're wanting—basically, not trying to ruffle any feathers.

A lot of what we saw was a trauma response of somebody who initially stepped into a relationship seeking love. We see her continuing to try to find that even as everything else is deteriorating.

It's also survival. People are experts at surviving. It's kind of the only thing we're built for. So when that is her world, and there is not a safe exit for her to get out, what she has to do is make it as safe as possible. People have this idea that she's making choices or doing things that we would never do, but we weren't given the same choices as her to make.

They're bringing up the texts about her wanting to see him after something really traumatic happened. But over and over, you just see her reaching out all the time, wanting some sort of affection or love or attention.

Diddy’s lawyers and supporters try to gloss over it, but there are so many instances where she does say, maybe I'd rather not do this. But she doesn't say it in the way that we would have. People read it and think, “I would have stood my ground. I would have said it like this.” Well, you weren't beaten like she was in that video three nights before. You didn't go through all these things she just went through to make her make these decisions.

Her safety was the biggest thing. I think so much of what she said and did was done for survival and out of a response to trauma. Trafficking and domestic violence have the same effect, where there's this idea of omnipresence with a perpetrator, just like God. They see all, hear all, and know all. So even if he doesn't actually track her or know everything, she's going to be very conscious of every decision she makes, everything she says, all of her texts—even if they aren't texts to him specifically. Because she always knows there's a chance he could go through her phone.

For people that work in victim services, it is what we see every day, but it's the first time a lot of people are seeing it come to light. It's also really hard because to admit that that's trafficking is to admit that what a lot of people engage in is probably trafficking, and that's hard to do.

You were talking about this idea of the omnipresence of an abuser. There's feeling like someone's omnipresent, and then there's someone actually having hundreds of millions of dollars, being your label boss, paying for your housing, and allegedly being able to do a thing like put a tracker on your car [Ed. note: In a statement that never made it to the jury for hearsay reasons, Cassie Ventura once told her then-best friend, Carrie Morgan, that she believed Diddy had put a tracker on her car].

Exactly. This is the one situation where omnipresence can be bought and is real. With technology advancing, something that we're aware of with domestic violence is that there are these real threats that can happen. But it's normally not to this scale. This was the most extreme scenario you could have seen, where there is the true omnipresence. He is hearing all these conversations. He's a part of them. He's also in control of a lot because he's also the one facilitating substances.

Even at the end of their relationship, seeing how he was telling drug dealers not to sell to her, he may think it shows that he never wanted her on these drugs. But it just shows us another form of control. He now gets to control exactly where the drugs come from, exactly what they are, when she gets them. It's not a matter of giving something to her in terms of helping her find sobriety or assisting her in any way. It's just another method of control.

I hoped that when people saw this, they would have recognized it. Because if they don’t care about this, it's hard to have hope that they’ll care when they see it happen in a small town with people that work at the local McDonald's and Walmart.

Why do you think the jury decided how it did?

I've given over 100 presentations, and in every single one of them I've talked about why understanding trafficking is important. This is why. Juries are 12 random people. If you have a jury that had just seen Taken or Sound of Freedom, and that's the only context of trafficking that they have, they're never going to be able to deliver justice on coercive control because it doesn't look like anything they’ve seen.

It made me even more passionate about the fact that there is a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of education that still needs to happen. I don't even know how to spread that information to that many people. It seems so simple to me. I describe trafficking like invisible ink: once you learn how to see it, you're going to see it everywhere.

I knew immediately, this case is going to be addressed when I present. People are going to have questions. They're going to want to know our opinions. I have to be careful because it is a legal matter, and the court found what they found. But I feel confident in saying that if Cassie were to call a victim service agency for trafficking, she would qualify for services.

You said that in your LinkedIn post. Take me through that. What about her situation makes you convinced that would be the case?

I just want to make clear that I'm not an assessor for trafficking. I don't want to platform myself in that way. But if there were to be a call to an agency of a girl saying that she got into this relationship where there has been substance use that has created blurred lines around consent; if they were to talk about having a boyfriend who was having them do these sex acts that they weren't super comfortable with; if they were to explain that they didn't know how to say no because they really don't know where else to go; if they were to explain that there’s barriers keeping them there—they don't have a lot of social support, maybe it's financial; with all of that, I feel very confident in saying that a victim service agency would qualify them for services. And that is such a common story of what it really looks like on the ground.

The jury heard from a forensic psychologist who talked about some of the same ideas you’ve talked about: coercive control and trauma bonding. They were made aware of those concepts. Why didn’t that change the outcome?

Cassie was not the perfect survivor. That's a big part of it. We often see that if a survivor has anything that can be perceived as negative or can be twisted in some way, whether or not it has relevance to a case, it's going to be brought up and it's going to be remembered—whether or not it should be.

What was that in Cassie’s case? Was it that she got $20 million in her civil suit against Combs?

Part of it was this idea that she's doing it for money.

But I think that there are issues way beyond anything to do with people understanding trafficking, coercion, etc. I think a big part of it is, if we convict in this case, there's a lot of things that then open up that we now have precedent legally to call trafficking. If we admit that, that's a big domino effect that affects even the good guys.

So you’re saying that it’s not necessarily that the jury didn’t fully understand the charge?

I think it's a mix of all of it: a lack of understanding, but also, his team did a good job at making it look like a case of domestic violence and almost making the jurors feel good ethically. Like, “Hey, even when you tell us he's not guilty, it doesn't mean you think he's a good guy.” And the jurors can feel good about the fact that the public knows he's not great and people are protected that way.

I want you to imagine something. Let’s say that deliberations are about to begin in this case. Somehow, you get a couple minutes to address the jury. What do you tell them?

I would tell them that traffickers rely on the fact that we don't know what trafficking is. It is their number one tool.

The way that trafficking looks is not what we've seen play out in the movies. What it really looks like is, a boyfriend and girlfriend where the girlfriend is having to go on these dates and perform these acts to make money because they just had a kid, and he told her if she really loved him, if she really loved their kid, if she wants to be able to pay rent this month, if she wants them to be able to stay together and the child not to be taken away, then she would do this. That is sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is when a parent is trafficking their child. It is when these interpersonal relationships get taken advantage of.

We saw this play out, textbook, in this case. It's uncomfortable, but once we see it, we have a responsibility to identify it. We see all the elements here. We see somebody who was young; we see somebody who had an addiction used against them; we see somebody who was used for sexual gratification and financial gain by somebody else at their expense.

Through all of this, we saw the elements of what a trafficker does. We want to end trafficking. The only way we can end it is when we're met with it, to address it and say, yeah, that's what this is.

Have you seen any spillover effects of the verdict in your work or in the community of people who care about these issues?

Yeah. I think it contributes a lot to burnout that happens in victim services across the board. They're doing nonprofit, boots on the ground work constantly, fighting these fights every single day. When they see something like this verdict, it can be hard to feel like we're making a difference and like there's change happening. But we lean on all of the wins and the good things we do get to see.

This is not something I can speak to personally, but I would be curious if it's impacting survivors of trafficking or domestic violence. It's not uncommon that abusers can use things like this against the person that they're victimizing: “You really think they're going to care what I did? Look at this.” Those are real stories that we've heard from things that have happened in the past, so I would be curious if that's something we're seeing now.

When there was a lot of media attention surrounding Andrew Tate, I was doing presentations in schools, and it would get brought up all the time. We would be talking about what made his case trafficking. So I know kids are having these discussions. I know it has a ripple effect. I just hope that we're able to get all the good information out to people first.

Do you have any hope that the criminal justice system can be effective in punishing traffickers, or do you place your hope in other areas like education?

I definitely have hope. But it has to be twofold. I don't think you can have one without the other. If you have education, you need policies and legislation to back it up. And you can't have the policies and legislation without the education to understand why. We need them together.

But in terms of the criminal justice system, there's a lot of work to be done. I mean, there's a lot of work to be done in every state, every city, every town on trafficking cases. There's cities and towns where they're not looking into trafficking because they don't think it happens there. They think it's these big underground gangs, or it's what it looks like in Taken, it's kidnappings. They're not looking into the guy in his truck at the shelter, waiting to offer someone groceries.

A big part is not just the education and legislation, but also community support. Genuinely fighting trafficking means we have to have a safety net. Trafficking happens because people feel like a trafficker is their only option for something. So we need more options for people to seek out housing support, food resources, education, employment, all of those things. It's the less fancy and Hollywood stuff, but that's what protects people from trafficking. That's what ensures that a trafficker doesn't have things to offer them.

There are traffickers that have written books to teach other men how to traffic. I’ve read a couple of them, and they all say the same thing. The biggest thing they are all looking for is some form of low self-esteem. If they can find that, they can build that person up however they want. So that's a big thing too, is realizing that it affects every single race and demographic. If we want to see real change in a criminal justice system, or have any of these legislative changes, it starts with how we talk to our friends, how we view peoples’ bodies as a commodity, because that all fuels demand and keeps traffickers in business.