“A Freako Is Not a R.I.C.O.:” Diddy’s Biggest Supporter Speaks on Verdict and That Infamous Shirt

Charlucci Finney is a longtime friend of Sean “Diddy” Combs. When he first gets on the phone with Complex, he explains that the mogul has been popping in and out of his life since they met in the late 1980s. However, the Bad Boy founder always appears at just the right time.

“He’s been there for me at pivotal moments of my life,” Finney said, referring to Combs as a surrogate big brother.

Finney burst into the public eye as Combs’ most vocal and public advocate during his recent federal sex trafficking and racketeering criminal case, which came to a head on Wednesday when he was acquitted of the most serious charges against him. (Diddy would be convicted on two Mann Act violations.)

I attended every day of the Diddy trial. Finney was there each time—often with Combs’ family, and outside the courthouse too, handing out the now-infamous “A Freako Is Not a R.I.C.O.” T-shirts he made.

So on the day after the verdict, Complex called him up to get his take on what happened in Judge Arun Subramanian’s courtroom over the past eight weeks—including his elaborate theory on why Cassie Ventura, Mia, and Jane Doe all testified against his pal.

First of all, can you tell us your name and what you do?
Charlucci Finney. I’m a manager, executive producer, as well as a creator.

When did you first meet Sean?
I met Sean in the late ’80s, at a record company called Uptown Records where he was interning. I was hanging out there, meeting up-and-coming artists. I was just enamored at being able to walk into a record company at all. And the fact that it was Black-owned was really impressive.

What has your relationship been like since those days? Have you worked for him at any point? Are you friends?
We’ve been friends. I’ve never been employed by or worked for Mr. Combs at any point. We’ve always been very close friends. He’s been there for me at pivotal moments of my life. He pops in during unique moments in my life. I might be going through something financially, or something spiritually. Because I don’t have any older siblings, I like a big brother thing, and he’s always provided that for me.

What was it like for you being such a public, identifiable figure at that trial?
It was my responsibility to do that. That’s my brother. He’s going through something that’s very, very serious, and people need to know that he wasn’t by himself, that he got people that love him. He’s got his family, he’s got a friend. He has people that actually admire him, that respect him, that know that he’s innocent.

What’s been your role over the past seven weeks? I saw you walking the family around, dealing with VIPs, and stuff like that. How would you describe what your role has been during the trial?
My role has been being an uncle to his sons, being a brother to him, being a confidant for the family, and also being a voice to the people. Because you have some bloggers or whatever you want to call them that was inside the courtroom, that was coming out and giving bad information, some of them lying, some of them embellishing so they can get clicks.

I wanted to come out there and just tell everybody exactly what was going on in the courtroom—what the emotion was, how the judge said it. Because text don’t have personality, right? When you’re reading something, if you’re in a bad mood, you’re going to read it as the person said it in a bad way. Or if you’re in a funny mood, you’re going to read it in a jovial perspective.

But if I come out there, I tell them exactly: “The judge had a stern look on his face, and I could see he was serious when he said this.” Or, “[Lead prosecutor] Maureen Comey, she was stern.” I deliver the information to people just like that.

You mentioned you thought people were lying. What are some examples of lies you think people were telling?
A major one being hung out of a window 17 feet in the air by your waist, and you’re fighting and telling somebody not to drop you. Sean’s not a big guy. That was a complete lie. [Ed. note: This refers to Bryana “Bana” Bongolan’s testimony during the trial that Combs dangled her over a 17th-story balcony at Cassie’s apartment in Los Angeles in September 2016. Bongolan said in her testimony that she didn’t recall the exact date of the alleged assault, though she did say at one point that a photo of her with metadata showing it was taken on September 26—a day Combs was in New York—was taken on the day of the alleged attack. Combs’ attorneys claimed in the aftermath that Bongoloan’s testimony was purjured, but the judge didn’t agree, pointing out that it was well within the range of possibility that she simply didn’t recall the exact date of the alleged incident, and there were other possible reasons for the date of the photo.]

That’s a complete lie. And the judge and the prosecution allowed that. They allowed that lie. That right there should have been a mistrial in itself, for any side to bring a witness on the stand and know that they’re lying.

Tell me about yesterday. How did you react during the verdict, and how did you and everyone around you felt after the bond hearing [where the judge ruled that Combs would remain in jail pending sentencing]?
When the verdict was read, I cried. I cried because it was a sigh of relief. I know how he felt. This man worked his whole entire life to build an empire for his children, his legacy, his grandchildren down the line, and employ hundreds and hundreds of inner city kids and minorities. They was trying to take that away from him because he decided to have a freak off with his girlfriends.

When the government came into this, they didn’t say, “Hey, you got two girlfriends who are trying to say you did this.” They would have never gotten an indictment if they came and said, he’s got a pair of girlfriends that he was having threesomes and voyeuristic sex with, and they were going around Vegas, New York, and Miami having sex.

How did you feel about the results of the bond hearing?
Deflated. Air let out of my tire. Because I didn’t see a reason. [Combs’ lead attorney Marc] Agnifilo made a great point. They didn’t give him bail based on how crazy and how big the charges were. They’re scared he’s gonna run because of sex trafficking. They’re scared he’s gonna run because of RICO. This stuff could give him a hundred years or the rest of his life. So they denied bail because, we have a feeling you may gonna skip town. [Ed. note: The main reasons Combs was denied bond did not have to do with risk of flight. Judge Arun Subramanian ruled last November that there was “compelling evidence of Combs’ propensity for violence,” and that “there is evidence supporting a serious risk of witness tampering.”]

But when they got to the two lesser charges, by the statute and by the case law, he’s really looking at maybe, the most, zero time, time served. That could be his outcome. [Ed. note: During Combs’ bond hearing, it was revealed that his own lawyers believe the guideline sentence range for the offenses he’s convicted of is 21-27 months imprisonment, while the government believes the range to be 51-63 months. In addition, the government made clear that they will be arguing for the maximum possible sentence of 20 years. Judge Subramanian has the power to impose a below-guidelines sentence.]

For him not getting bail, Maureen Comey had to go in there and be like, “Oh, he’s a danger.” Well, no one’s been killed on his watch. No one’s been injured on his watch.

There was plenty of evidence that people were injured on his watch. We saw photos of the bruising.
I was about to finish. When I said hurt on his watch, meaning, he was in a domestic situation, right? He was in a domestic situation with two women. Jane, she actually admitted to pouring hot wax on him and hitting him with a bottle, unprovoked. She took his face and slammed it into a marble table, unprovoked. All Maureen Comey kept bringing up was that he kicked open the door after she bashed his face in. [Ed. note: Jane testified that in June 2024, Combs broke down three doors in succession as he chased her through her home, and provided photos of the broken doors as evidence. In addition, she testified, he choked her, punched her, kicked her, dragged her, slapped her so hard she was knocked off her feet, and forced her into oral sex with an escort.]

But whatever the case may be, it just showed domestic violence and it showed that they both was in a toxic relationship and they both was drug-induced. He wasn’t walking around normal, like, “Oh, I just woke up. For breakfast, had some cereal. Now I’m gonna hit this girl.” No. It was drug-induced violence.

I’m not making an excuse. I’m pointing out what it was. It wasn’t random people on the street getting beat up by him. It wasn’t people on the elevator getting accosted and hurt by Sean. [Cassie and Jane] are two people he was in a relationship with, that were doing drugs. You wasn’t there, I wasn’t there, Maureen Comey wasn’t there, Marc Agnifilo wasn’t there. We don’t know what sparked that. [Ed. note: Multiple alleged victims and witnesses of Combs’ violence testified during the trial about what sparked those incidents—including a time Combs allegedly attacked Cassie for “taking too long in the bathroom.”]

But we know for a fact when people are on drugs, they’re not in their right conscious mindset. This is why you don’t let people drive home drunk. This is why you don’t let an addict babysit your child.

A way to paraphrase the judge’s decision in the bond hearing is: From 2009 until 2024, there was the kind of drug-induced, relationship-based violence you just described. So how can you say it won’t continue if he’s released on bond, if it went on for that long?
You’re assuming. The man’s been clean. He’s been in jail for ten months. No drugs. No history of violence in jail—while he’s in jail, he hasn’t had one fight, one argument, he hasn’t been written up one time. [Ed. note: While this is true in regards to violence, in a decision last year, Judge Subramanian noted Combs’ “willingness to skirt BOP rules” when it came to communications.]

He hasn’t got any complaints from the MDC [the federal jail in which Combs is being held] or the warden about his conduct. So that right there would show me, he’s been a model prisoner since he’s been in there. He hasn’t had no types of problems or fights or nothing. And his system is clean. He’s a clean person.

During the years Sean was dating Cassie, what was your relationship with her?
I met Cassie just briefly. I can’t say I know her at all. I’ve met her as far as, “How you doing?” That’s as far as my relationship goes, if you want to even call it that. I’ve seen her. I’ve been to her performances and stuff like that. But me and her never sat down. We never had any type of conversation at all, ever.

Do you believe what she said on the stand, that these freak offs were awful, she didn’t want to do them, and she felt coerced hundreds of times?
He’s been acquitted. And no, I do not believe her, because the evidence shows otherwise. And neither did the jury believe her.

Maureen Comey said something. She’s like, “We’re not talking about the other 78 that she wanted to do. We’re talking about the one she didn’t.” What? [Ed. note: In her final rebuttal, Comey said when speaking of what the jury needed to conclude in order to find Combs guilty on sex trafficking, “Mr. Agnifilo asked you to draw the line at a number [at which point the freak offs changed from voluntary to involuntary]. Is it the 75th freak-off? Was it the 50th? That’s not the question before of you. The only question that matters here is whether there was one. That is the only number you need to care about. One freak-off where the defendant knew that force, fraud or coercion, or any combination thereof was used to get Cassie and Jane to a yes.”]

That doesn’t even make sense. Let’s say he wanted to do 79 of these things, right? You agreed to do 78 of them out of the 79, but that one you don’t want to do is what you’re trying to hang this man on? Because you found out about another woman, so you don’t want to do it? And she wasn’t made to do it. It was like, “I did something for you, you can’t do this for me?” That type of conversation. To me, Sean didn’t think that was coercion. I would have never thought that was coercion.

It’s like if my wife would have asked me, “Can you go to the store and bring me back a so-and-so?” And I’d be like, “I’m not going that way.” And she says to me, “Well, yesterday, when you wanted me to bring you something from the store, I did it. You can’t go get this for me?”

What about Sean’s threats—which his own lawyer admitted—that he would release Cassie and Jane’s sex tapes if she didn’t do what he wanted?
There’s no way in the world he was going to release a tape of himself, big as he is, to the public, performing or masturbating or any type of sexual conduct while he was running Revolt, he was the man of all mans, every artist even Jay-Z looked up to him. He’s not going to do that. That was all just talk, if he said it.

Agnifilo admitted he said it.
Agnifilo said that. But I’m saying to you that it don’t make sense that he would release a tape. And if you want to quote Agnifilo, he said the same thing. He wasn’t going to do that. There’s no way in the world he would do that.

On a different topic, why do you think Cassie, Mia, and Jane testified?
They were given immunity. And most of the people that testified…

There is no record of any of them being given immunity.
Well hold on. If [Cassie] wasn’t given immunity, then why isn’t she sitting next to Sean in cuffs? Mia transported drugs. Mia distributed drugs. Everything that Sean did, she did. [Ed. note: Narcotics offenses were just one of eight categories of crimes Combs was accused of as predicate acts attached to his racketeering conspiracy charge.] So what aren’t they sitting next to Sean in cuffs?

Are you saying that they did get immunity? That there is some sort of deal we don’t know about?
No. I’m speculating. I’m assuming, like you. I don’t know if [Cassie] got immunity or not. [Ed. note: Neither Cassie, Mia, or Jane testified under any order of immunity.] But she’s not in jail. She’s not being charged with the same crimes that he’s being charged with. They tried to put him on the racketeering. She’s not involved in that?

Their motivation was definitely financial, but the other part was immunity. They was given immunity because they didn’t want to face the same situation down the line. Those same charges could come back to them. He was acquitted of them. They weren’t. They performed the same acts that he did. Immunity is the only possible reason for them to do it.

You said there was a financial motivation. Can you elaborate on that? What financial interest was there?
Well, Cassie was living with her mother throughout all this, her and her husband, who used to be Sean’s trainer. They have three children now. Up until her settlement, she was living with her mother out in Connecticut. After living on Fifth Avenue in New York and spending all this kind of money and living the jet set life, she had to go live with her mother.

That’s separate from this case. That settlement came from her civil suit.
Right. That’s what started the case. This is the birth of the case, the civil suit. Then she turns around and sues the hotel. So she walks away with $30 million.

There’s no direction connection between that and testifying in the criminal case. I’m confused about what you think her financial motivation for testifying is.
I don’t see how you could be confused about a money grab. You can’t sue somebody for money in a [criminal] case. It’s all civil. The feds came right after she filed her civil suit. She put all this stuff in her civil suit. It was financial from the beginning. It started there.

So, once it started from the civil suit, she parlayed it. The feds came and said, “We’ve got your civil suit. You could be facing possible criminal charges.” “For real? Why?” “Because this right here’s illegal, this right here’s illegal, and you said it in your own statement in your civil suit. So we’re going to need you to cooperate, or you’re going to be sitting next to Mr. Combs.”

During the trial, you heard multiple people say awful things about your best friend: that he kidnapped them, assaulted them, lied to them for the purpose of coercing them into sex with escorts, didn’t pay people overtime, kept people working days and days without sleep. Without getting into the truth or falsity of these claims, what was it like for you to hear people say that about this guy you’ve known since the late 1980s?
Well, the majority of stuff I heard was lies, and the majority of stuff I heard was choices. For the people complaining about working with no sleep, that’s impossible, because your body won’t allow you to stay up that long. You’re not going to be able to do that. There’s no way. I’ve been in the music business since 1988. There’s no staying up three days straight. Your body will shut down.

Secondly, if I’m a boss, and I have an employee that’s insubordinate, and I ask them to work an extra four hours with pay and they tell me no, then I don’t need that person working for me. [Ed. note: Among the claims against Combs was that he frequently didn’t pay overtime. Capricorn Clark testified that at one point Combs was presented with a bill showing she was owed $80,000 in overtime for a single three-month period, and he ripped the document up.]

I’m trying to build an empire, and you see what my goal is. If you’re not part of me helping this tremendous company grow, then you’re not the person I need working for me. If you’re working for Complex, and they tell you, “Shawn, we need you to go cover this over here,” and you go, “No, because today is my day off and I don’t want to do it,” I don’t think you’re going to be favored so much at your job. Eventually, you’re going to fall out of favor with Complex and you won’t be getting these good interviews.

I saw you with Kanye West on the day he showed up in court. Can you tell me about that? The day before he appeared, there were rumors he was going to be there. Can you take me through what happened that Thursday and Friday?
That Thursday he was going to come. But he didn’t come, based on the fact that it was a short day. He wanted to get the full experience of coming there, seeing Puff, letting him know he was there. But the day got cut short, and by the time he got there, it would have been over with.

So the day he decided to come, he had other engagements but he cut those off just to come. There’s a rumor out there saying he wasn’t admitted into the main room. That’s not true. He was on the list. He chose not to walk in there because he found out the media was in there actually writing and stuff, and he did not want to interrupt the proceedings. He wanted the jurors to pay attention to the case, and not pay attention to the fact that he was standing in there. He chose that when he was about to walk through the door.

So I went and got one of the marshals, and took him to [an overflow courtroom on] the 24th floor. Another marshal got us our private overflow room to watch.

How long did he watch? Did he say anything?
When he first walked in, he’s like, “Wow, this is amazing.” He’s never been in a courtroom, especially a federal courtroom. He’s walking around, he’s looking enamored and just amazed about it. He’s like, “Man, he’s right upstairs above me. I can’t believe that. Sean Combs is right up above me, fighting for his life in a room right here.” He wanted to feel what the chair felt like. It was a surreal moment, watching him experience it, spiritually.

He stayed between 20 minutes to a half an hour. Then he abruptly left.

Have you spoken to him since?
No. He’s actually working with Sean’s son Christian Combs. They’re working on a project, he’s executive producing it. He’s actually appearing on it as well. He became an uncle as well. He’s navigating in the area that Sean would have navigated in, as far as musically.

Christian has me as a day-to-day uncle-slash-pops, and he has Kanye as a day-to-day uncle-slash-pops in the music business, that’s gonna navigate him and point him in the right direction, as well as helping him build his project.

You are now famous for a couple different shirts. Can you give me the history of this trial and t-shirts?

The first shirt I did is, when we started the court proceedings, no one was coming. No one. And I didn’t want to call people out. I didn’t want to say to anyone, “Why are you not coming? You see what I’m doing. Why are you not showing up?” I didn’t want to say that to people.

Who do you mean by “people”? Do you mean his friends?
Friends, other celebrities. Other entertainers, other sports people.

There were almost no notable entertainers, Kanye aside, who showed up.
Right. No one. So the first shirt I did was based on a comment he made to me. He said to me, “Wow, that’s crazy. Everybody wants to come to the parties, but nobody wants to come to court.” I put that on a shirt, and I wore that.

When he went for the second bail hearing, that’s when I came up with the “Free Puff” shirts, and I just kept wearing that. That became my day-to-day.

And then nine, 10 months later, we got into the case, and the government revealed that they based their whole RICO case on this freako situation. A freako is not a RICO. I looked up the statute of a RICO, all this other stuff. I’m like, this is not the same thing.

In Harlem and Brooklyn and on the trains, I was giving away these flyers. The flyers were pretty much explaining, this is what a federal RICO indictment looks like, and this is what a Sean “Diddy” Combs federal indictment looks like.

Sentencing is coming up sometime between now and October—we don’t know the exact date yet. If Sean gets released sometime soon, perhaps within the next 12-18 months, what do you think is next for him? Have you had any conversations with him about that?
What’s next is him getting back to his family. Seeing his mom, seeing his kids, and just getting all this craziness off of him. For sure, checking into some type of facility as far as mentally, getting his mental correct. And also possibly a rehab if it’s needed, to make sure that he’s going to stay on the right path.

Do you see him, or does he see himself, continuing to be such a public figure?
Absolutely. Because he’s been acquitted of the most heinous crimes that would make people shun him. He acquitted of all that. What he does in his personal bedroom with these women, that’s what this case is about. It’s not about drugs or abduction or all this other weird stuff. This is just about him and his two ex-girlfriends going around having sex, consenting sex, around the world.

Is there anything else you want people to know?
What I’d like to say is, I appreciate this jury. I appreciate the judge for running a great courtroom. He made sure nothing on either side got up that got taken the wrong way. He made sure that people were clear. And the jury paid crazy, amazing attention, and I respect that.