The Diddy verdict is a dark day for women everywhere.

After eight weeks of testimony, a jury found Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs guilty on only two of five counts, and they were lesser charges at that. Throughout the trial, prosecution witnesses Cassie Ventura and ‘Jane Doe’ recounted horrific details.

This is an outrage. This verdict, in my opinion, is a travesty.

The video of Diddy beating and dragging Cassie down a hallway at LA’s InterContinental Hotel has been widely circulated. Cassie claimed she was trying to escape a ‘freak off’ when the incident occurred.

The prosecution argued this act was central to their charge of sex trafficking, which involves force, fraud and coercion.

Yet the jury, having seen this video multiple times, said: Nope.

It’s enough to make any woman despair.

If this isn’t enough — truly, what does it take?

We have all witnessed the video (featured above) showing Diddy’s actions towards Cassie during the disturbing incident at the InterContinental Hotel in LA.

Yet the jury, having seen this video multiple times, said: Nope. It’s enough to make any woman despair. (Pictured: Court sketch of Diddy reacting to jury’s decision in court Wednesday).

Incredibly — and, to my mind, insultingly — the defense argued, before a jury composed of eight men and four women, that the Cassie video depicted a lover’s spat, nothing more.

Shame on this jury. Shame on them for buying the defense’s line that despite such indisputable, unmitigated violence — and this was what Combs was comfortable doing in public, in a hotel — that this relationship was, as his lawyer Marc Agnifilo said in closing, ‘a great modern love story’.

Agnifilo makes a mockery of abused women everywhere. He and his client have set back the cause, the nuanced and complicated understanding of what domestic abuse is, by decades.

Now: Because the defense couldn’t argue that Diddy was not, in fact, beating and dragging Cassie in that video, Agnifilo said this: ‘We own the domestic violence. I hope you guys know that.’

As if we are supposed to give Diddy and his legal team laurels for admitting the truth.

‘I hope you guys know that’ — how condescending.

The defense only ‘owned’ it because they had to — and because there were zero stakes in doing so. The statute of limitations on domestic violence had passed.

Which brings us to this societal and legal outrage: Why is there still a statute of limitations on domestic violence, which disproportionately affects women, in both federal and state laws?

The statute of limitations in Los Angeles, where this beating took place, is five years.

How are we meant to abide this — in a technologically sophisticated age where such accusations can be proved beyond reasonable doubt?

So here’s the message this verdict delivers to women: You don’t matter.

You thought the Harvey Weinstein verdict was a game-changing corrective? You think we can’t paint you with a nuts-and-sluts defense, or as sex-crazed, or willing to do or suffer almost anything for access to money, power and fame?

Think again.

Agnifilo also called Cassie, nine months pregnant on the stand, a ‘gangster’.

Yet his client is the one now guilty of transporting Cassie and ‘Jane Doe’ across state lines for prostitution.

Was this jury deliberately obtuse? Do they really hew to the outdated idea that only pimps and mob bosses traffic poor girls and women against their will in seedy motels?

Let’s not forget, too, the multiple other accusers who have come forward to make allegations against Diddy — though, of course, he denies them all.

Or the countless celebrity pals who have had nothing to say since this story broke almost two years ago.

Incredibly – and, to my mind, insultingly – the defense argued, before a jury composed of eight men and four women, that the Cassie video depicted a lover’s spat, nothing more. (Pictured: Cassie and Diddy in 2017).

Agnifilo’s closing was nothing short of a misogynistic screed.

Of Cassie: ‘She’s a woman who actually likes sex — good for her.’

Why the word ‘actually’? Is Agnifilo implying that most women do not?

‘She should,’ he continued. ‘She’s beautiful.’

What does a woman’s beauty, or lack thereof, have to do with enjoying sex? What are we talking about here?

Agnifilo also told the jury that Cassie, whose 2023 civil suit against Diddy details all manner of horrors and abuse, was the victor in this case — after making a mockery of the prosecution by sarcastically noting that America is now ‘safe from Astroglide’.

Prior to this criminal trial, Diddy settled Cassie’s civil suit against him for a reported $20 million. But more civil suits alleging sexual violence — which, again, he denies — await.

In this criminal trial, a third woman who claimed to be a victim had been set to testify against Diddy, but withdrew at the last minute.

Wonder why.

It was equally disheartening to watch Diddy’s family exit the courthouse after the verdict on Wednesday smiling, triumphant, heads held high and smiles galore — no sense of shame for all that they had heard, or sadness for these women, such as Cassie, who were undeniably harmed by Combs.

Not an iota of embarrassment for the depravity on display.

Make no mistake: This is a reflection of our ever-coarsening culture, one that OnlyFans and social media have mainstreamed. Normalized. Pornified.

It’s also a reflection of a hip-hop culture that has never renounced guns and violence and misogyny, that still allows Kanye West — a man who has had his own wife walking red carpets naked — to remain a member of polite society.

And it gives us a jury that can read a text sent to Diddy by ‘Jane Doe’ imploring him to see that, ‘I am not an animal. I am not a porn star’, and think that she was a willing participant.

That if a woman goes along with one or ten or twenty freak-offs, she is never allowed to say no.

It used to be a law in America that a man couldn’t rape his wife.

It was once commonly accepted that if a woman had sex with a man one time — well, she had given blanket consent for all future sexual activity.

This verdict, Diddy guilty on such lesser counts that he may walk free on appeal, is a loss not just for women but for society, decency, and a universal truth — not ‘my’ truth, or ‘your’ truth, but the truth.

The jury, while deliberating, had asked to hear and see portions of Cassie’s testimony again — including the InterContinental video, Diddy’s threat to release footage of her freak offs, and testimony by a male sex worker who said he witnessed Diddy drag Cassie out of the room and heard her plead ‘I’m sorry’ while sounds of what could only be described as a beating emanated.

For all her bravery, and that of ‘Jane Doe’, I’m convinced these women will be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.

Cassie’s letter to the judge, imploring him to keep Diddy behind bars until sentencing, says as much. And the judge agreed, denying Combs bail late Wednesday afternoon.

But no matter, for the freak-off master famed for his East Hampton Fourth of July ‘White Parties’ looks set to have a particularly special celebration this weekend.

For girls and women everywhere — it’s the saddest Independence Day, indeed.