Jury choice started Monday in Manhattan for the high-profile federal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, who faces critical prison fees, together with intercourse trafficking, transportation for prostitution, and racketeering conspiracy.
The 54-year-old music mogul has pleaded not responsible to all 5 counts and has remained in custody since his arrest final September.
Combs was taken into custody on September 16, 2024, within the foyer of the Park Hyatt New York resort. Surveillance video of the arrest, later obtained by TMZ, circulated extensively on social media and information platforms.
The trial is happening on the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan. Though it’s open to the general public, federal regulation prohibits cameras within the courtroom, that means the proceedings won’t be televised.
Combs was initially indicted on three counts, however a superseding indictment filed final month added two extra, together with a second depend of intercourse trafficking.
His protection crew, led by attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos, unsuccessfully requested a delay within the trial to organize for the brand new fees. Decide Arun Subramanian denied the movement and set opening statements for Could 12.
The federal prosecution is being led by an all-female crew headed by Assistant U.S. Legal professional Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. Prosecutors allege that Combs operated a prison group spanning the music, style, and leisure industries, which they declare facilitated and hid intercourse crimes for greater than a decade.
The costs embrace accusations that Combs lured girls into exploitative conditions by promising fame, romantic involvement, or monetary assist, solely to coerce them into intercourse acts.
“With these high-profile instances like Harvey Weinstein and the NXIVM cult case, courts are prepared to outline industrial intercourse as an trade of intercourse not only for cash, however for something of worth,” Aya Gruber, a prison regulation professor on the College of Southern California, instructed NPR.
4 alleged victims are anticipated to testify. Cassie Ventura, the singer and former companion of Combs who was signed to his label Dangerous Boy Leisure in 2006, is the one named witness. She filed a civil go well with in November 2023 accusing Combs of trafficking and abuse; it was settled out of courtroom inside a day. The opposite witnesses will testify anonymously or below pseudonyms.
Video footage of Combs bodily assaulting Ventura in a Los Angeles resort in 2016 has already change into a focus of the case. The video, revealed by CNN, exhibits Combs kicking and dragging Ventura in a hallway. Prosecutors cited the footage to argue he posed a menace and will stay detained. Combs’ authorized crew argued the video confirmed a non-public dispute and had been manipulated, however Decide Subramanian dominated it admissible.
The protection maintains that the connection between Combs and Ventura was “poisonous” however consensual.
“It’s our protection to those fees that this was a poisonous, loving 11-year relationship,” mentioned Agnifilo throughout a pre-trial listening to.
If convicted of racketeering, Combs might face life in jail. The opposite fees carry important sentences as properly. Along with the prison trial, Combs is dealing with a number of civil lawsuits from dozens of people alleging varied types of abuse, lots of whom are represented by the controversial lawyer Tony Buzbee.
A current consumer of Buzbee famously falsely accused Jay-Z of sexual assault.
“Any time I see that Tony Buzby lawyer is concerned, I do know it’s a shakedown,” one social media consumer wrote on X, previously often known as Twitter.
