Jury choice is about to start Monday in New York within the blockbuster trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who dramatically fell from grace following his incarceration on expenses of intercourse trafficking and racketeering.
Combs, 55, has been awaiting his day in court docket since final 12 months on accusations of main a criminal offense ring that prosecutors say coerced victims into drug-fueled intercourse events utilizing threats and violence.
Combs has pleaded not responsible to all expenses, insisting that any intercourse acts have been consensual. At a latest listening to, his legal professional Marc Agnifilo provided a preview of his group’s protection by describing the artist’s free-wheeling “swinger” way of life.
The prosecution stated in court docket it had provided Combs a plea deal — the specifics weren’t disclosed — however that he had rejected it.
If convicted, the one-time rap producer and world famous person, who is usually credited for his function in ushering hip-hop into the mainstream, might spend the remainder of his life in jail.
Over the many years, the artist — who has passed by numerous stage names together with Puff Daddy and P Diddy — amassed huge wealth for his work in music but in addition his ventures within the liquor business.
The jury choice begin date is notably the primary Monday in May — which yearly marks New York’s Met Gala, a glittering movie star charity bash the place Combs was as soon as a pink carpet mainstay.
Just two years in the past, he posed for the cameras at that occasion uptown — however on Monday, he might be in downtown in federal court docket, because the panel of residents tasked with figuring out his destiny face a barrage of questions from legal professionals on either side.
Jury choice is anticipated to wrap up in a couple of week, with opening statements tentatively scheduled for May 12.
Combs was arrested by federal brokers in New York in September 2024 and denied bail a number of occasions.
He is being held at Brooklyn’s infamous Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility tormented by complaints of vermin and decay in addition to violence.
High-profile inmates there have included disgraced R&B star R. Kelly, Jeffrey Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell and Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur convicted of fraud.
During pre-trial hearings, Combs has appeared in court docket trying remarkably aged, his as soon as jet-black, styled coif now overgrown and grey.
Central to the case is Combs’s relationship along with his former girlfriend, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who is anticipated to be a key trial witness.
A disturbing surveillance video from 2016, which was aired by CNN final 12 months, exhibits Combs bodily assaulting Ventura at a resort.
Prosecutors say the encounter occurred following one of many “freak-offs” they argue have been a function of his sample of abuse.
The so-called “freak-offs” have been coercive, drug-fueled sexual marathons together with intercourse employees that have been typically filmed, based on the indictment.
It’s unclear how a lot of the CNN video might be proven to jurors as proof in court docket — the footage’s high quality has been a sticking level between the opposing authorized groups — however Judge Arun Subramanian has dominated that at the very least a few of will probably be admissible.
Combs has no main convictions however has lengthy been trailed by allegations of bodily assault, relationship again nicely into the Nineteen Nineties.
The floodgates towards the Grammy winner opened after Ventura filed a civil go well with alleging Combs subjected her to greater than a decade of coercion by bodily power and medicines in addition to a 2018 rape.
That 2023 go well with was rapidly settled out of court docket, however a string of equally lurid sexual assault claims from each ladies and men adopted — and the federal legal indictment dropped after a raid of his luxurious properties in Miami and Los Angeles.
The indictment features a cost of racketeering conspiracy, the federal statute recognized by its acronym RICO that was as soon as seen as primarily focusing on the mafia however lately has additionally been wielded often in circumstances of sexual abuse.
It permits authorities attorneys to mission an extended view of legal exercise somewhat than prosecuting remoted intercourse crimes, and requires proving “predicate acts” — the crimes elemental to the broader sample of unlawful wrongdoing.
In 2021, it was efficiently used to convict R. Kelly, the fallen R&B hitmaker who was sentenced to greater than 30 years of jail together with for little one intercourse crimes.
Industry watchers are additionally monitoring Combs’s case as a possible inflection level within the music world which, past the case of Kelly, has largely evaded the #MeToo reckoning that has rocked Hollywood.
© 2025 AFP