By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The final stage of jury selection for the racketeering and sex trafficking trial of hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was set to occur on Friday in Manhattan federal court.
Federal prosecutors and lawyers assembled in a courtroom to narrow a pool of 45 prospective jurors to 12 jurors and six alternates who will hear the two-month trial beginning on Monday.
For three days this week, would-be jurors were asked questions to help the judge and lawyers determine if they could be fair and impartial. And they were also questioned to ensure they could decide the case on the facts even after seeing explicit videos of sexual activity that some might find disturbing.
Combs, 55, pleaded not guilty to charges after his September arrest and has remained held without bail at a federal lockup in Brooklyn.
On Friday, prosecutors were permitted to strike six prospective jurors from the jury while defense lawyers were permitted 10 strikes before the jury is finalized. Generally, lawyers do not have to explain why they are ejecting individuals from the panel. The process was expected to take about an hour.
If Combs is convicted on all charges, which include racketeering, kidnapping, arson, bribery and sex trafficking, he would face a mandatory 15 years in prison and could remain behind bars for life.
Prosecutors allege that the Bad Boy Records founder used his fame and power at the top of the hip-hop world to sexually abuse women from 2004 to 2024.
An indictment includes descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies in which women were forced to have sex with male sex workers while Combs filmed them.
The charges against him also portray Combs as abusive to his victims, sometimes choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.
His lawyers contend that prosecutors are trying to criminalize sexual activity between consenting adults. They concede that Combs had abused various substances but say he has undergone treatment.
A centerpiece of the evidence against him are recordings of Combs beating a longtime girlfriend in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
After a video of the encounter aired on CNN last year, Combs apologized, saying, “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
Numerous prospective jurors interviewed by Judge Arun Subramanian from Monday through Wednesday said they had seen the video and some were deemed to be too affected by it to be impartial and remain in the jury pool.