Nearly three dozen New Yorkers were asked on Monday on what they knew about the federal case on sex trafficking against Sean “Diddy” Combs while the selection of the jury began in a Manhattan courtroom.
Future jurors have also shown a list of more than 100 places and people whose names can be on trials and they were asked if they knew one of the people and if that would affect their ability to be impartial. The list included celebrities such as Michael B. Jordan, Mike Myers and Kanye West, none of whom is involved in the case.
The names of women who have filed civil proceedings against Combs also appeared on the list, including her former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, whose prosecution paved the way for sexual trafficking and racketeering accusations, And Dawn Richard, a member of two now missing musical groups, that Combs had formed.
Richard allegedly allegedly allegedly stated that he had stained and threatened it and that she had witnessed Ventura to him. Combs denied his allegations and his costume is pending.
Lawyers did not provide an explanation for the list, and the representatives of Jordan, Myers and West did not immediately return requests for comments.
Also on Monday, US deputy lawyer Maurene Comey said the prosecutors had struggled to get in touch with the lawyer of a woman identified only as a victim-3 in the accusation against Combs and that they did not know if they would appear before the courts even if they were trying to enforce a summons.
Twelve jurors will ultimately decide if Combs used his power and influence to sexually exploit women for more than two decades, as federal prosecutors allege in the indictment with five charges.
Sporting a bearder, Combs, which has been detained in a Federal Brooklyn prison since its arrest in September 2024, arrived for the first day of selection of the jury dressed in a white necklace collar shirt, a black-black curly sweater and charcoal pants. US District Judge Arun Subramanian gave Combs permission to wear his own clothes during the trial.
He shakes up and shakes his lawyers before Subramanian made various decisions, including Dr. Elie Aoun, a clinical psychiatrist, could testify as the Expert for the Defense on the drugs that the Combres may have taken and their effects combined. Subramanian said that Aoun could also testify on Panus breakdowns and other episodes in which combs may have been intoxicated.
At the heart of the government’s affair are allegations that Combs forced women – including her former Ventura girlfriend – to participate in sexual dating fueled by drugs with male workers that Combs has produced and filmed and called “Freak OFS”.
The accusation act did not appoint any victim, but the allegations of victim-1 aligned themselves closely with those who made Ventura in a civil trial in 2023 that she and Combs settled in one day without admitting a reprehensible act.
The public first learned the alleged sexual meetings of his trial, which presumed Combs had abused her for years. Combs vehemently denied allegations, and his lawyers said that sex was consensual.
But the prosecutors say that these meetings were equivalent to the trafficking of sexual relations and alleged that Combs has kept recordings of meetings and victims reduced to silence by blackmail and violence.
Central of the case of the accusation is a video of March 5, 2016, showing attacks attacking and dragging Ventura in a corridor of the Los Angeles hotel.
The prosecutors said that Ventura, which had been signed in the Combs music label as Cassie, had tried to escape the hotel room and that the events of this day “are powerful evidence of the trafficking” and “the use of the Combres force in the context of a freak”, which, according to them, preceded the attack.
Combs was one towel in the video and Ventura had no shoes. After CNN broadcast the video last year, Combs apologized publicly, saying that his behavior was “inexcusable” and that he took full responsibility for his actions.
According to the prosecutors, Combs welded hotel safety with $ 100,000 to get the images and cover what he had done. Combs lawyers had sought to exclude the video from the evidence, which does it “is completely inaccurate, having been modified, manipulated, accelerated and published to be out of the sequence” – says that CNN denied force.
Questioned by Subramanian on Monday, a certain number of potential jurors said they had seen the video, with a woman calling it “overwhelming”. The woman has been excused.
Another woman, who said that she was working for HBO, said that she had found the video “disturbing” and “overwhelming” but that she could be impartial. Combs’ main lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, expressed his concern because HBO published a documentary on Combs entitled “The Fall of Diddy” whose woman was not aware.
After another potential juror said that she was surprised stealing a wand in a Harry Potter store, Combs nodded with apparent approval to her lawyers. Throughout the day, as the potential jurors were questioned, he seemed to express his approval or his disapproval, either with a sign of the head, or by shaking his head no.
Another woman revealed that she had liked a video on the social networks of an actor who made a joke on the combs and baby oil because she thought it was funny. The prosecutors said that when Combs houses in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida were attacked last year, federal agents seized more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.
The two women were allowed to stay.
When the defense asked for a quick bathroom break, Subramanian suggested to wait and continue to question the jurors.
“I am a machine,” said Subramanian, what Combs replied: “I’m sorry, your honor, I’m a little nervous today.” Subramanian granted the break.
Subramanian said last week that he hoped to host a jury of 12 people and six deputies in three days for the trial, which should last eight weeks.
His father, the high -level defense lawyer Mark Geragos, was also in court on Monday.
“I can’t just look at my daughter? I’m a helicopter parent,” he said as they joined the court.
A source familiar with the case told NBC News that Mark Geragos will help throughout the trial in an unofficial role and will advise the Combs legal team this week on which jurors choose. He was seen Monday before the court conferring the defense jury consultant.
Mark Geragos had no more comments and the Combs legal team did not respond to a request for comments.
The jurors will remain anonymous.
