Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to appear in NYC court, seeks spring trial date on sex trafficking charges
NEW YORK – Sean “Diddy” Combs will head to trial in his sweeping sex trafficking case on May 5, a judge ruled at a court hearing Thursday – and the feds said he may face more charges in the meantime.
Combs, wearing tan prison clothing, blue Vans and shackles around his ankles, blew kisses to his mother, Janice Combs, and several of his kids seated in the gallery, who traveled from Florida to attend his first Manhattan federal court appearance before Judge Arun Subramanian, who will preside over the trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told Subramanian she expected the government’s case would take around three weeks to present to a jury. She cautioned there was a “possibility” prosecutors would file a superseding indictment that alters that timeline. Combs’ lawyer Marc Agnifilo said his team will need about a week to present their defense.
Responding to Combs’ latest allegations that the government leaked widely watched, explosive CCTV depicting him assaulting his ex, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, to CNN, the prosecutor called them “baseless” and simply an effort to “exclude a damning piece of evidence.”
In filings Wednesday, Combs’ lawyers accused the Department of Homeland Security of being behind the leak, taking a leaf out of the defense playbook of Mayor Eric Adams, who last week accused federal prosecutors of leaking grand jury information to the media in his bribery case.
“The concern is the agents have been leaking grand jury information,” Agnifilo said in court Thursday, requesting the judge issue a gag order.
Johnson said prosecutors didn’t even have the footage when CNN published it back in May, months after Combs settled a lawsuit with Ventura for a reported $30 million. In the wake of that settlement, the music mogul was hit with a litany of lawsuits accusing him of similar conduct that previewed the allegations in his criminal case.
Subramanian set a timeline for both sides to file additional arguments about the leaks and said he’d issue an order barring all involved from publicly commenting on confidential materials. He recently took over the case from Judge Andrew Carter, who recused himself because of a close social and professional relationship with Combs’ new lawyer Anthony Ricco.
Combs, 54, potentially faces decades in prison if convicted of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation for purposes of prostitution. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges he headed a vast criminal enterprise from 2008 through last year, in which he forced women to participate in highly orchestrated “freak offs” with male commercial sex workers, often under the influence of sedative drugs to keep them “obedient and compliant.”
The feds say victims sometimes sustained injuries so severe they were forced into hiding for weeks at a time and were hooked up to IV bags after the sessions because of the physical exertion and drug use involved.
The Bad Boy Records founder allegedly relied on his employees to facilitate the abuse, and several are described in the indictment as participating in his sex trafficking, as well as forced labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery.
Combs maintains that participants in the violent and debauched sexual performances he allegedly directed and recorded for blackmail purposes gave their consent.
In court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Johnson said an “extraordinary” amount of data extracted from Combs’ seized electronic devices would be provided to his defense team in about a month, as the music producer stared straight ahead motionless. She said prosecutors were still trying to decrypt some devices taken from his multimillion-dollar homes in Florida and California.
Subramanian continued Combs’ bail status, leaving the hip-hop icon featured on Forbes’ list of the highest-paid entertainers in 2022 at Brooklyn’s scandal-plagued Metropolitan Detention Center while he challenges his pretrial jailing with a federal appeals court.
In his third bid for release filed Tuesday, Combs’ attorneys asked the Second Circuit appeals court to reverse decisions by judges to keep him locked up pretrial based on the prosecution’s witness-tampering allegations. He’s offered to put up a $50 million bond to remain under house arrest at his Florida mansion.
After Thursday’s hearing wrapped, Combs was permitted to hang back and communicate with his relatives as court security officers ejected the media from the courtroom, unlike most criminal defendants in custody, who have only several seconds to interact with loved ones in attendance.
Asked how the famed rap music figure is holding up at the MDC, Agnifilo told the New York Daily News, “I think the food’s probably the roughest part of it.”