(Updated with more details) Facing life behind bars if found guilty, Sean “Diddy” Combs will face a jury of his peers in less than a year.
In a hearing in Manhattan today, Judge Arun Subramanian told the music mogul, his defense team, his mother, offspring, and prosecutors that Combs’ sex trafficking trial will begin on May 5, 2025. The timing is in line with what Combs’ lawyers suggested earlier this week in a filing in the federal case.
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Combs has been in federal custody since September 16, when agents arrested him in the lobby of NYC’s Park Hyatt hotel. Combs and his attorneys knew for several days that a grand jury indictment and arrest was coming, which is why the performer had traveled from his primary home in Miami to New York. However, they had hoped to orchestrate a surrender via their own timeline — which clearly didn’t occur.
After months of civil lawsuits, bi-coastal raids by Homeland Security and investigations by several law enforcement agencies, a federal grand jury indicted the Bad Boy record label founder in September on charges of forcible sex trafficking, transportation of prostitutes and racketeering conspiracy.
Combs was led into the courtroom Thursday in leg shackles, wearing a light button-down collared shirt -untucked – and gray pants. He smiled broadly at his mother and children before sitting down with his lawyer. At the end of the roughly 30-minute hearing, as the courtroom was cleared of most spectators and press, Combs stood and gave several bows, with his hands clasped, toward family members, who were allowed to stay inside the courtroom.
Last month, Combs has entered a not guilty plea. Today, prosecutors from the US Attorney’s office told Judge Subramanian, Combs and others in attendance that a superseding indictment could be in the offering. That means that a current charge against Combs may be tossed out, replaced or that brand new charges may be coming out of the ongoing probe.
The government alleges that Combs and his aides coerced women into marathon sexual encounters, called “Freak Offs,” with male prostitutes, and that the women were alternately drugged, threatened with violence and physically barred from leaving the hotel rooms where “Freak Offs” were staged. The indictment says a number of these encounters were filmed, and used to likely blackmail or silence participants.
Part of the backdrop to today’s hearing is the fact Combs is currently appealing the repeated denial of bail that has left him languishing inside the notoriously harsh Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Offering a $50 million bond, home detention and more lawyers say the fear that Combs will engage in witness tampering if freed is “speculative.”
Having failed twice to get their client out of the clink, a new arm of the rapper’s defense team has filed an appeal earlier this week in hopes that a third try will see Combs get pre-trial release. At the same time, and playing to the timing of events like today’s hearing, Combs’ lawyers are also attacking US Attorney Damian Williams’ case by calling on October 9 for a judicial hearing into “unlawful government leaks” by the Department of Homeland Security which they allege were intended to smear Combs ahead of a possible trial.
Their Exhibit A for these claims is video aired by CNN of Combs brutalizing a former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a hotel corridor in Los Angeles in 2016. “The videotape was leaked to CNN for one reason alone: to mortally wound the reputation and the prospect of Sean Combs successfully defending himself against these allegations,” Combs’ lawyers wrote in a motion on Wednesday to Judge Subramanian.
They are seeking an evidentiary hearing on the matter with the vivid video evidence either ending up suppressed or the charges dismissed. Thing is, looks like they may be barking up the wrong tree or looking for a distraction.
The SDNY US Attorney’s office wrote to the judge late Wednesday to say they had nothing to do with CNN getting that vile surveillance footage. In fact, the prosecutors included a copy of the email they sent Combs lawyers Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos in the afternoon of October 9 on the matter. “To be clear, to our understanding, DHS did not have possession of the videotape prior to CNN’s publication of it,” said Asst US Attorney Emily Johnson in a 12:45 pm ET email. “Only the government has authority to obtain grand jury material, and the video broadcast by CNN was not obtained through grand jury process.”
Less than 24 hours after Ventura filed a suit in late November 2023 claiming abuse, rape and more by Combs, the self-declared billionaire reportedly paid her around $30 million to settle her action against him.
Even with that settlement, Combs still continued to deny ever mistreating Ventura.
Once the 2016 video was made public in May of this year, Combs quickly issued an apology and claimed to be ashamed of himself. The apology was met with distain by Ventura’s lawyers and many others. Since Ventura’s short-lived legal action of late last year, several more women and a producer on the “All About the Benjamins’ performer’s latest album have filed civil lawsuits alleging Combs abused, drugged, threatened and sexually assaulted them.
As well as the unveiling of a trial start date and a more filings by the feds, lawyers today spent part of the hearing discussing a proposed gag order on both sides to prohibit case leaks by the government and any statements from the defense that would interfere with the conduct of a fair trial. Judge Subramanian said he’ll impose a “reciprocal” order binding both parties after reviewing a proposed draft from defense lawyer Agnifilo.
Asst US Attorney Johnson initially opposed the order, calling Agnifilo’s motion for one “baseless” and “a means to try to exclude a damning piece of evidence” — an allusion to the now-public footage of Combs assaulting Ventura. With some encouragement from the judge, Johnson later agreed to a gag order provided it also applies to the defense.
To that, Johnson cited remarks that Agnifilo gave to TMZ this week calling the government’s case a “racist prosecution.” Reading from a transcript of the TMZ interview, Johnson said that allowing such statements from the defense would “seriously risk a fair trial and the integrity of this proceeding.”
The judge said he won’t rule on the defense motion for an evidentiary hearing into alleged government leaks until after he’s reviewed all the motions and responses, which are due by November 7.
Prosecutor Johnson said that the government’s forensic technology teams are busy extracting “terabytes” of data from the 96 electronic devices seized in raids and during Combs’ arrest — including phones, laptops and hard drives. The Asst US Attorney added she expected that prosecutors would turn over to the defense all the extracted data required under the discovery process by the judge’s December 31 deadline for discovery.
The next hearing in Combs’ case is presently set for December 18, but could change based on the appeals process now underway.