By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Related Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The ultimate stage of jury choice for the racketeering and intercourse trafficking trial of hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was set to happen on Friday in Manhattan federal court docket.

Federal prosecutors and attorneys assembled in a courtroom to slender a pool of 45 potential jurors to 12 jurors and 6 alternates who will hear the two-month trial starting on Monday.

For 3 days this week, would-be jurors had been requested questions to assist the decide and attorneys decide in the event that they may very well be truthful and neutral. And so they had been additionally questioned to make sure they might resolve the case on the details even after seeing express movies of sexual exercise that some may discover disturbing.

Combs, 55, pleaded not responsible to expenses after his September arrest and has remained held with out bail at a federal lockup in Brooklyn.

FILE – Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives on the Billboard Music Awards, Might 15, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Picture by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

On Friday, prosecutors had been permitted to strike six potential jurors from the jury whereas protection attorneys had been permitted 10 strikes earlier than the jury is finalized. Typically, attorneys shouldn’t have to clarify why they’re ejecting people from the panel. The method was anticipated to take about an hour.

If Combs is convicted on all expenses, which embrace racketeering, kidnapping, arson, bribery and intercourse trafficking, he would face a compulsory 15 years in jail and will stay behind bars for all times.

Prosecutors allege that the Dangerous Boy Information founder used his fame and energy on the prime of the hip-hop world to sexually abuse girls from 2004 to 2024.

An indictment contains descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies through which girls had been pressured to have intercourse with male intercourse employees whereas Combs filmed them.

The fees towards him additionally painting Combs as abusive to his victims, typically choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, typically by the hair. As soon as, the indictment alleges, he even dangled somebody from a balcony.

His attorneys contend that prosecutors are attempting to criminalize sexual exercise between consenting adults. They concede that Combs had abused numerous substances however say he has undergone remedy.

A centerpiece of the proof towards him are recordings of Combs beating a longtime girlfriend in a Los Angeles resort hallway in 2016.

After a video of the encounter aired on CNN final yr, 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.”

Quite a few potential jurors interviewed by Choose Arun Subramanian from Monday by Wednesday mentioned that they had seen the video and a few had been deemed to be too affected by it to be neutral and stay within the jury pool.

Initially Printed: Might 9, 2025 at 9:41 AM EDT