A Could 5, 2025 trial date was set for Sean “Diddy” Combs on prices of intercourse trafficking and racketeering.
Whereas the Could 5 trial date was set, prosecutors stated their investigation is “very a lot ongoing” and that it’s potential a superseding indictment shall be filed, which may extend the trial and discovery dates.
Pushed from a Brooklyn jail, the rapper and mogul appeared in Manhattan federal courtroom Thursday in entrance of Choose Arun Subramanian. His household, together with his mom and 6 of his youngsters, have been in attendance. Combs, sporting an all-tan jail outfit, smiled and waved at household as he walked in and hugged his attorneys.
Because it stands, prosecutors estimate their case will take three weeks to current at trial, whereas the protection estimated theirs would take one week. All discovery is scheduled to be accomplished by Dec. 31, 2024.
Federal prosecutors arrested Combs in mid-September on prices of directing an unlimited felony enterprise by which he’s alleged to have assaulted and trafficked girls with the assistance of his varied companies from at the very least 2008. The indictment in opposition to him refers, partially, to a sequence of occasions known as “Freak Offs,” through which industrial intercourse staff have been allegedly introduced in by Combs, who then “used drive, threats of drive, and coercion to trigger victims to interact in prolonged intercourse acts” that have been recorded and will final for days. Combs has pleaded not responsible.
Public backlash in opposition to the hip-hop mogul has been swift and extreme, intensifying after he was accused by the federal government of assorted intercourse crimes stemming from a decades-long sample of bodily and sexual violence in opposition to girls in his orbit since at the very least 2008.
As Combs’ mom walked into the courthouse, an onlooker yelled towards her, “Your son is a predator.” She didn’t reply, however issued an announcement on Sunday by her legal professional denouncing the “public lynching” of her son “earlier than he’s had the chance to show his innocence.”
Potential discovery within the case is huge, spanning electronics belonging to Combs and varied associates accused of serving to him, enterprise information and bodily proof seized in searches of his dwelling, amongst different issues.
He faces a sentence of as much as life in jail and a minimal of 15 years if convicted on the counts of racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking and transportation to interact in prosecution.
The federal government has been in each day discussions with attorneys for Combs relating to discovery, prioritizing the manufacturing of knowledge saved on his telephones, laptops and cloud accounts, with 96 digital units in complete. Proof has already modified arms. The protection has turned over Combs’ onerous drives whereas prosecutors have turned over search warrants within the case and his cellphone, which was seized in March. The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace is predicted to give up copies of subpoenas to potential witnesses and supplies from searches of the hip-hop mogul’s houses and resort room.
“The Authorities’s investigation is ongoing and it’ll proceed to evaluate and produce discovery on a rolling foundation,” prosecutors wrote in a courtroom submitting, “or as know-how developments enable the Authorities to entry electronically saved data that has not but been extracted.”
Data leaked to media earlier than prices have been introduced by prosecutors have been leveraged by Combs’ attorneys, together with lead counsel Marc Agnifilo, to assault the prosecution. On Wednesday, they accused the federal government of huge misconduct for disclosing proof, together with resort surveillance footage of Combs violently assaulting the singer Cassie, to information organizations. They search a courtroom order that might maintain a possible jury from contemplating such proof or the dismissal of all prices if it’s confirmed that legislation enforcement brokers have been the supply of the leak.
Prosecutors pushed again in opposition to the movement Thursday, calling it “baseless” and arguing in courtroom that the protection was utilizing it as a “means to exclude a damning piece of proof.” In flip, Assistant ADA accused Agniflio of misconduct for an interview given to TMZ through which he accused the federal government of pursuing racist prosecution in opposition to a profitable, Black businessman. As interim reduction, each events potential reciprocal gag order.
The protection’s movement was filed on the heels of Combs interesting for a second time an order by the courtroom denying him bail. He’s at present incarcerated on the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn. The problem of bail didn’t come up Thursday, as its being thought-about by a unique courtroom.
The subsequent listening to date for the trial has been set for Dec. 18.