Jury selection is set to begin Monday, May 5, in New York in the blockbuster trial of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who dramatically fell from grace following his incarceration on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Combs, 55, has been awaiting his day in court since last year on accusations of leading a crime ring that prosecutors say coerced victims into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges, insisting that any sex acts were consensual. At a recent hearing, his attorney Marc Agnifilo offered a preview of his team's defense by describing the artist's free-wheeling "swinger" lifestyle.
If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in ushering hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison. Over the decades, the artist – who has gone by various stage names including Puff Daddy and P Diddy –amassed vast wealth for his work in music but also his ventures in the liquor industry.
Combs was arrested by federal agents in New York in September 2024 and denied bail multiple times. He is being held at Brooklyn's notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility plagued by complaints of vermin and decay as well as violence. During pre-trial hearings, Combs has appeared in court looking remarkably aged, his once jet-black, styled coif now overgrown and gray.
Central to the case is Combs' relationship with his former girlfriend, the singer Casandra "Cassie" Ventura, who is expected to be a key trial witness. A disturbing surveillance video from 2016, which was aired by CNN last year, shows Combs physically assaulting Ventura at a hotel. Prosecutors say the encounter occurred following one of the "freak-offs" they argue were a feature of his pattern of abuse. The so-called "freak-offs" were coercive, drug-fueled sexual marathons including sex workers that were sometimes filmed.
Combs has no major convictions but has long been trailed by allegations of physical assault, dating back well into the 1990s. The floodgates against the Grammy winner opened after Ventura filed a civil suit alleging Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.
That 2023 suit was quickly settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims from both women and men followed – and the federal criminal indictment dropped after a raid of his luxury properties in Miami and Los Angeles. The indictment includes a charge of racketeering conspiracy, the federal statute known by its acronym RICO that was once seen as primarily targeting the mafia but in recent years has also been wielded frequently in cases of sexual abuse.
Industry watchers are monitoring Combs' case as a potential inflection point in the music world, which has largely evaded the #MeToo reckoning that has rocked Hollywood.