One of the Biggest Trials in Entertainment History Is Here. There Was an Elephant in the Courtroom.
It's been almost eight months since hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested in Manhattan on federal charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and related crimes that, per the prosecution, date back almost 20 years. During these past months of Combs' detention at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, dozens of additional civil suits (some naming incredibly high-profile celebrities ) accusing Combs of abuse have been filed, while the prosecution has additionally accused Combs of witness tampering . Still, throughout it all—including some changes on his legal team —Combs has maintained a plea of not guilty.
On Monday, one of the biggest trials in recent entertainment history kicked off with the first day of jury selection. Opening statements are set to begin next Monday; the trial is predicted to take two months.
It was rainy and gloomy, with heavy fog cloaking Manhattan's skyscrapers, when I showed up to the Southern District of New York federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan for the first day of voir dire , which is the fancy legal term for jury selection. While I waited in line to enter the courthouse (with citizens, media, and potential jurors alike), I realized that there wasn't a corps of Diddy supporters or detractors with signs or T-shirts—outside of one unidentified man mingling inside and outside the courthouse wearing a “Free Puff” sweatshirt. It was mostly press and content creators crowded underneath umbrellas near the entrance, eyes peeled for anyone interesting to note. A woman promoting a line-saver company walked down the line cheerfully greeting us undercaffeinated mopes, touting that “we also did the Trump trial!”
I sat in the overflow room to listen in as potential jurors were asked by Judge Arun Subramanian questions about their familiarity with the case. Fewer members of the media were let into the actual courtroom than anticipated, and our broken TV in overflow meant I didn't get to see Combs' striking gray hair in person. (Apparently there's no hair dye in jail .) Subramanian jokingly compared the binder of names that could come up during the trial to an appendix for The Lord of the Rings for its length—Michael B. Jordan, Kanye West, Mike Myers, Kid Cudi, Destiny's Child's Michelle Williams, and various members of Combs' family were mentioned.
See say proceeded as expected. Potential jurors were questioned about their ability to maintain impartiality despite their personal experiences with abuse and assault, which led to the unearthing of many harrowing stories from the potential jurors' pasts. Likewise, the inescapable news cycle surrounding this high-profile case was a continuous concern. A woman who had seen an ID docuseries titled The Fall of Diddy was dismissed alongside another woman who, as an executive at a major publishing house, had seen a press release for an upcoming memoir from the R&B singer known as Al B. Sure that may include mention of the Combs allegations.
Even in overflow, we could feel the elephant in the room: Cassie (Cassandra Ventura), Combs' former partner, who is credited with kicking off this entire series of legal events with her bombshell civil suit , filed against Combs in November 2023. Even though Combs shockingly settled the suit a day later , Cassie's suit still opened the floodgates for the deluge of civil suits. She is presumed to be a central witness in the trial for the prosecution. Cassie's dominance as a major name in the allegations against Combs only increased after a major piece of news before Combs' arrest: Last May, CNN obtained a security video from a 2016 incident that appeared to show Combs physically assaulting Cassie in a hotel. Shortly after the video was leaked, Combs publicly apologized, calling the behavior displayed in the video “inexcusable.”
The government decided “not to offer” the CNN video as evidence for the prosecution, but that didn't stop many potential jurors from mentioning it as part of the prior knowledge they have about the case. Many potential jurors who had seen the footage had trouble working their way around describing it in court, where it seemed like their understanding of Combs' presumed innocence precluded them from definitively saying what they saw with their own eyes. They stumbled their way around phrases like “it looked like” or “appeared,” or simply switching modes to referring to Combs in the video as “a man” and Cassie as “a woman.” The defense dismissed one juror who said a still frame of the video “could be damning evidence,” and they quibbled with the judge over how potential jurors expressed their ability to remain unbiased. Many potential jurors said some version of “I think so” when asked if—despite what they had seen, heard, or experienced—they could remain impartial to the case. Subramanian told the defense that these hopeful statements are common because potential jurors don't know what, exactly, awaits them if they are chosen. In other words: This is likely the best you're going to get.
If the unearthing of all those terrible stories felt like a throwback to #MeToo, the defense's skepticism of the jurors who told them felt like a throwback to even earlier. The presiding question for a jury determining a high-profile case will always be: Despite everything you know, can you remain impartial in your decision-making and focus only on the evidence presented to you during the trial? Few potential jurors were absolute in their ability to do so—and a few were incredibly hesitant. By the end of the day, of the dozens questioned, 19 potential jurors had moved on. This is expected to repeat each day this week until a pool of about 45 potential jurors is reached.
From my vantage point, I kept thinking about how these potential jurors showed up at 8 am to, in several cases, detail some of the most horrific things that have happened to them and their loved ones. And then all day we spent our time assessing how much we believed in their belief in themselves to perform their civic duty. But as Subramanian asked at one point, “What else do we have?”
