Picture: Kevin Wintry weather/Getty Photographs
When Sean “Diddy” Combs walked right into a Big apple federal court simply after 2 p.m. on Friday for an arraignment on made over fees in his sex-trafficking case, the rapper seemed dramatically other from his prior court docket lawsuits. His hair and beard have been silvery grey, and he seemed to have received weight since his arrest remaining summer time. Regardless of the exchange in look, Combs carried himself with the nonchalance of a person who used to be now not staring down many years at the back of bars. When Pass judgement on Arun Subramanian requested Combs whether or not he sought after the brand new indictment to be learn aloud in court docket, the rapper spoke back, “I’m nice.” He pleaded now not responsible to the brand new indictment towards him.
Within the made over indictment launched on March 6, Combs used to be accused of controlling some workers via forcing them to paintings grueling hours with minimum sleep and the use of threats to stay them in test. Again in past due January, prosecutors indexed two extra accusers, recognized as “Sufferer-2” and “Sufferer-3,” who declare to were lured into intercourse acts via the disgraced song tycoon. Additionally they mentioned that “on one instance, Combs dangled a sufferer over an condominium balcony.” With the assistance of his workforce, Combs allegedly used his robust industry empire to create a “felony endeavor” that enabled his alleged manipulation of ladies into sexual performances with male intercourse employees. Civil proceedings towards Combs additionally accuse him of sexual abuse towards boys and males.
Combs, 55, used to be arrested on September 16, 2024, amid a large number of accusations of sexual abuse and trafficking. In court docket papers and lawsuits, prosecutors have detailed what they describe as a decadeslong historical past of alleged misconduct. They declare the Dangerous Boy Information founder “abused, threatened, and coerced girls and others round him to satisfy his sexual needs, offer protection to his popularity, and hide his behavior.” Prosecutors allege that Combs saved girls underneath his thumb with medication and threats, enabled via his huge monetary sources. After those girls fell into his misleading orbit — often underneath the conclusion that their interactions with him constituted a romantic dating — Combs purportedly compelled them to partake in occasions referred to as “freak offs,” prosecutors mentioned. Those freak offs amounted to “elaborate and produced intercourse performances that Combs organized, directed, masturbated throughout, and ceaselessly electronically recorded.” Cassie Ventura — whose now-settled November 2023 lawsuit towards Combs, her former spouse, set the level for others to take criminal motion towards him and, in the long run, the felony case — is referred to as “Sufferer-1” within the federal lawsuits. Combs, who has been jailed since his arrest, maintains his innocence.
With an ordeal rapid coming near — openings are scheduled to start out on Would possibly 12 — Combs’s legal professionals are preventing a key piece of prosecution proof in Ventura’s allegations: a video of Combs attacking her in a lodge hallway. Protection legal professional Marc Agnifilo claimed that CNN, which first printed the photos, had accelerated and spliced it in a deceptive way. “It’s a work of proof this is misleading, that’s not according to the movements that happened,” Agnifilo mentioned. “It’s a misleading piece of proof; it’s a work of proof that may have modified.” Agnifilo additionally claimed CNN had deleted the unique photos, regardless that the community has denied those claims. Subramanian instructed the protection and prosecution speak about their considerations surrounding the video.
If Agnifilo did display prosecutors that the recording have been accelerated, the pass judgement on instructed, “a conceivable resolution would [be] to gradual it down and put it in the proper collection … such that what went in sooner than the jury can be, for your view, a correct portrayal of what the video used to be.” The pass judgement on additionally remarked, “I’m listening to an openness to coming to a compromise to keep away from one of the crucial problems that you just’ve raised.”
The afternoon’s continuing wrapped in rather less than an hour and, excluding the not-guilty plea, used to be in large part confined to home tasks issues comparable to filings. Combs stood via in court docket for the rest of his arraignment and blew kisses to his circle of relatives as he left.
