NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs was not handled in a different way due to his race by prosecutors who introduced racketeering and intercourse trafficking fees in opposition to him, a decide dominated Friday as he rejected a request to dismiss some fees three days earlier than opening statements within the hip-hop mogul’s trial.
Decide Arun Subramanian stated Combs had proven no proof of discriminatory impact or intent based mostly on his race, when his legal professionals made their arguments in Manhattan federal court docket in February. In a separate written opinion, the decide additionally refused to suppress proof within the case.
The legal professionals had written that the prosecution was unprecedented as a result of, “most disturbingly, no white individual has ever been the goal of a remotely comparable prosecution.”
The decide agreed with arguments by prosecutors that the extent of prison conduct by Combs from 2004 to 2024 – when he was alleged to have overseen a racketeering enterprise that enabled him to sexually abuse girls – was sufficient to separate the case in opposition to him from different prosecutions.
“It’s the severity of what Combs allegedly did – not his race – that mattered,” the decide wrote.
Subramanian famous that legal professionals for Combs had alleged that the federal government sought to humiliate him via its information releases, the best way search warrants have been executed at his residence, the refusal to let him give up and alleged leaks to the media.
“Nonetheless, Combs doesn’t level to any proof that racial bias performed a job within the Authorities’s actions, that the prosecution workforce was answerable for any leaks to the press, or that the best way Combs’s properties have been searched bespeaks a discriminatory objective,” the decide wrote.
He added that the federal government’s press releases and refusal to permit Combs to self-surrender have been in step with the way it has dealt with instances with defendants of different races.
The ruling got here as opening statements have been scheduled to happen Monday instantly after the ultimate stage of jury choice, which protection legal professionals say will take solely a matter of minutes.
Prosecutors allege that Combs, 55, used his fame and energy on the prime of the hip-hop world to sexually abuse girls from 2004 to 2024. He pleaded not responsible after his September arrest and has been held with out bail at a Brooklyn federal lockup.
At a listening to Friday, Subramanian cancelled plans to complete selecting the jury for the trial, saying he was nervous that some jurors may get “chilly toes” and again out of the case by Monday if that they had the weekend to consider it.
One juror who despatched an electronic mail to the court docket’s jury division on Thursday evening expressing concern about her “well-being” was dismissed from the panel of 45 jurors, from which 12 jurors and 6 alternates will probably be chosen on Monday.
Combs was within the Manhattan courtroom on Friday, however jurors weren’t required to be there. The trial is projected to final two months.
Would-be jurors have been requested questions earlier within the week to assist the decide and legal professionals decide in the event that they might be truthful and neutral. They usually have been additionally questioned to make sure they may resolve the case on the details – even after seeing express movies of sexual exercise that some may discover disturbing.
If Combs is convicted on all fees – 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.
An indictment contains descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies through which girls have been compelled to have intercourse with male intercourse employees whereas Combs filmed them.
The fees in opposition to him additionally painting Combs as abusive to his victims, generally choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, typically by the hair. As soon as, the indictment alleges, he even dangled somebody from a balcony.
His legal professionals say prosecutors try to criminalize sexual exercise between consenting adults. They concede that Combs had abused numerous substances however say he has since undergone therapy.
A centerpiece of the proof in opposition to him are recordings of Combs beating a longtime girlfriend in a Los Angeles lodge hallway in 2016.
After a video of the encounter aired on CNN final yr, Combs apologized, saying, “I take full duty for my actions in that video. I used to be disgusted then after I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
Quite a few potential jurors advised the decide they’d seen the video and a few have been deemed too affected by it to be neutral.
