The high-profile criminal trial of disgraced rap mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ is ongoing, but it has run into delays in the selection of the jury.
The choosing of the Diddy jury will continue on Monday (12), the same day that opening statements are expected.
Prospective jurors have been asked if they, a family member or a friend had been a victim of sexual assault, sexual harassment or domestic violence.
They are also questioned as to whether they or a loved one had been charged or accused of these crimes.
USA Today reported:
“To avoid having to press restart on the entire jury selection process, both legal teams and the judge agreed to finalize the group of people who will help decide Combs’ fate on May 12, plucking them from a pool of 43 who have made it through rounds of intense questioning.”
Watch: 2016 hotel survaillance video show Diddy assaulting Cassie Ventura.
Warning – disturbing video: This is the video where Diddy is seen physically assaulting Cassie Ventura in 2016 surveillance video obtained by CNN.
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— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) May 17, 2024
The jury pool now has 45 candidates after two more jurors were struck off.
“One potential candidate sent an email overnight asking to be excluded over ‘issues of personal wellbeing’, while the other was eliminated after they were discovered to have an active lawsuit against the city of New York that they did not disclose in either their interview or questionnaire.”
Other event predicted for Monday is the deposition of Cassie Ventura.
Defense Lawyers won’t cross-examine her regarding ‘certain unspecified medical topics’, but want to question her regarding what they call ‘propensity for violence’.
“The defense team said they wanted to illustrate her nature for ‘getting into physical altercations with other people’, arguing that she is ‘a strong, capable person who does not shy away from confrontations’.”
“Rather than deny any violence in the relationship, Combs’ lawyers said they want to show that there was ‘mutual violence in their relationship’ and ‘hitting on both sides’, in an attempt to disprove the prosecution’s argument that she was ‘coerced’.”
But judge Subramanian has already said that ‘strong people can be coerced, just like weak people’.
“The judge overseeing Combs’ sex-trafficking trial admonished a lawyer [Marc Geragos] close to the hip-hop mogul’s defense team for referring to the prosecutors in the case as a ‘six-pack of white women’ in comments on a podcast. ‘That’s something that you shouldn’t, that no one should be saying as an officer of the Court and a member of the bar’, Judge Subramanian told Geragos in a private conversation in his robing room on May 6.”
Read more:
Cassie Ventura To Testify in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Upcoming Trial Under Her Own Name
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