Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial for sex trafficking and more has been pushed back a week. Originally set to start on May 5, Sean Combs’ criminal matter in federal court in New York City will now begin on May 12. The change in the opening date came Friday in a hearing on the superseding indictment against […]Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial for sex trafficking and more has been pushed back a week. Originally set to start on May 5, Sean Combs’ criminal matter in federal court in New York City will now begin on May 12. The change in the opening date came Friday in a hearing on the superseding indictment against
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial for sex trafficking and more has been pushed back a week.
Originally set to start on May 5, Sean Combs‘ criminal matter in federal court in New York City will now begin on May 12.
The change in the opening date came Friday in a hearing on the superseding indictment against Combs that prosecutors brought down last week. Now with forced labor added to the racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution claims facing the Bad Boy Records founder. Present in Judge Arun Subramanian’s courtroom, as he has been for every hearing in the case since his arrest last fall, Combs entered a plea of “not guilty” this morning — just like the ‘All About the Benjamins’ performer has before.
The revised indictment (read it here) says Combs coerced employees into “forced labor,” including sex through intimidation, withheld pay, sleep deprivation and threats of firing. Employees were led to believe “they would be harmed — including by losing their jobs — if they did not comply with his demands,” the indictment states. “With respect to one employee, Combs used physical force, psychological harm, financial harm and reputational harm, and/or threats of the same to cause the employee to engage in sex acts with Combs.”
Arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby in September, the Bad Boy Records founder is facing life in prison if found guilty in a trial previously set to start May 5.. The government alleges that Combs and his aides coerced women into marathon sexual encounters called “freak-offs” with male and female prostitutes, drug use, threats of violence and imprisonment in the hotel rooms where the were staged and videotaped.
RELATED: Diddy Says Freak-Off Videos Reveal His “Innocence”
Prosecutors allege that Combs’ business empire — which has fallen on hard times since the flood of allegations against him began in late 2023 — and the “racketeering enterprise” at the heart of their case against the one-time rap hitmaker-turned-mogul were intertwined. The “Combs Enterprise,” according to the indictment, served two purposes: operating “a global business in the media, entertainment, and lifestyle industries,” and enabling its CEO, his deputies and associates “to engage in unlawful acts” including sex trafficking and narcotics distribution.
Combs has denied the charges and, through his lawyers, has said all of the sexual encounters described in the indictment were consensual.
Months before he was indicted, Combs already was scrambling to limit the damage from an assault video aired by CNN in May. The footage from 2016 showed Combs hitting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura — who is the “Victim 1” in the federal indictment — and dragging her through a Los Angeles hotel hallway. Combs apologized via Instagram two days after CNN aired the hotel surveillance clip, saying he was “disgusted” by his behavior. With Ventura sued Combs for abuse and assault in November 2023 and been met with an alleged $30 million settlement within 24 hours, the May 2024 apology was met with distain by the singer’s attorneys at the time.
Subjecting that 2016 footage to near constant undermining since the criminal case began, Combs’ lawyers on March 14 formally accused CNN of doctoring the clip by editing and speeding up footage for broadcast and then destroying the original video. “This includes covering the timestamp and then changing the video sequence,” the lawyers wrote, adding that “the CNN videos do not fairly and accurately depict the events in question.”
Speaking to Deadline on March 13, a CNN spokesperson denied the cable newser altered or destroyed the video. Combs, who repeatedly has been denied bail, is being held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center as he awaits trial.
As well as the criminal case, Combs is accused in more than 25 other cases of assault, abuse, rape and more, with even more allegations and filings coming in week after week. Losing one of his key lawyers in the criminal case earlier this year, Combs also on February 12, sued NBCUniversal for $100 million in a defamation action over what he calls out as “outrageous set of fresh lies and conspiracy theories” in the Peacock documentary Diddy: Making of a Bad Boy.
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