Hundreds of New Yorkers who have been summoned for jury duty will appear in federal court in Manhattan this week to complete questionnaires ahead of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing the case, scheduled jury selection for next Monday. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Combs’ legal team and federal prosecutors submitted proposed voir dire questions to the court in separate motions Friday. The two sides had been at odds about what prospective jurors should be asked.
Prosecutors argued that a proposed 72-question survey Combs’ team submitted April 11 was too long and that it covered personal topics, such as sexual assault, sexual abuse and domestic violence, that should be asked by the judge in person, if at all.
Combs attorney Marc Agnifilo told Subramanian this month that his legal team believes prospective jurors should have the option to make such disclosures in writing or in person.
“To be very clear, these questions are going to be asked, and the real issue is where and when,” Subramanian said at the hearing.
As a compromise, prosecutors proposed adding a box to the survey to allow people to indicate whether they prefer to address those topics in person.
The questionnaire has not been made public, making it unclear whether the box was included in the final version. A jury of 12 people and six alternates will be selected.
Once prospective jurors complete the questionnaires, the court will process them and send them to federal prosecutors and Combs’ legal team, said Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, a jury consultant who has worked for attorneys in the trials of Kyle Rittenhouse, acquitted in the shootings of three men, two of them fatally, during a protest in Wisconsin in 2020; Daniel Penny, a former Marine acquitted in a man’s death on a New York City subway; and, most famously, O.J. Simpson.
Before jury selection begins, the two parties and Subramanian will discuss who should be excused because of biases or because they have indicated serving on the jury would pose financial hardships or schedule conflicts, Dimitrius said.
Opening statements are scheduled to begin May 12; the trial is expected to last eight to 10 weeks.
Both sides will want to know what prospective jurors know about the case, which centers on allegations that Combs coerced women to participate in drug-fueled, highly orchestrated sexual encounters with male sex workers that he called “freak offs.”
Prosecutors contend he arranged, directed, masturbated during and often electronically recorded freak offs. The allegations of “Victim-1” in the indictment closely align with those of his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura.
“You’re going to be exploring everything that would shine a negative light potentially, if I were the defense, on how they view the case going into jury selection,” said Dimitrius, who was a jury consultant for Harvey Weinstein’s retrial in Manhattan.
A hired jury consultant would also review the questionnaires, make notes about the prospective jurors and rate their suitability, Dimitrius said. The consultant is also paid to outline any potential issues and responses worth following up on during the voir dire process.
Dimitrius and Michael Boucher, a jury consultant who analyzed jurors in Sarah Palin’s two defamation trials against The New York Times, said both parties will scour prospective jurors’ social media accounts to see whether they have expressed opinions or endorsed material about the case and those involved with it.
Given his celebrity status, Dimitrius said, attorneys will also be concerned with how much jurors know about Combs, the music mogul who founded Bad Boy Records.
“Do they listen to his music? Have they followed whatever may be in the news about his existence?” she said.
Ventura sued Combs in November 2023, accusing him of years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The two quickly settled the suit privately, and Combs vehemently denied the allegations.
Several months later, CNN published a video of Combs assaulting Ventura in the hallway of a hotel in Los Angeles in March 2016. Ventura had described the assault in her suit. Combs apologized for his behavior in the video after it became public.
In seeking to exclude it from the trial, Agnifilo argued in court filings that the video “is wholly inaccurate, having been altered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited to be out of sequence.”
CNN has denied it altered the video.
Ventura is expected to be a key witness at the trial.
Subramanian ruled Friday that jurors could be shown the video, delivering a setback to Combs’ legal team, which had sought to block it from evidence.
Boucher said the video will be difficult for Combs to overcome.
“Most people, 99% of the people in this society, will say, ‘That’s just wrong; you don’t do that,’” Boucher said. “You’re going to have to work for that extreme minority who will give him a pass based on an emotional response.”
