NEW YORK (AP) — The jury within the intercourse trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs shall be finalized on Friday, two days later than anticipated.
Choose Arun Subramanian granted a request by attorneys Wednesday for further time to determine who they’ll get rid of from a listing of 45 finalists to be on the jury. It is the final step of a jury choice course of that started when potential jurors crammed out questionnaires final week.
For the previous three days, the decide has been questioning potential jurors one by one to see who might be truthful and unbiased. Combs has noticed from his seat on the protection desk as jurors had been questioned.
On Friday, attorneys on either side shall be permitted to get rid of a number of people from the panel of jurors — for causes they normally should not have to elucidate. That process, which usually takes an hour or much less, produces the ultimate jury of 12 plus alternates.
Then on Monday, opening statements are scheduled for a trial that’s anticipated to last as long as two months in federal court docket in Manhattan.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not responsible to expenses that he operated his companies like a racketeering enterprise, utilizing workers and different associates to assist facilitate a number of crimes, together with kidnapping, arson, bribery and intercourse trafficking.
After his September arrest at a New York lodge, Combs has remained jailed with out bail whereas he fights racketeering and intercourse trafficking expenses that might end in a sentence of as much as life in jail if he’s convicted.
Prosecutors say Combs used his fame and fortune as a powerbroker within the hip-hop world to pressure younger girls into sexually abusive conditions, together with “ Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies through which girls had been compelled to have intercourse with male intercourse staff whereas Combs filmed them.
Combs’ attorneys contend prosecutors are attempting to police consensual sexual exercise.
