Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
A scientist. A massage therapist. A deli clerk.
These New Yorkers are among the eight-man, four-woman panel of jurors who will determine Sean “Diddy” Combs’ fate in his criminal sex-trafficking case.
Combs, a hip-hop mogul and businessman who was once on the cusp of becoming a billionaire, faces up to life in prison if convicted at trial of all charges against him.
The 12 jurors, plus six alternates, were seated on Monday following a jury selection process that unfolded over a week in a Manhattan federal courtroom.
Four of the jurors selected for the trial — which is expected to run about two months — said during the jury selection process, known as voir dire that they favored hip-hop or R&B music.
One of them, a 30-year-old woman from the Bronx who works the deli counter at the grocery chain Gristedes, had revealed that her mother was once arrested and convicted over 20 years ago for stealing money from a bank.
“She worked in the bank and they caught her and she got arrested,” the woman previously told the court.
Another juror, a retired 68-year-old man from Westchester, wrote in his jury questionnaire that he has viewed the infamous security-camera footage where Combs is seen beating his ex, R&B singer Cassie Ventura.
Ventura is the prosecution’s key witness, and jurors are expected to be shown that footage at trial, among other graphic videos.
That juror also said he has a problem viewing graphic videos showing violence, but would force himself to watch if he had to.
“I wouldn’t be biased. And, to be honest, I’d have to make myself look at it,” said the man who worked for Verizon for 40 years.
At the end of the jury selection, Combs’ defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said prosecutors had used their preemptory strikes to unfairly keep Black members out of the jury.
He’s previously argued that the Justice Department has targeted Combs because of his race.
“By our count, the government struck seven Black people, which we believe amounts to a pattern,” Agnifilo told the judge.
Prosecutor Maurene Comey detailed the reasons she struck each juror, making the case for each one. One attended the same high school as Combs, making him susceptible to unconscious bias, she said. Another talked about how some accusers will jump on a “bandwagon” to accuse famous people of abuse, making it possible she’d be biased against victims, Comey argued.
The judge ultimately ruled that Combs’ legal team couldn’t prove prosecutors tried to exclude jurors based on race.
Meanwhile, Combs’ family members, including his children and mother, filled two rows of benches in the courtroom on Monday. They were seated behind the defense table where Combs sat wearing a light-colored sweater and eyeglasses.
At times, he blew kisses to his family.
Combs was arrested and indicted last September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has strongly denied all charges and all allegations of sexual abuse.
Prosecutors allege, however, that for decades, Combs led a “criminal enterprise” that involved the sex trafficking of two women, Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe.
Combs, 55, is also accused of coercing those women, plus another two, into sex through a pattern of threats and violence.
At the core of the Combs’ indictment are allegations that the “I’ll Be Missing You” rapper organized elaborate sex encounters that he called “freak offs.” In court papers, prosecutors described the events as dayslong, drug-fueled sex performances that Combs directed and often recorded.
Over the course of the trial, jurors will be shown hours of graphic sex videos that prosecutors say Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers’ consent.
Some of the footage will depict Combs’ freak offs.
The post Sean Combs’ jury is mostly male and has a few hip-hop fans. Here’s what we know about the 12 who will decide his fate. appeared first on Business Insider.
