The criminal trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering charges will kick off on 5 May next year, it has been confirmed.
As a schedule for the trial was agreed, prosecutors revealed that they could as yet file more charges against the musician. They also dubbed as “baseless” a motion filed by Combs earlier this week accusing law enforcement of illegally leaking evidence gathered as part of their investigation.
Combs is accused of using his music and entertainment business to create a criminal enterprise via which he “abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfil his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct”.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson told the court yesterday that investigators seized 96 electronic devices during raids on properties owned by Combs earlier this year. That evidence is still being processed. “Our investigation is very much ongoing”, she said, adding, “there is a possibility that there could be a superseding indictment” which could include additional charges.
In a motion earlier this week, Combs alleged that the US government has been running a campaign to turn public opinion against him, including by giving the media a heads up about the raids on his properties “in order to maximise exposure”. The raids were then carried out in a way that ramped up the drama, he claimed, in order to heighten public interest.
Since then, the motion went on, people connected to the US Department For Homeland Security have made a “steady stream of false and prejudicial statements” to media outlets. Combs’ people also believe that investigators were behind the leak of old security footage showing the musician assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura in an LA hotel.
That video was leaked to CNN rather than being kept for evidence during the trial, the motion claimed, in order to “mortally wound” Combs’ reputation and damage the prospect of the musician “successfully defending himself against these allegations”.
Combs wants the court to schedule a hearing to review these claims of misconduct, to issue a gagging order banning government personnel from disclosing any further evidence to media outlets, and to suppress from his trial any evidence that was unlawfully leaked.
Prosecutors are yet to formally respond, but Johnson insisted in court that Combs’ claims were “baseless”, and are, in part, an attempt to “exclude a damning piece of evidence” from the prosecution’s case against him.
Combs denies all the allegations that have been made against him, including in the numerous civil lawsuits that have also been filed accusing him of sexual assault. He is still in jail having twice been refused bail since his arrest last month. He is currently appealing the bail decisions in the Second Circuit Appeals Court.