- Jury selection began in New York on Monday for the Diddy trial.
- Three prospective jurors told the court about their own experiences with sexual assault.
- None of them has been excluded from the jury pool. One accuser's lawyer said that's the right call.
Three prospective jurors in the sex-trafficking trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs shared their own experiences of sexual assault.
Their stories were revealed Monday during the first day of jury selection in Manhattan federal court.
None of the three women, so far, have been removed from the pool of people who may eventually decide Combs' fate. They all told US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, that they could be impartial in weighing the evidence in the trial.
Combs has vehemently denied the charges against him, as well as all other allegations of sex abuse. If Combs — who was once estimated to be worth $820 million — is convicted at trial on all charges, he faces up to life in prison.
The hip-hop mogul has been locked up at a federal Brooklyn jail since his September 2024 arrest and indictment on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Experiences of sexual assault
As part of the jury selection process, prospective jurors were given a written questionnaire that asked if they had been victims of sexual assault.
Three women among those who responded "yes" to the question discussed their experiences in court on Monday. They answered questions from US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is deciding whether they can be impartial in deciding the case.
The first, who is in her 40s, told the judge that a family member molested her and her sister when they were young. She said she would "feel empathy toward the victims" but that she was "also a very rational person" who could keep a fair and objective view.
"I'm sorry that happened," Subramanian told the woman.
The woman said she works as a photo producer at HBO, which was subpoenaed by Combs' defense lawyers, who wanted to obtain raw interview footage of victims for "The Fall of Diddy" docuseries.
A second woman said she was sexually assaulted around 1996 by a neighbor. They had begun to date, and "he took it too far and sexually assaulted me in the stairwell of my house," she said.
The woman, who said she studied the relationship between sexual assault and women's self-esteem in college, said it was possible to hold nuanced views about perpetrators of sexual assault.
"I don't think it's a good thing, but I don't think it makes the person who did it horrible in all respects," she said.
The third survivor, a white woman in her 60s, said she was sexually assaulted as a teenager when she worked for a dentist for around two years. The dentist was "grossly inappropriate" and kissed and fondled her, she said.
But in more recent years, she has opened her mind to "both sides" of the relationship between perpetrators and victims, she said.
"I work very hard to remain impartial to people every day," she said.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys are trying to find a fair jury
Jury selection in the high-profile trial is expected to take several days, with the trial anticipated to run for about eight weeks.
Combs donned black framed glasses, black slacks, and a sweater with a crisp, white collar peeking through at the neck.
Linda Moreno, a jury selection consultant whom Combs has hired, was the first on the rapper's team to arrive at the courtroom on Monday. As a criminal defense lawyer, Moreno has represented actor Wesley Snipes and Noor Salman, and has done jury consultant work for Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.
The "I'll Be Missing You" singer appeared in good spirits, smiling as he hugged or shook hands with his team of about a dozen defense attorneys and staff before taking his seat.
Among those seated in the courtroom gallery on Monday was Douglas Wigdor, the attorney for Combs' ex-girlfriend R&B singer Cassie Ventura, who is expected to testify at the trial. Ventura is referred to as "Victim-1" in the indictment against Combs.
Also in court were Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali, who represent another of Combs's accusers who expected to testify. Fudali told Business Insider that being the victim of sexual assault should not be disqualifying for jurors.
"What I heard there today is that all three of those jurors, who expressed having experienced sexual or harass sexual assault, also expressed that they could be impartial and they can separate their own experiences from the trial," Fudali said. "And that's what you want in a juror, and that's why I believe none of them were excluded."
Fudali told Business Insider that prosecutors have not yet decided whether the accuser he represents will testify under her real name or a pseudonym.
At the center of the indictment against Combs are accusations he orchestrated "freak offs," which prosecutors describe in court papers as "elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded."
In these alleged drug-fueled sex sessions, prosecutors say Combs "used force, threats of force, and coercion" to get female victims to engage in sex acts with male commercial sex workers.
Combs and his associates "wielded the power and prestige" of the rapper's success to "intimidate, threaten, and lure female victims" into his orbit "often under the pretense of a romantic relationship," prosecutors said in the indictment.
During the jury selection process, known as voir dire, prospective jurors will be asked if they can objectively deliberate in a case involving graphic sex.
Those who are selected for the jury will be asked during the trial to watch hours of graphic sex videos that Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent. Some of the videos are from Combs' so-called freak offs.
For Combs to win an acquittal, jurors would need to believe these videos depict a consensual good time, as the defense has insisted was the case.
