Jury selection continued on Wednesday in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York.

Judge Arun Subramanian granted lawyers extra time to determine which prospective jurors to exclude. According to USA Today, the judge identified 35 qualified jurors, but prosecutors need to select 45 qualified jurors to move forward with opening statements.

The jury will remain anonymous and include 12 jurors along with six alternates. Prospective jurors who admitted to hearing news about the prominent case have not been removed. Some jurors have acknowledged watching a video allegedly showing Combs attacking his then-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura. Nonetheless, one prospective juror was excused for asserting that a photograph accompanying a news article, depicting Combs standing near a woman on the ground, was “damning evidence.”

Read Crime Online’s Ongoing Coverage on Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ 

Certain jurors were excused due to language barriers or health concerns, while others were dismissed for showing potential bias against Combs. For example, a male juror was dismissed for breaching court-imposed rules by reading news regarding the high-profile trial. The male juror admitted to clicking on a link to a news article about the jury selection process and briefly reading it.

According to USA Today, Judge Subramanian denounced a lawyer connected to Combs’ legal team for describing prosecutors as a “six-pack of white women.” Attorney Mark Geragos made the comments on a May 2 episode of “Two Angry Men,” which he co-hosts with TMZ founder Harvey Levin.

“That’s something that you shouldn’t, that no one should be saying as an officer of the Court and a member of the bar. Referring to the prosecution in this case as a six-pack of white women is outrageous,” Judge Subramanian reportedly told Geragos on Tuesday before jury selection.

Previously, Judge Subramanian ruled that prosecutors are allowed to show a video that shows Combs attacking Ventura at a California hotel in 2016. The video was released to the public last May, months before Combs’ arrest. Ventura is expected to testify against Combs and will not use a pseudonym.

Combs was arrested on September 16, 2024, outside a Manhattan hotel on federal charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has been denied bail three times, as Judge Andrew L. Carter determined there was a “serious risk” of witness tampering in this case.

Combs’ legal team sought home detention with GPS monitoring. In exchange, they offered to post $50 million bail and to use Combs’ home as collateral.

“The government has proven the defendant is a danger. The bail package is insufficient even on risk of flight,” Carter said while denying Combs’ bail.

Federal authorities raided Combs’ homes in Holmby Hills, California, and Miami in March 2024. Reports indicated that the raids were connected to an ongoing sex trafficking investigation that resulted in his arrest months later.

The reported raids also occurred four months after Ventura accused him of sex trafficking and abuse. In a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, she alleged that Combs drugged her and forced her to have sex with other men. The pair settled the lawsuit a day after its filing.

However, in May, the video surfaced showing Combs assaulting Ventura. After the video was released, Combs put out a video expressing remorse for his behavior.

Two more accusers came forward a week after Ventura’s lawsuit. One of the women claimed Combs drugged and raped her at Syracuse University in New York in 1991. Combs denied those allegations before a third accuser, Liza Gardner, levied similar allegations against him.

In that case, Gardner claimed Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall drugged and raped her and a friend following an Uptown Records event in 1990. Gardner said she was 16 at the time of the incident. She also accused Combs of choking her a day after the assault

Days after footage of the Ventura assault was publicized, two more women filed lawsuits against Combs. One of those women was April Lampros, a New York Fashion Institute of Technology student who reportedly met Combs in 1994. Lampros accused Combs of sexually assaulting her on four occasions between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.

Lampros claimed Combs promised to mentor her and connect her with executives in the fashion industry. Instead, Combs allegedly forced her to drink before raping her in a hotel room. Lampros recalled another instance in which Combs forced her to perform oral sex in a parking garage while a parking attendant watched.

Combs has been accused of committing or facilitating sexual abuse in at least 30 other lawsuits — including one, filed in October, which alleges he and Jay-Z raped a 13-year-old girl in New York in 2000. The accuser in that case had her lawsuit dismissed in February.

Combs turned down a plea deal days before the trial started on Monday. His trial is expected to last two months.

[Feature Photo: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File]