Jury selection finished on Monday morning (late Monday night AEST), with the lawyers’ opening statements following. Testimonies could begin as early as Monday afternoon (Tuesday morning AEST).
The final phase of jury selection commenced with lawyers from both camps dismissing several candidates to form a panel of 12. Each side used up their allotted number of dismissals, with the defense removing 10 and prosecutors dismissing six. They weren’t required to justify their choices unless the opposition alleged they were excluding jurors for illicit reasons such as race.
One defense lawyer raised that issue, asserting that prosecutors had excluded seven Black individuals from the jury, suggesting a pattern. However, the judge denied the claim of discrimination, stating that Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey provided “race-neutral reasons” for each exclusion, and the defense failed to prove intentional discrimination.
Comey also revealed that at least one text message to be unveiled during the trial will describe Combs’ behaviour as “bipolar or manic”.
Combs, 55, pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that could land him in prison for at least 15 years if he is convicted on all charges. He has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his arrest in September.
The courtroom was packed with Combs’ family, journalists and other people interested in the trial.
Lawyers for the three-time Grammy winner say prosecutors are wrongly trying to make a crime out of a party-loving lifestyle that may have been indulgent, but was not illegal.
Prosecutors say Combs coerced women into drugged-up group sexual encounters, then kept them in line through violence. He is accused of choking, hitting, kicking and dragging women, often by the hair.
Combs’ former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, is expected to be among the trial’s early witnesses.
She filed a lawsuit in 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape. The lawsuit was settled within hours of its filing, but it touched off a law enforcement investigation and was followed by dozens of lawsuits from people making similar claims.
Prosecutors plan to show jurors video a security camera video of Combs beating Cassie in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
Jurors may also see recordings of events called “Freak Offs”, where prosecutors say women had sex with male sex workers while Combs filmed them. The indictment said the events sometimes lasted days and participants required IV-drips to recover.
Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, has said that the Bad Boy Records founder was “not a perfect person” and was undergoing therapy, including for drug use, before his arrest.
But he and other lawyers for Combs have argued that any group sex was consensual and any violence was an aberration.
After the video of Combs assaulting Cassie in the hotel aired on CNN last year, Combs apologised and said he took “full responsibility” for his actions.
“I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” he said.
The Associated Press doesn’t generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, has done.
The trial is expected to last at least eight weeks.
