NEW YORK — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs are urging a judge to let prospective jurors at the hip-hop mogul’s upcoming sex trafficking trial be questioned about their views regarding sex, drugs and violence.
The lawyers raised the subject as they submitted a proposed questionnaire to be filled out by individuals summoned for his May 5 trial in Manhattan federal court.
In a letter to a judge late Friday, the lawyers said they want to know the willingness of would-be jurors to watch videos that are sexually explicit or show physical assault. They also say they want to know their views toward people with multiple sexual partners.
Prosecutors in a letter of their own criticized the defense’s proposed questionnaire as too long and touching on subjects that would be better asked in person by the judge, if at all.
They said some of the defense’s proposed 72 questions, some containing subparts, were “utterly irrelevant to the ability to serve on a jury.”
Prosecutors also cited the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell as an example of how a lengthy questionnaire can be damaging.
After Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021, a juror admitted that he had failed to disclose that he was a sex abuse victim, blaming his oversight in part on being “distracted as he filled out the questionnaire” and having “skimmed way too fast,” causing him to misunderstand questions.
Judge Arun Subramanian has told lawyers that questionnaires will be distributed to hundreds of prospective jurors at the end of April so that questioning of prospective jurors can begin on May 5, with opening statements likely on May 12.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he subjected individuals to sexual abuse over a two-decade period. The Bad Boy Records founder has remained incarcerated without bail since his September arrest.
An indictment accuses Combs of using the “power and prestige” he wielded as a music mogul to intimidate, threaten and lure women into his orbit, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship.
The indictment said he then used force, threats and coercion to cause victims, including three women specified in the court papers, to engage in commercial sex acts.
It said he subjected his victims to violence, threats of violence, threats of financial and reputational harm and verbal abuse.
Prosecutors have said that a key piece of the evidence at trial will be a video showing Combs punching his former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, and throwing her on the floor in a hotel hallway.
Defense lawyers have argued that prosecutors built their case on charges that try to demonize sex acts between consenting adults.
They told the judge they were unable to reach a consensus with prosecutors for what prospective jurors should be asked on questionnaires.
“The defense believes it is important that we allow potential jurors to write candidly about the unprecedented and negative media attention that they may have been exposed to, related to Mr. Combs,” the lawyers wrote.
Defense lawyers also asked that jurors be asked to tell if they’ve watched shows on television titled: “The Fall of Diddy,” “Diddy Do It?” “The Downfall of Diddy” and “Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy.”
