Potential jurors for the trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs have been asked their views on controversial rapper Kanye West
West was dragged into the case when a potential juror said they recognized his name from a list of people who may come up in the trial.
The man, a scientist in his 40s, said that nothing he knew about West would affect his ability to be impartial.
West was one of several celebrities who came up in Manhattan federal court on Monday as juror selection began in Diddy’s sex-trafficking and racketeering case.
The rapper has recently defended Diddy, sharing controversial posts and claiming the two released a clothing collaboration together earlier this year.
It comes as comedian Mike Myers and actor Michael B. Jordan were also in a list of names handed to jurors. Their relevance to the case is unclear.
Other names mentioned on the list by a female juror who said she recognized them were Michelle Williams from Destiny’s child, actress Lauren London – who was the girlfriend of Nipsey Hussle who was fatally shot in 2019 – and rapper Kid Cudi.
Judge Subramanian said that the list of people and places runs ‘several pages’ and felt like an ‘appendix from Lord of the Rings’. To speed up the process, he ruled that jurors would be given the list to review before they are brought into court and questioned one by one before they seat a final panel of 12 jurors and six alternates.
The comments allude to the scale of the case, which dates back to 2004 and covers multiple states.
Several dozen prospective jurors got a brief description of the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs from the judge, Arun Subramanian, who reminded them that Combs had pleaded not guilty and was presumed innocent.
As the judge spoke, Combs sat with his lawyers. He wore a sweater over a white collared shirt and gray slacks, which the judge had allowed rather than jail clothing. Combs, 55, has been held in a grim federal lockup in Brooklyn since his arrest last September. His hair and goatee were almost fully gray because dye isn’t allowed in jail.
Unlike other recent high-profile celebrity trials, Combs’ court case won’t be broadcast live because federal courtrooms don’t allow electronic recordings inside — meaning courtroom sketch artists serve as the public’s eyes in the courtroom.
The trial is expected to take at least eight weeks. If convicted, he faces the possibility of decades in prison.
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