Diddy trial latest: Disgraced mogul’s strategy to fight Cassie’s claims revealed as jury selection is delayed

By GERMANIA RODRIGUEZ POLEO, CHIEF U.S. REPORTER and DANIEL BATES AT THE DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN FEDERAL COURTHOUSE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 08:05 EDT, 9 May 2025 | Updated: 11:05 EDT, 9 May 2025

The end of jury selection for Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs sex-trafficking federal trial in New York has been delayed until Monday after the judge granted the defense’s request.

The rapper, 55, has kept an upbeat demeanor throughout the closed process – the trial will not be televised because it is in federal court and all recording devices are banned.

On Friday, his lead attorney revealed Diddy’s defense will claim the rapper and his ex-girlfriend Cassie engaged in mutual violence throughout their relationship.

Diddy will reportedly admit to domestic violence while claiming he is innocent of sex-trafficking and racketeering.  

Over the last week, Judge Arun Subramanian has been questioning prospective jurors one at a time to see who can be fair and unbiased. 

Combs has watched from his seat at the defense table, scanning the courtroom for supporters and even nodding and smile to potential jurors. 

Diddy’s lawyers reveal their strategy to fight Cassie’s claims

Diddy’s lead attorney Marc Agnifilo told the court on Friday his team plans to argue that the rapper and his ex-girlfriend Cassie engaged in mutual violence throughout their relationship.

‘We are going to take the position that there was mutual violence in their relationship,’ he said, as reported by Inner City Press.

‘Hitting on both sides… domestic violence.

‘We are absolutely going to admit to domestic violence.’

The former couple is pictured at the Met Gala in May, 2018 – their last public outing.

Jury selection will now conclude Monday after judge sides with Diddy

Jury selection will be concluded on Monday instead of Friday after a ruling by judge Arun Subramanian.

Prosecutors said that they will have an answer on whether Victim 3 will testify by the end of the day.

Diddy’s lawyers had asked for the delay, saying that they were concerned that more jurors would get cold feet between now and Monday and it would be safer to wait until then.

Prosecutors strongly opposed this and said it should move ahead today because it could cause long delays on Monday before opening statements.

The judge had leaned towards the delay, saying that if they finished choosing the jury on Monday you got a ‘certainty you’re not going to have to redo jury selection or worse’.

Juror was excused over marijuana use

A man from the Bronx was let go after admitting he smokes marijuana.

The judge asked him to stop using the drug during the trial.

‘I’m going to order that,’ the judge said.

But prosecutors then passed a note to the judge, who then asked the potential juror if he had ever been arrested for marijuana.

When asked when they last marijuana, the man answered that he used it the previous night and he might have liked a post on X showing Diddy’s arrest.

The judge excused the man after he admitted that not using marijuana would be difficult for him.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs childhood trauma exposed by best friend

Nestled in the sprawling suburbia of New York, a home with well-kept hedgerows and blooming spring flowers is the quintessential model of an American residence.

But this mid-century split-level home in Mount Vernon holds dark secrets that could explain the lead-up to the gut-churning accusations that disgraced rap mogul Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs faces.

Full timeline of Diddy’s allegations from baby oil ‘freak offs’ to the Cassie video

Heralded for decades as rap royalty, Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs now sits alone in an isolation cell in a notorious New York City jail – deemed too much of a ‘threat to the community’ by authorities to be let out even after offering a $50 million bond.

It’s a stunning fall for the ‘It’s All About the Benjamins’ rapper, who was once hip-hop’s wealthiest and most influential mogul.

Judge delivers blow to Diddy as he rules accuser’s picture can be used

In a blow to Diddy, the judge ruled that prosecutors could use a photograph of his first accuser when she was 19 years old, the age she met him, even though his lawyers feared it might make the jury think he was engaged in sex with minors.

Assistant US Attorney Emily Anne Johnson said that the photograph, taken in May 2005, showed Victim 1 with her best friend at the time.

Diddy’s lawyer Alexandra Shapiro said it had ‘low probative value’ compared to the risk of ‘unfair prejudice’.

She said: ‘Victim 1 is extremely young in the picture. Although it’s not as bad as the (exhibit) the court excluded, the prejudice raises the suggestion that Mr Combs is engaging in sexual conduct with an underage person’.

Johnson said that Victim 1 met Diddy when she was 19, the same age as when the photo was taken and signed with his record label in 2006.

She said that the photo ‘speaks a thousand words’ and that the photo ‘establishes a friendship’ between Victim 1 and her friend.

Judge Subramanian said that he didn’t think the ‘probative value would be substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice’.

Kanye West’ despicable defense of Diddy

Kanye West has continued defending Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs, stating the incarcerated mogul is a ‘way better dad than me.’

West, 47, shared two posts supportive of the father of seven, who is currently behind bars at the at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center following his arrest last year on sex trafficking, racketeering and prostitution charges. He’s been denied bail multiple times.

WATCH: The Austin Powers joke that dragged Mike Myers into Diddy trial

A potential juror said he recognized comedian Mike Myers’ name in a list of individuals provided to the jury pool.

The individuals may come up during the trial.

It’s likely Myers was dragged into the case over a scene in 2002’s Austin Powers: Goldmember, where the character of Dr Evil had an ‘E. Diddy’ tattoo on his buttocks after spending time in prison.

The scene also features Beyonce.

Al B. Sure’s shocking claims against Diddy

The singer appeared on Fox 5 on Friday and repeated some of his claims against Diddy, including his belief that their ex Kim Porter did not die from pneumonia.

Al B. Sure also claimed he believes the music mogul tried to kill him.

Simon & Schuster exec excluded from jury over Al B. Sure book

The chief marketing officer at Simon & Schuster was dismissed from the jury pool after she revealed her company is working with Al B Sure on his upcomoing book, Do You Believe Me Now?

Singer Al B. Sure was once married to Diddy’s late ex-girlfriend and mother of some of his children, Kim Porter.

Al B. Sure has repeatedly made shocking accusations against Diddy.

What we won’t hear at the trial

Since 2023, dozens of women and men have been filing lawsuits against Combs claiming he sexually or physically abused them. Many of those people said they were slipped drugs at events hosted by Combs and were abused while they were incapacitated.

Combs has denied all of the allegations through his lawyers.

Some of those lawsuits have claimed that other celebrities were either present for or participated in the abuse.

The great majority of those allegations, however, aren’t part of the criminal case. Prosecutors have chosen to focus on a relatively small number of accusers and allegations where there is physical evidence or corroboration by witnesses.

The main players in Diddy’s trial

The trial is in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. He was appointed a federal judge by President Joe Biden in 2022.

The prosecution team consists of eight assistant U.S. attorneys, seven of them women. They include Maurene Ryan Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. She was among the prosecutors in the trial of Ghislane Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

Combs’ team of seven defense attorneys is led by New York lawyer Marc Agnifilo, who along with his wife Karen Friedman Agnifilo is also defending alleged health care CEO assassin Luigi Mangione.

Also on the defense team is Atlanta attorney Brian Steel, who represented Young Thug in a trial that went on for nearly two years before the rapper pleaded guilty to gang, drug and gun charges.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is seen with his attorneys Brian Steel and Teny Geragos. Judge Arun Subramanian is seen in the bacground.

Juror excused after saying Diddy could ‘buy his way out of jail’

On Tuesday, a black woman in her 20s was excused after saying in her jury questionnaire that Diddy ‘had a lot of money’ and could ‘possibly buy his way out for jail’.

The woman also said she was the victim of an attempted rape three years ago and the police could have done more to solve the case.

How Diddy is trying to connect with jurors in sex-trafficking trial

The rapper, 55, repeatedly nodded and smiled at the individuals being questioned during the jury selection process this week.

He appeared to be showing his approval for some jurors by nodding his head up and down or shaking it left and right, giving a subtitle indication of how he was feeling towards each person.

Two potential jurors had bizarre connections with both Diddy and the judge

Juror 220 told the court on Wednesday the he went to the same New York high school as Diddy – Mount St. Michael’s.

While the man attended the school 30 years after Diddy, he was dismissed after admitting he reposted a meme about Diddy while ‘doom scrolling.’

Moments later, Judge Arun Subramanian as juror 317 entered the courtroom, clearing recognizing the man.

The judge then asked the man to reveal their connection – they met while working antitrust class action cases together.

Prosecutors expressed concern juror 317, as an attorney who knows the judge, could have outsize influence on other jurors.

The defense had no issues with juror 317, but the man was dismissed after expressing concern about a client’s needs during the length of the trial.

LISTEN: The Trial of Diddy podcast

The celebrity names that could come up included actors Mike Myers, Michael B. Jordan and Lauren London.

Some other famous names in the music industry were also revealed, including Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, producer Dallas Austin and choreographer Laurieann Gibson.

The FOUR key questions potential Diddy trial jurors must answer

Potential jurors in the trial of fallen hip hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs face a grilling by his legal team and government prosecutors over their suitability to judge his guilt or innocence.

And in revealing clues over upcoming testimony, DailyMail.com can disclose some of those bombshell questions that they will be asked to determine if they make it to the 12-person panel.

Many revolve around attitudes to the sensational sex trafficking and racketeering crimes 55-year-old Combs is accused of – and their views on the hip hop industry in general.

Diddy in court for final day of jury selection

Diddy walked into court wearing the same outfit as he has worn every day since jury selection began: a navy crew neck sweater, gray pants and a white shirt.

He hugged and shook hands with his lawyers before sitting down and looking over some legal documents with Teny Geragos, one of his attorneys.

Diddy put on his glasses and looked over one piece of paper and listened intently as Geragos spoke to one of the prosecutors.

Diddy’s potential jurors jurors are revealed

A female juror in her 60s was allowed to stay in the prospective jury pool despite admitting that she was kissed and fondled for around two years when she 16 by a dentist while working at his office.

The woman said that ‘gross inappropriate behavior happens all day long all over the world’ but insisted she could be impartial.

Eyebrows were raised in court when a woman was allowed to remain in the jury pool despite saying that after watching the video of Diddy beating up Ventura she thought he ‘would be guilty of domestic violence’.

Eyebrows were raised in court when a woman was allowed to remain in the jury pool despite saying that after watching the video of Diddy beating up Cassie she thought he ‘would be guilty of domestic violence.’

The black woman said that she recalled having seen news articles that said Diddy was ‘trying to get out of jail’.

And she wrote in her jury questionnaire that her mother – a domestic abuse survivor – told her ‘never to accept physical or mental abuse from anyone’.

But the woman, a middle school teacher, also said some things that appealed to Diddy, saying that she wouldn’t pre-judge him and was skeptical of some accusers.

‘Just because somebody does one thing doesn’t mean they did another,’ she said.

She said that ‘sometimes people testify to things that are not necessarily true’ because they had ‘jumped on the bandwagon.’

Potential jurors answer written questions by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian during jury selection.

No one believed Trump hotel shooter Jonathan Oddi’s bizarre Diddy claims… until now

No one believed Jonathan Oddi when he bizarrely told Florida cops he that was Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs’ sex slave in 2018.

‘This 100 % gives a lot of truth and legitimacy to everything he was speaking about,’ said Oddi’s former wife Tonia Troutwine. It definitely confirms the relationship and closeness between them.

Trump hotel shooter Jonathan Oddi’s extraordinary links to Diddy

Daily Mail can confirm Oddi did know Diddy – and was guarding a secret so scandalous that the rapper asked him to sign an NDA agreement to protect it.

The agreement is dated 2014 – four years before the Doral shooting – and ten years before Diddy’s life came crashing down with a federal indictment for sex trafficking.

Oddi told police in Doral that he signed the document in exchange for $5 million.

Diddy trial thrown into chaos as key witness goes MISSING

A star witness in the Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs trial is reportedly MIA, throwing the disgraced Bad Boy mogul’s sex trafficking case into chaos.

Opening statements are set to begin next week. But federal prosecutors have been left scrambling.

They can’t find one of the female victims who is central to their case. She does not live in New York where the Combs’ trial is being held.

Diddy’s team gets win as HBO staffer is removed from jury pool

Diddy won a victory after his lawyers managed to strike a white female juror from the pool because she works for HBO.

The 55-year-old photo producer had said during questioning that the video of Diddy beating up his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016 was ‘disturbing’ and ‘upsetting’.

Diddy attorney Marc Agnifilo said that the HBO documentary ‘The Fall of Diddy’ which was released earlier this year painted him in a ‘horribly negative light, almost like a monster’.

Agnifilo said that the woman said she had had ‘water cooler talks’ with co-workers even though she didn’t work on the documentary.

Additionally, three government witnesses in the Diddy case appeared in the documentary and were paid to do so, Agnifilo said.

The judge agreed after prosecutors didn’t object to the juror being excused.

Diddy’s secret trial weapon revealed

Jury consultant Linda Moreno has joined his top-tier legal team, the Daily Mail can confirm.

She will help defense attorneys to profile potential jurors as selection starts Monday in Combs’ federal criminal trial in Manhattan.

Moreno gained fame as one of the country’s leading jury consultants after high-profile cases including the 2005 trial of Sami Al-Arian, a Florida college professor indicted on terrorism-related charges under the Patriot Act.

Diddy’s new lawyer Nicole Westmoreland drops rape bombshell

Diddy has hired Nicole Westmoreland as the eigth lawyer on his defense team.

Westmoreland revealed she was raped in 2001 when she was just 19 years old.

She said a man named Alfred Cleveland raped her at Patchwerk Recording Studio in Atlanta, as reported by TMZ.

The star attorney joined Diddy’s team on Tuesday morning.

She is pictured leaving court this week.

Bizarre links between former FBI director and the Diddy trial

The daughter of former FBI director James Comey, Maurene Comey, is one of the prosecutors in the sex-trafficking trial against Diddy.

She was also among the prosecutors in the trial of Ghislane Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

James Comey, nominee for FBI Director, shares a laugh with his daughters, Kate, center, and Maureen and his wife Patrice during his conformation hearing in 2013.

Maurene Comey points at Ghislaine Maxwell as she delivers the rebuttal argument for the government during the trial of Maxwell in 2021.

Judge slams Diddy star attorney after he calls prosecutors a ‘six-pack of white women’

Judge Arun Subramanian admonsihed Mark Geragos in court after he made comments in a podcast calling Diddy’s prosecutors a ‘sick-pack of white women.’

According to prosecutors, Geragos has been advising Diddy’s team during the jury selection process even though he is not one of the rapper’s officials attorneys in the trial.

Subramanian, who is of South Asian descent, called Geragos’ comments ‘outrageous,’ but Geragos’ whose daughter Teny is a member of Diddy’s legal team, pushed back at the judge.

‘I think when you’ve got a Black man who’s being prosecuted and the client feels like he’s being targeted, it’s a — it’s an observation,’ Geragos said.

But the judge wasn not having and shot back: ‘I think this is ridiculous.

‘I think referring to the prosecution in this case as a six-pack of white women is outrageous. All right. And I understand what you’re saying about the cases and everything else, but I think this is outrageous and this would not be tolerated in any court from any lawyer anywhere across the nation.’

Final stage of jury selection

The final stage of choosing jurors is known as ‘peremptory’ or discretionary strikes: jurors that either side does not want to sit on the jury.

Diddy’s defense gets 10 strikes for the main jury of 12 people and the prosecution wil have six.

Then each side gets three each for the six alternate jurors.

There are 45 jurors who are qualified for this final stage: none of them will be in court and they are due to return on Monday for opening statements.

Diddy jury will not be sequestered

Diddy jurors will be able to leave court and go home after each day of the trial.

‘There are no plans to sequester the jury, which means you will go home every day after court,’ the jury questionnaire obtained by the outlet read.

However, jurors were instructed to “avoid all media coverage and not to go on the Internet or social media with regard to this case for any purpose.”

They are advised to avoid discussing the case with family, friends and colleagues until after the trial is done.

Potential jurors down to a pool of 45

Judge Arun Subramanian was seeking to build a pool of 45 prospective jurors from which a panel of 12 jurors and several alternates can be chosen.

Opening statements are scheduled to be presented on May 12 for a trial projected to last up to two months.

Diddy admitted being ‘nervous’ in court

Composed and with his hands in his pockets, Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs greeted potential jurors who hold his fate in their hands with a slight nod as the sex trafficking trial that could send him to prison for life began Monday.

And despite the gravity of the crimes against him, Combs, 55, remained composed and calm, hugging his lawyers as he came in and nodding his head slightly when he faced the jurors with his hands in his pockets.

Until he cracked midway through the process after Diddy’s legal team requested a bathroom break. When the judge asked if they could carry on, Diddy put up his hand and said: ‘I’m sorry your honor, I’m a little nervous today.’

Some potential jurors dismissed after admitting they have seen damning Diddy video

Several who were eliminated from the jury pool had seen or heard media reports related to the case, including some who said they saw a video in which Combs was hitting and kicking one of his accusers in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.

But one man who had written on a questionnaire that the video left him with the ‘impression of an angry hostile person who is entitled’ was not dismissed from the jury pool.

After the video aired on CNN last year, Diddy apologized, saying, ‘I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.’

Diddy’s question for a reporter in court

The rapper apparently recognized Fox5 reporter Michelle Ross, who is seven months pregnant, in court this week.

Ross shared her reaction after Combs mouthed, ‘how are you?’ in court.

‘That’s just another example of how observant he’s been throughout jury selection so far,’ FOX 5’s Michelle Ross said of the moment.

Read the full list of charges against Diddy

Rapper Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs faces a slew of charges related to his alleged sexual and physical abuse of women.

He was charged with three crimes – racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

What happens after jury selection?

The last step in the jury selection process will occur when lawyers on both sides strike a limited number of individuals off the jury for reasons they usually are not required to disclose.

The judge has scheduled peremptory challenges for Friday.

Opening statements are set for Monday.

Will Diddy’s trial be televised?

Unlike other high-profile cases, the rapper’s trial will not be televised as it is in federal court.

Electronic media, including cameras, are banned in the Manhattan court room.

A sketch artist’s work will be the only visuals coming out of the courtroom.

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Diddy trial latest: Disgraced mogul’s strategy to fight Cassie’s claims revealed as jury selection is delayed