Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty Friday to a superseding indictment that charges him with forcing one of his employees into sex acts.
Combs entered the New York court unshackled in a khaki two-piece jail uniform. He smiled when he saw members of his family, including his mother, seated in the courtroom.
One of the new indictments expands the time frame of allegedly criminal conduct and adds two alleged victims. The second new indictment said Combs forced employees to work long hours under threat of physical and reputational harm and forced at least one employee to engage in sex acts with him.
Combs was arrested last year after being charged in a sprawling sex trafficking indictment. He has denied all the allegations and has already pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Opening statements for Combs’ trial are scheduled to begin May 12.
The judge decided potential jurors will begin filling out questionnaires on April 28 before in-person jury selection begins May 5. The aim is to question 300 potential jurors per day until a jury is seated.
Federal prosecutors said they have as many as 20 potential witnesses, aside from the three main alleged victims, who could testify about Combs’ conduct.
Many of them are “incredibly frightened” at becoming publicly known or known to Combs’ legal team, prosecutor Mitzi Steiner said.
The judge said their identities must be disclosed to the defense in the coming days.
“You’re not trying to use video that would in any way be deceptive?” Judge Arun Subramanian asked.
“Of course not, your honor,” Steiner.
The defense has insisted the video — which was first obtained by CNN — is “deceptive” and signaled they would attempt to exclude it from trial.
“It’s a misleading piece of evidence. It’s a deceptive piece of evidence,” Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said.
“The defense has confirmed, through a forensic video analysis of the CNN footage that the government provided to this Court and of the footage provided by CNN in response to the defense subpoena, that all CNN video footage was substantially altered in significant respects. This includes covering the time stamp and then changing the video sequence. It also includes speeding up the video to make it falsely appear that the actions in the video are taking place faster than they are. As a result, the CNN videos do not fairly and accurately depict the events in question,” the defense said.
In a statement, a CNN spokesperson denied the claim that the video was altered.
“CNN never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source,” the spokesperson said. “CNN aired the story about the video several months before Combs was arrested.”
In response to CNN’s statement, Combs’ defense insisted, “Our written and oral communications with CNN’s counsel was clear – they destroyed the original video file they received from their source.”
After the hotel video was released last May, Combs posted a video on Instagram apologizing for the incident.
“My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video,” he said in the video. “I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”
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