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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Sex Trafficking Trial Is Set for May 5

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      The music mogul, wearing tan jail clothes at a court hearing, waved and smiled at six of his children and his mother in the gallery.Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, is scheduled to stand trial next May in New York, a federal judge said at a hearing on Thursday.Judge Arun Subramanian of Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, who was recently assigned to the case, set May 5 as the start of Mr. Combs’s trial on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.Mr. Combs, 54, has been held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn for the past three weeks after being arrested at a New York hotel and then twice denied bail. He will remain in jail until the trial, pending another appeal that his lawyers filed this week.Mr. Combs was present at the hearing on Thursday. Wearing tan jail clothes, he walked into the courtroom waving and smiling at his family assembled in the gallery, including his mother and six of his children, and he embraced some of his lawyers.The hearing had been set as a routine scheduling matter. But it came one day after Mr. Combs’s lawyers filed a motion in which they accused government agents of leaking footage of Mr. Combs assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie to CNN. Without citing direct evidence, the lawyers theorized in court papers that the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that raided Mr. Combs’s homes in March, had been behind the leak. They said they might ask for the video to be barred as evidence at the trial.Emily A. Johnson, one of the prosecutors, commented briefly at the hearing about the defense’s accusation of leaks, saying, “The government believes the motion is baseless and it is simply a means to exclude a damning piece of evidence.” She said the government would be filing a response to the defense’s motion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Cases Against Sean Combs

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLast month Sean Combs — the hip-hop mogul known alternately as Puff Daddy, Puffy, Diddy and Love — was arrested on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty.The indictment was a striking fall from grace seemingly put in motion approximately a year prior, when one of his ex-girlfriends, the singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of rape and physical abuse. (That case was settled in one day.) A lawsuit filed in late September is the eighth over the past year by a woman accusing Combs of sexual assault; three other lawsuits have made allegations of sexual misconduct.On this week’s Popcast, a discussion of Combs’s criminal and civil cases, the role of the court of public opinion, and how the entertainment press covers morally complicated figures.Guests:Ben Sisario, The New York Times’s music business reporterJulia Jacobs, culture reporter for The New York TimesJoe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts. More

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      Sean Combs’s White Parties Were Edgy, A-List Affairs. Were They More?

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      The events helped the music mogul raise his profile. But one woman who worked at them has said in court papers that the parties had a dark side, too.In the 2000s, few events held the cultural cachet of the White Party thrown by Sean Combs — fetes in Beverly Hills, the Hamptons and other playgrounds of the rich, studded with famous names and fabulous tableaus.At the 2009 party, Demi Moore made the scene with Lil’ Kim, dancers gyrated in giant plastic balloons alongside tottering stilt walkers, and Ashton Kutcher swung, Tarzan-like, across a swimming pool as models in white bikinis lounged beside it.And at the center of it all was Mr. Combs, the billionaire hip-hop mogul also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, invariably toasting the scene with a glass of Cîroc vodka, and welcoming comparisons of his revels to those of lore.“Have I read ‘The Great Gatsby?’” Mr. Combs once told The Independent. “I am the Great Gatsby!”Today, Mr. Combs’s fortunes again invite comparison to Gatsby, though now through scandal. Prosecutors say Mr. Combs enlisted employees, enablers and prostitutes to stage far darker soirees than White Parties called “freak-offs” — drug-heavy, sometimes days-long hotel parties during which investigators say he abused and coerced participants into sexual acts, which he sometimes filmed and masturbated to.The criminal indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court this month has invited something of a reappraisal of the White Parties for some of those who reveled or worked at them. Were they merely innocuous, press-conscious branding events at which to see and be seen? Or was there, beyond the all-white facade, a darker element?Indeed, a recent lawsuit claims misdeeds occurred at those events, too: In July, Adria English, who was hired by Mr. Combs to work a series of White Parties in the mid-to-late 2000s, sued him, asserting she was plied with drugs and ecstasy-laced liquor at the events, and commanded to have sex with certain guests, making her into “a sexual pawn.” Jonathan Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, denied in July that his client had ever “sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Strange Cellmates in a Brooklyn Jail: Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried

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      Mr. Combs is sleeping in the same dormitory-style room as Mr. Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul who was convicted of fraud.Sean Combs is living in the same unit of a Brooklyn jail as Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul convicted of fraud, sleeping in a dormitory-style room with a group of other defendants assigned to the same section, according to a person familiar with the living arrangements.Mr. Combs has been held in the jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, for nearly a week, since federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging him with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in what the government has called a “decades-long pattern of physical and sexual violence.”He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers argued strenuously for him to be released on bail, proposing to a judge that he put up a $50 million bond and hire a security team to monitor him at all hours. The judge rejected the proposal, saying that he had concerns about Mr. Combs attempting to witness tamper, landing him in a special housing unit that often holds high-profile inmates.A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said the agency “does not provide information about conditions of confinement, including housing assignments or internal security practices for any particular incarcerated individual.”Mr. Bankman-Fried has been housed in the jail, known as M.D.C., since last year, when his bail was revoked after a judge ruled that he had violated conditions of his release. In the lead-up to his trial, his lawyers complained that he had only intermittent internet access and could not adequately prepare for his case. They said that Mr. Bankman-Fried, a vegan, was subsisting on a diet of water, bread and peanut butter.Mr. Bankman-Fried, who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of masterminding a sweeping fraud in which he siphoned billions of dollars of his customers’ money into venture capital investments, political contributions and other lavish spending. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs Is Denied Bail and Held at M.D.C., a Troubled Brooklyn Jail

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      The music mogul, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, was denied bail and ordered held at a federal detention center. His lawyers are appealing.When Sean Combs flew from Miami to New York this month to prepare for an expected federal indictment, he left behind his expansive mansion with multiple pools, a spa and a guesthouse on a man-made island.Going forward, though, home for Mr. Combs will most likely be the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking concrete structure in Brooklyn that houses more than 1,200 people and has a reputation for poor conditions.Mr. Combs was ordered held in federal detention on Tuesday and taken to the Brooklyn jail after a judge denied him bail. A grand jury had indicted him on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, and prosecutors said he was a dangerous person who would be at risk to flee if released.It was a sudden change of circumstances for a music producer, known in the industry as Diddy and Puff Daddy, who has been wealthy since becoming one of the most prominent record label founders of the 1990s. Jail records now have him registered under the number 37452-054.The M.D.C., as it is known, has been troubled by deaths and suicides and an electrical fire that once left inmates without heat for days in the dead of winter. A lawyer for Edwin Cordero, a detainee who died there in July from injuries he sustained in a fight, called the prison “an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth.”The Bureau of Prisons responded to criticism in a statement that said it “takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In the Sean Combs Case, Echoes of the Tack Taken Against Other Powerful Men

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      Federal authorities are prosecuting Mr. Combs under sex trafficking and racketeering laws, which were used to successfully prosecute R. Kelly and Keith Raniere in earlier abuse cases.Though graphic and startling in its details, the indictment of Sean Combs reflects a familiar playbook for federal prosecutions against high-profile men accused of a long-running history of abuse against women.The Combs indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday, resembles the prosecution strategy employed in two other major sexual abuse cases brought by federal investigators in recent years against Keith Raniere, the Nxivm sex cult leader, and R. Kelly, the R&B singer.Both of those men were convicted on some of the same sex trafficking and racketeering charges now facing Mr. Combs, who has pleaded not guilty.Racketeering charges are attractive to prosecutors pursuing powerful defendants because they are designed to present an “enterprise,” a complex web of individuals who helped the defendants carry out alleged crimes that can date back many years. In Mr. Combs’s case, for example, prosecutors have assembled their racketeering conspiracy charge by accusing him of crimes dating as far back as 2008, including arson, kidnapping, bribery and narcotics distribution.In some instances, the federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges allow prosecutors to cite crimes for which a state’s statute of limitations has expired.And the federal laws carry stiff punishments: The most severe sex trafficking law that Mr. Combs has been charged under carries a 15-year mandatory minimum prison sentence. The racketeering conspiracy charge, which accuses defendants of carrying out crimes as part of an “enterprise,” carries up to life in prison.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs Must Remain in Jail Until Trial After Judge Denies Bail Appeal

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      The judge said Mr. Combs posed a risk of witness tampering and was a danger to the community while awaiting his sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial.A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Sean Combs to remain in jail until his trial for sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, rejecting an appeal by the music mogul’s lawyers requesting that he be released on bail.Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. said at a hearing in Lower Manhattan that Mr. Combs posed a risk of witness tampering and was a danger to the safety of the community. He rejected an unusual proposal from Mr. Combs’s legal team in which he would have remained at his mansion in Florida, monitored around the clock by a private security force. The lawyers had offered a $50 million bond for his release.Arguing that Mr. Combs was prone to violence, prosecutors spoke at length about a leaked surveillance video from 2016 in which he was seen physically assaulting Casandra Ventura, his former girlfriend, who is known as Cassie. She filed a sexual assault lawsuit against him last year that was quickly settled.The judge said “that video is quite disturbing,” after which Mr. Combs, seated between his lawyers, nodded several times.Marc Agnifilo, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers, said his client should not be detained based on an assault from eight years ago that led him to go to rehab. “Mr. Combs has the unfortunate reality that the worst thing he ever did is on videotape,” the lawyer said.The government’s concern that Mr. Combs might intimidate witnesses was a theme of the hearing.“His influence makes it so difficult for witnesses to share their experiences and trust that the government can keep them safe from him,” said Emily A. Johnson, one of the prosecutors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Was Sean Combs Arrested? Read the Full Indictment.

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      commit at least two acts of racketeering activity in the conduct of the affairs of the Combs
      Enterprise.
      Notice of Special Sentencing Factor
      15. From at least in or about 2009, up to and including in or about 2018, in the Southern
      District of New York and elsewhere, as part of his agreement to conduct and participate in the
      conduct of the affairs of the Combs Enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity, SEAN
      COMBS, a/k/a “Puff Daddy,” a/k/a “P. Diddy,” a/k/a “Diddy,” a/k/a “PD,” a/k/a “Love,” the
      defendant, agreed to, in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce, knowingly recruit, entice,
      harbor, transport, provide, obtain, advertise, maintain, patronize, and solicit by any means a person,
      knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that means of force, threats of force, fraud, and
      coercion, as described in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1591(e)(2), and any
      combination
      of such means, would be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, in violation
      of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1591(a)(1) and (b)(1).
      (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1962(d).)
      COUNT TWO
      (Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud, or Coercion)
      (Victim-1)
      The Grand Jury further charges:
      16.
      From at least in or about 2009, up to and including in or about 2018, in the Southern
      District of New York and elsewhere, SEAN COMBS, a/k/a “Puff Daddy,” a/k/a “P. Diddy,” a/k/a
      “Diddy,” a/k/a “PD,” a/k/a “Love,” the defendant, in and affecting interstate and foreign
      commerce, knowingly recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained, advertised,
      maintained, patronized, and solicited by any means a person, knowing and in reckless disregard of
      the fact that means of force, threats of force, fraud, and coercion, as described in Title 18, United
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