Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty on March 14 in a New York City court before Judge Arun Subramanian after a superseding indictment was filed, unveiling new allegations. The updated charges extended the timeline of Combs’ alleged criminal conduct, added new victims, and included claims that Combs forced at least one employee to engage in sex acts with him.
According to ABC News, Combs was arrested in 2024 after being charged of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy, which he has also pleaded not guilty to. Combs’ not guilty pleas on all charges have set the stage for a trial to begin on May 12, after jury selection begins May 5.
According to federal prosecutors, there are around 20 witnesses who are potential witnesses, but Mitzi Steiner, a federal prosecutor, told the outlet that many of them are “incredibly frightened” at the prospect of being publicly known or publicly known to Combs.
Per The Associated Press, the indictment details how Combs allegedly used the “power and prestige” he had access to as a music mogul to intimidate, threaten, and lure women into his orbit, often using the pretense of a romantic relationship to do so.
Following this pattern of behavior, the indictment surmised, Combs used force, threats and coercion to make victims engage in commercial sex acts and often subjected those victims to violence, threats of financial, and other kinds of harm, and verbal abuse.
“On multiple occasions, Combs threw both objects and people, as well as hit, dragged, choked and shoved others,” the indictment said. “On one occasion, Combs dangled a victim over an apartment balcony.”
Judge Subramanian asked the prosecution if they would be using a 2016 video that depicts Combs kicking and dragging his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a way that is “deceptive,” an argument that Combs’ defense team has raised in their attempts to keep it from being entered as evidence.
“It’s a misleading piece of evidence. It’s a deceptive piece of evidence,” Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo told ABC News.
He continued, “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.”However, a CNN spokesperson denied these explosive claims, telling the outlet that the footage was not altered by the news network.
“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.”
Contrary to the claims of Combs’ defense team, Douglas H. Wigdor, an attorney for Ventura, asserted that the video had not been altered
and said that he believed the video would ultimately be allowed into evidence.“It is not surprising that Combs would make a disingenuous argument to exclude the disturbing video from being shown to the jury in the upcoming trial,” Wigdor told USA Today. “I am confident that the video fairly and accurately represents what happened, will be admitted into evidence, and that Combs will be held accountable for his depravity.”
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