Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sex trafficking trial is set to start with jury selection

NEW YORK AP Sean Diddy Combs the hip-hop entrepreneur whose wildly productive career has been dotted by statements of violence will be brought to a New York courthouse Monday to be tried on charges that he used the influence and information of his business empire to sexually abuse women Jury selection is scheduled to begin in the morning and potentially take several days Opening statements by the lawyers and the start of testimony is expected next week The -page indictment against Combs reads like a charging document filed against a Mafia leader or the head of a drug gang accusing him of engaging in sex trafficking and presiding over a racketeering conspiracy The indictment says that with the help of people in his entourage and employees from his system of businesses Combs engaged in a two-decade pattern of abusive behavior against women and others Women were manipulated into participating in drug-fueled sexual performances with male sex workers that Combs called Freak Offs prosecutors say To keep women in line prosecutors say Combs used a mix of influence and violence He offered to boost their entertainment careers if they did what he sought or cut them off if they didn t And when he wasn t getting what he requested the indictment says Combs and his associates resorted to violent acts including beatings kidnapping and arson Once the indictment alleges he even dangled someone from a balcony Combs and his lawyers say he is innocent Any group sex was consensual they say There was no effort to coerce people into things they didn t want to do and nothing that happened amounted to a criminal racket they noted The trial is expected to take at least eight weeks Combs has acknowledged one episode of violence that is likely to be featured in the trial In a guard camera recorded him beating up his former girlfriend the R B singer Cassie in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel Cassie filed a lawsuit in late saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse including beatings and rape The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Cassie whose legal name is Casandra Ventura did Combs attorney Marc Agnifilo has disclosed Combs was not a perfect person and that there had been drug use and toxic relationships but stated that all sexual activity between Combs Cassie and other people was consensual The trial is the latest and majority serious in a long string of legal problems for Combs In he was charged with bursting into the offices of an Interscope Records executive with his bodyguards and beating him with a champagne bottle and a chair The executive Steve Stoute later solicited prosecutors to go easy on Combs who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and took an anger management class Later that same year Combs was stopped by police after he and his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez fled a nightclub where three people were wounded by gunfire Combs was acquitted of all charges related to the circumstance at a trial but a rapper in his entourage Jamal Shyne Barrow was convicted in the shooting and served nearly nine years in prison Then in Combs was charged with assaulting someone with a weight-room kettlebell at the University of California Los Angeles where one of his sons played football Combs disclosed he was defending himself and prosecutors dropped the circumstance Now Combs faces his majority serious event yet If convicted he faces the possibility of decades in prison