Music mogul ‘Diddy’ faces allegations of abuse during first day of US trial | Courts News

Several witnesses have tasks in the Sean “Diddy” Combs, who faces accusations of extortion and sex trafficking lasting their time as head of an entertainment empire.

The testimony at the trial begged Monday after the final phase of jury selection and the declaration of opening of the lawyers. Combs, wearing a light gray sweater, they gave the followers in the New York room room in the United States.

“For 20 years, the defendant, with the help of his intimate circle of confidence, committed crime after crime,” said tax prosecutor Emily Johnson to the court. “That’s why we are here today. That’s what this case is about.”

Several witnesses testified that they had experienced physical violence, intimidation and manipulation by the combs, while rapper lawyers said they have accused the wrong categories of crimes and “their perverse sex and whistle preferences.

The lawyer Tey Geragos told the jury that they can end up thinking that combs was an “idiot” or “son of Mean”, but that he is not accused “of bee or an imbecile.”

“This case these are voluntary options made by adults capable of consensual relationships,” Geragos said during his opening statement.

Johnson, the United States prosecutor, said combs “attacked” women who refused to participate in the parties called “strangers.”

“They will tell you about some of the most painful experiences of their lives. The days that passed in hotel rooms, with a high drug content, dresses with costumes for the performance of the defendant’s sexual fantasies,” Johnson told the jurors of testimony of victims in the case.

‘She was trembling’

The court hall was silent when a video of combs was shown that hit and kicking their ex -girlfriend Casandra Ventura in 2016.

A stripper named Daniel Phillip testified that Comink had thrown a bottle of liquor towards Ventura before grabbing her by hair and dragging it screaming to another room, where Phillip says that the Peines heard shouts and hitting Ventura.

“He literally jumped in my lap and was trembling, as his whole body was trembling. He was terrified,” Phillip de Ventura testified.

Geragos admitted that combs is prone to jealousy and had committed an act or “horrible violence of dehumanization” in the exhibition of videos to jurors, but that it was evidence of domestic abuse, not alleged acts of sexual trafficking or extortion that are in the center of the case.

Prosecutors say that combs, who faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison if he is convicted of the five serious crimes to what he had declared innocent, pushed women to participate in drug fed parts and then chanthaded.

The state of combs as a high profile artist has brought substantial in the trial, as well as a broader debate about how the powerful figures in sectors such as entertainment, business, sports and politicians to evade responsibility for acts of abuse.

As a case, the jury and the alternatives, 12 men and six women, were sitting in the courtroom. Opening arguments began after the judge finished explaining the law as he addresses to this trial, along with unforeseen events such as a light breakfast will be provided with the jury in addition to lunch.

The jury for this case is essential anonymous, which means that its identities are known by the court and prosecution and defense, but it will not be made public.

“We will keep their names and identities in confidence,” Subramanian told the jury.

It is a common practice in federal cases to maintain anonymous jurors, partly in sensitive and high profile matters where jury’s security can be a concern. The names of the jury also remained from the public in the criminal trial of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, last year in the State Court in New York.

Subramanian urged the jury members to judge the case only based on the evidence presented in the court. It is a standard instruction, but it has additional importance in this case of high profile, which has been the subject or the intense coverage of the media.

“Anything I have seen or heard outside the courtroom is not evidence,” said the judge. “It must be ignored.”