(New York) Rapper and hip-hop producer P. Diddy, incarcerated in New York in a vast sex trafficking case, briefly appeared Wednesday in federal court where he is due to be tried in the spring of 2025.
Posted at 6:12 p.m.
Influential figure in hip-hop and the music industry, Sean Combs – his real name –, 55, appeared dressed in rumpled inmate pants and shirt and greeted some of his children with big smiles present in the courtroom of Manhattan federal court.
P. Diddy, also called Diddy or Puff Daddy, must be tried there from May 5, 2025 during a trial for trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, extortion and transportation of people for the purposes of prostitution, all charges to which he pleaded not guilty, saying he was innocent. He faces life imprisonment.
Also targeted by civil complaints from more than 120 alleged victims, the rapper is accused by the courts of having put his “empire” at the service of a violent sex trafficking system.
A bling-bling artist, known for throwing large parties in the 1990s and 2000s, he is today described by his alleged victims as a sexually violent predator, who used alcohol and drugs to obtain their submission.
On Wednesday, at the end of a brief hearing where the prosecution and defense mainly discussed the procedure before Judge Arun Subramanian, the accused embraced his lawyers one by one and wished them “happy holidays” before to go back to prison. A new procedural hearing has been set for March 17, 2025.
With his label Bad Boy Records, founded in 1993, Sean Combs launched the careers of Notorious BIG, a rap icon murdered in 1997, and singer Mary J. Blige.
Ten days ago, the case took a new turn when Jay-Z, another hip-hop star and producer who now heads an entertainment empire, was accused in a civil complaint of raping a 13-year-old girl with P. Diddy, in 2000.
Jay-Z denied the accusations and counterattacked by assuring that the victim’s lawyer had sought to extort funds from him before filing a complaint.
