Diddy trial live updates: Cassie Ventura to testify as other witness goes ‘missing’

A star witness in the Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs trial is reportedly MIA, throwing the disgraced Bad Boy mogul’s sex trafficking case into chaos.

Opening statements are set to begin next week. But federal prosecutors have been left scrambling.

They can’t find one of the female victims who is central to their case. She does not live in New York where the Combs’ trial is being held.

Diddy’s mother Janice and some of his children have arrived in court for opening statements Monday.

They were escorted past a crowd of media and would-be trial watchers and brought straight into the building.

Diddy’s lawyers are seeking to introduce explosive evidence that there was ‘mutual violence’ in his relationship to one of the women who will testify at his trial

The rapper’s attorneys said they wanted to raise issues of previous violent incidents by Victim 1 because it would be relevant to whether or not she was coerced into sexual assault.

The mutual abuse between Victim 1 and Diddy was so bad it amounted to ‘domestic violence’, the court heard.

Diddy has hired Nicole Westmoreland as the eigth lawyer on his defense team.

Westmoreland revealed she was raped in 2001 when she was just 19 years old.

She said a man named Alfred Cleveland raped her at Patchwerk Recording Studio in Atlanta, as reported by TMZ.

The star attorney joined Diddy’s team on Tuesday morning.

She is pictured leaving court last week.

The daughter of former FBI director James Comey, Maurene Comey, is one of the prosecutors in the sex-trafficking trial against Diddy.

She was also among the prosecutors in the trial of Ghislane Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

James Comey, nominee for FBI Director, shares a laugh with his daughters, Kate, center, and Maureen and his wife Patrice during his conformation hearing in 2013.

Maurene Comey points at Ghislaine Maxwell as she delivers the rebuttal argument for the government during the trial of Maxwell in 2021.

With opening statements in the trial expected to begin Monday, the line to get into the federal courthouse in Manhattan stretches all the way down the block.

A huge crowd of people began forming outside the courtroom at 2pm on Sunday, 43 hours before the hearing on Monday was due to begin.

Some of the rapper’s supporters were seen outside court, but none of his relatives were spotted as of 8.30am EST.

One line-sitter was trying to sell his spot for $300 after holding his place overnight.

Marc Agnifilo walks on the first day in the trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges

Attorney Brian Steel arrives at federal court for Combs’ sex trafficking trial in New York City

Judge Arun Subramanian admonsihed Mark Geragos in court after he made comments in a podcast calling Diddy’s prosecutors a ‘sick-pack of white women.’

According to prosecutors, Geragos has been advising Diddy’s team during the jury selection process even though he is not one of the rapper’s officials attorneys in the trial.

Subramanian, who is of South Asian descent, called Geragos’ comments ‘outrageous,’ but Geragos’ whose daughter Teny is a member of Diddy’s legal team, pushed back at the judge.

‘I think when you’ve got a Black man who’s being prosecuted and the client feels like he’s being targeted, it’s a — it’s an observation,’ Geragos said.

But the judge wasn not having and shot back: ‘I think this is ridiculous.

‘I think referring to the prosecution in this case as a six-pack of white women is outrageous. All right. And I understand what you’re saying about the cases and everything else, but I think this is outrageous and this would not be tolerated in any court from any lawyer anywhere across the nation.’

The final stage of choosing jurors is known as ‘peremptory’ or discretionary strikes: jurors that either side does not want to sit on the jury.

Diddy’s defense gets 10 strikes for the main jury of 12 people and the prosecution wil have six.

Then each side gets three each for the six alternate jurors.

There are 45 jurors who are qualified for this final stage: none of them will be in court and they are due to return on Monday for opening statements.

Several who were eliminated from the jury pool had seen or heard media reports related to the case, including some who said they saw a video in which Combs was hitting and kicking one of his accusers in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.

But one man who had written on a questionnaire that the video left him with the ‘impression of an angry hostile person who is entitled’ was not dismissed from the jury pool.

After the video aired on CNN last year, Diddy apologized, saying, ‘I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.’

In November, prosecutors claimed that the rapper had tried to reach out to prospective witnesses and influence public opinion from jail in a bid to affect potential jurors ahead of the trial.

Prosecutors wrote that a review of recorded jail calls made by Combs showed he asked family members to reach out to potential victims and witnesses and urged them to create ‘narratives’ to influence the jury pool. They said he also encouraged marketing strategies to sway public opinion.

An attorney for Combs, Anthony Ricco, said in court that the prosecution’s portrayal of Combs as ‘a lawless person who doesn’t follow instructions’ or ‘an out-of-control individual who has to be detained’ was inaccurate.

Judge Arun Subramanian denied the bail application, saying evidence showed Combs to be a ‘serious risk of witness tampering.’

A heavily pregnant Cassie Ventura is expected to take the stand in Diddy‘s blockbuster sex trafficking trial.

The rapper’s ex-girlfriend and victim of the notoriously violent smackdown video that was the catalyst for his arrest, she now holds the key to the most hotly anticipated celebrity trial in recent memory.

Rapper Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs faces a slew of charges related to his alleged sexual and physical abuse of women.

He was charged with three crimes – racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Diddy jurors will be able to leave court and go home after each day of the trial.

‘There are no plans to sequester the jury, which means you will go home every day after court,’ the jury questionnaire obtained by the outlet read.

However, jurors were instructed to “avoid all media coverage and not to go on the Internet or social media with regard to this case for any purpose.”

They are advised to avoid discussing the case with family, friends and colleagues until after the trial is done.

Composed and with his hands in his pockets, Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs greeted potential jurors who hold his fate in their hands with a slight nod as the sex trafficking trial that could send him to prison for life began Monday.

And despite the gravity of the crimes against him, Combs, 55, remained composed and calm, hugging his lawyers as he came in and nodding his head slightly when he faced the jurors with his hands in his pockets.

Until he cracked midway through the process after Diddy’s legal team requested a bathroom break. When the judge asked if they could carry on, Diddy put up his hand and said: ‘I’m sorry your honor, I’m a little nervous today.’

The singer, who is expecting her third child with husband Alex Fine, was spotted in New York this week as jury selection in her ex partner’s case dragged on.

She announced her pregnancy in February this year, and is understood to be in her third trimester.

Unlike other high-profile cases, the rapper’s trial will not be televised as it is in federal court.

Electronic media, including cameras, are banned in the Manhattan court room.

A sketch artist’s work will be the only visuals coming out of the courtroom.

Jury selection in Diddy’s trial was initially scheduled to last three days, ending on Wednesday.

But judge Arun Subramanian alloted more time for the process, intially delaying the final steps to Friday and then again to Monday.

Diddy’s lawyers had asked for the delay on Friday, saying that they were concerned that more jurors would get cold feet between now and Monday and it would be safer to wait until then.

Prosecutors strongly opposed this and said it should move ahead today because it could cause long delays on Monday before opening statements.

The judge had leaned towards the delay, saying that if they finished choosing the jury on Monday you got a ‘certainty you’re not going to have to redo jury selection or worse’.

He said opening statements would still begin early on Monday.