Diddy Trial to Proceed as Planned as Judge Denies 2-Month Extension

A New York City judge denied Sean “Diddy” Combs’ request to delay his federal trial by two months on Friday, determining that his multiple legal teams provide ample experience and manpower to maintain the original start date.

Jury selection will begin on May 5 ahead of opening statements on May 12. Diddy has been charged with five counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pled not guilty to all charges.

“It is unclear why there isn’t sufficient time to prepare,” Judge Arun Subramanian said in his ruling.

The disgraced rapper appeared in court for Friday’s hearing, where his team argued they need more time to review discovery due to prosecutors allegedly being slow with the evidence. The U.S. Southern District Court of New York ultimately ruled against Combs, a year after the Department of Homeland Security first raided his properties in Los Angeles, New York and Miami in March 2024. He was subsequently arrested that September.

The update also comes a day after Combs’ team asked that CNN’s video footage of the music mogul brutally beating his ex-girlfriend Cassie in a hotel be excluded from evidence. They claim the network edited the surveillance material, making it “altered” or “manipulated” and, therefore, “unreliable.”

“There is no longer any dispute that the CNN footage from March 5, 2016, at the Intercontinental Hotel, offered by the government at three separate bail hearings, is wholly inaccurate, having been altered, manipulated, sped-up and edited to be out of sequence,” his lawyers wrote in a Thursday motion. “As indicated below, CNN paid [redacted] for footage, copied that footage in unknown ways, presented that footage out of order and destroyed the original. Accordingly, all the footage from CNN is inaccurate and inadmissible as well.”

Combs will remain incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after many failed attempts at bail.

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