The sex traf­fick­ing tri­al of Sean “Did­dy” Combs, one of the biggest mu­sic moguls and cul­tur­al fig­ures of the past four decades, be­gan Mon­day in New York with ju­ry se­lec­tion. Twelve ju­rors, along with six al­ter­nates, will be cho­sen, with open­ing state­ments ex­pect­ed to be­gin May 12. The tri­al is ex­pect­ed to last at least eight weeks. Here’s a look at some of the de­tails.

The charges against Did­dy

Combs is charged with one count of rack­e­teer­ing con­spir­a­cy, two counts of sex traf­fick­ing by force, fraud or co­er­cion, and two counts of trans­porta­tion to en­gage in pros­ti­tu­tion. He has plead­ed not guilty.

The al­leged of­fens­es span from about 2004 un­til about 2024. Two of the counts were added a month be­fore tri­al.

The in­dict­ment against him says he co­erced and abused women for years with help from a net­work of as­so­ciates and em­ploy­ees while si­lenc­ing vic­tims through black­mail and vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing kid­nap­ping, ar­son and phys­i­cal beat­ings.

Pros­e­cu­tors al­lege he used his “pow­er and pres­tige” as a mu­sic star to in­duce fe­male vic­tims in­to drugged-up, elab­o­rate­ly pro­duced sex­u­al per­for­mances with male sex work­ers in events dubbed “freak offs.”

Pros­e­cu­tors re­vealed short­ly be­fore tri­al that Combs re­ject­ed a plea agree­ment that might have meant a lighter sen­tence than a con­vic­tion could. They did not dis­close the terms of the pro­posed deal.

The wit­ness­es and the ev­i­dence against Did­dy

With­out iden­ti­fy­ing them pub­licly, pros­e­cu­tors have said four of Combs’ ac­cusers will tes­ti­fy at the tri­al.

The pros­e­cu­tion will be al­lowed to show the ju­ry se­cu­ri­ty video of Combs beat­ing and kick­ing one of his ac­cusers, the R&B singer Cassie, in a Los An­ge­les ho­tel hall­way in 2016.

Did­dy’s at­tor­neys are ex­pect­ed to ar­gue at tri­al that the gov­ern­ment is de­mo­niz­ing and dis­tort­ing the sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty of con­sent­ing adults. They have al­so ar­gued that two of Combs’ long­time girl­friends will­ing­ly brought a male sex work­er in­to their re­la­tion­ship.

Cassie, whose le­gal name is Cas­san­dra Ven­tu­ra, was Combs’ on-again-off-again ro­man­tic part­ner for more than a decade. Her 2023 law­suit against Combs al­leg­ing years of abuse, in­clud­ing rape, be­gan the scruti­ny that even­tu­al­ly led to his pros­e­cu­tion.

The As­so­ci­at­ed Press does not typ­i­cal­ly name peo­ple who say they have been sex­u­al­ly abused un­less they come for­ward pub­licly, as Ven­tu­ra did.

The tri­al’s main play­ers

The tri­al is in the court­room of U.S. Dis­trict Judge Arun Sub­ra­man­ian. He’s a Co­lum­bia Law School grad­u­ate and for­mer clerk for Supreme Court Jus­tice Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg who was ap­point­ed a fed­er­al judge by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in 2022.

The pros­e­cu­tion team con­sists of eight as­sis­tant U.S. at­tor­neys, sev­en of them women. They in­clude Mau­rene Ryan Comey, daugh­ter of for­mer FBI Di­rec­tor James Comey. She was among the pros­e­cu­tors in the tri­al of Ghis­laine Maxwell, who was con­vict­ed of lur­ing teenage girls to be sex­u­al­ly abused by Jef­frey Ep­stein.

Combs’ team of sev­en de­fense at­tor­neys is led by New York lawyer Marc Ag­nifi­lo, who along with his wife Karen Fried­man Ag­nifi­lo, is al­so de­fend­ing Lui­gi Man­gione, the man ac­cused of the mur­der of Unit­ed­Health­care CEO Bri­an Thomp­son.

Al­so on the de­fense team is At­lanta at­tor­ney Bri­an Steel, who rep­re­sent­ed Young Thug in a tri­al that went on for near­ly two years be­fore the rap­per plead­ed guilty to gang, drug and gun charges.

Did­dy’s court ap­pear­ance

Combs, 55, has been held at a fed­er­al jail in Brook­lyn since his Sep­tem­ber ar­rest. His for­mer­ly jet black hair is now al­most com­plete­ly gray be­cause dye isn’t al­lowed at de­ten­tion cen­ter.

Combs, who had his own fash­ion line, has worn yel­low jail uni­forms in pre­tri­al hear­ings.

But for the tri­al, the judge said he can have up to five but­ton-down shirts, five pairs of pants, five sweaters, five pairs of socks and two pairs of shoes with­out laces.

Un­der fed­er­al court rules, no pho­tos or video of the tri­al will be al­lowed. Court­room sketch­es are per­mit­ted.

What we won’t hear at the tri­al

Since 2023, dozens of woman and men have been fil­ing law­suits against Combs claim­ing that he sex­u­al­ly or phys­i­cal­ly abused them. Many of those peo­ple said they were slipped drugs at events host­ed by Combs and were abused while they were in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed.

Combs has de­nied all of the al­le­ga­tions through his lawyers.

Some of those law­suits have claimed that oth­er celebri­ties were ei­ther present for or par­tic­i­pat­ed in the abuse.

The great ma­jor­i­ty of those al­le­ga­tions, how­ev­er, aren’t part of the crim­i­nal case. Pros­e­cu­tors have cho­sen to fo­cus on a rel­a­tive­ly small num­ber of ac­cusers and al­le­ga­tions where there is phys­i­cal ev­i­dence or cor­rob­o­ra­tion by wit­ness­es.

NEW YORK (AP)