By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sean “Diddy” Combs will remain in jail ahead of his May 5, 2025 trial on sex trafficking charges after a U.S. judge on Wednesday denied his request to be released on $50 million bail from a Brooklyn jail. The music mogul performed for 10 weeks.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian announced the written ruling, after hearing arguments during a two-hour hearing on Nov. 22 in Manhattan federal court.
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Combs has been denied bail three times since his arrest, with several judges raising the possibility that he may have tampered with witnesses.
The rapper and producer pleaded not guilty on September 17 to charges that he used his business, including his record label Bad Boy Entertainment, to sexually harass women.
Prosecutors said the abuse included forcing women to take part in recorded sex acts called “freak offs” with male prostitutes who were sometimes transported across national borders.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys said the sexual activity described by prosecutors was consensual.
His defense lawyers argued that he should live in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he would be monitored around the clock by security guards he would pay for, and prohibited from meeting suspected victims or witnesses.
But prosecutors said it would be impossible for Combs to follow the rules.
From behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Combs used the numbers of other inmates to make phone calls in violation of prison rules designed to monitor communications, prosecutors said. Defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro said that such sharing between inmates is common.
Prosecutors also said a 2016 hotel surveillance video of Combs beating his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, showed there was a risk he would become violent if released.
“This video is proof that the defendant is violent and a danger to the community,” prosecutor Christine Slavik said in court. “The accused has been abusing physically, sexually and emotionally his loved ones for years.”
Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo argued that there was a risk that Combs would act violently.
“There is zero percent chance of that happening,” Agnifilo said at the hearing.
Combs apologized in May after CNN aired video of him kicking, pushing and dragging Cassie in a hotel lobby. Agnifilo said he never denied the incident, but said the video is not evidence of sex trafficking.
“Our defense to these charges is that this was a horrible, loving relationship of 11 years,” Agnifilo told the court.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel and Caitlin Webber)