Sean “Diddy” Combs blew kisses to relatives who packed a Manhattan courtroom Friday to hear his latest pitch for why he should be freed on bail pending trial on charges of leading a depraved criminal empire for more than a decade — including by forcing women to take part in days-long drugged-up sex shows.
Combs, 55, entered the courtroom through a side door in a khaki jail-issued outfit, and smiled and waved toward his family members in the second row of the gallery, including his twin 17-year-old daughters, Jesse and D’Lila Combs.
The disgraced music mogul’s lawyers plan to ask Judge Arun Subramanian to release him on $50 million bond while he prepares for his trial, scheduled for May 2025, on racketeering and sex-trafficking charges.
The disgraced hip-hop kingpin is being held without bail at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center after failing in three previous efforts to convince the courts to release him pending trial.
Combs was granted a fourth chance at arguing in favor of being released after the case was assigned to Subramanian, who is planning to oversee next year’s trial.
Subramanian could issue a ruling as soon as at the end of Friday’s hearing.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office have argued that Combs poses an “extreme danger to the community” and say he’s tampered with potential witnesses in the case.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking stemming from allegations that he led his label Bad Boy Records as a “criminal enterprise” for more than a decade, repeatedly physically abusing women in his orbit and bullying witnesses to his alleged crimes into silence.
Raids on his homes in Los Angeles and Miami turned up troves of evidence — including bags of narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant that Combs allegedly planned to use during what he called “Freak Offs,” marathon sex sessions in which he would lure women into having sex with male prostitutes while he watched, the feds say.
Combs has pleaded not guilty.
His lawyers have argued that the sexual encounters mentioned in the indictment were all consensual.
