Sean (Diddy) Combs on May 19 during his sex-trafficking trial.Elizabeth Williams/The Associated Press
A judge dismissed a juror in the sex-trafficking trial of Sean (Diddy) Combs on Monday after concluding that his conflicting answers about where he lives might indicate he had an agenda or wanted to stay on the jury for a purpose.
Judge Arun Subramanian made the ruling after rejecting arguments by Combs’s lawyers that it would disrupt the diversity of the jury to replace the Black man with a white juror.
Subramanian had first announced late Friday that he was dismissing the juror after questions arose over whether he resided in New York or New Jersey most of the time, but multiple defence lawyers protested and the judge waited until Monday to announce his final decision.
The judge said a review of the juror’s answers to questions about his residency during jury selection, along with his subsequent responses to similar questions in the robing room, revealed “clear inconsistencies.”
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“Taking these all together, the record raised serious concerns as to the juror’s candour and whether he shaded answers to get on and stay on the jury,” he said.
Subramanian said to leave the juror on the panel could threaten the integrity of the judicial process.
“The court should not, indeed cannot, let race factor into the decision of what happens. Here, the answer is clear. Juror No. 6 is excused,” Subramanian said before the jury, minus Juror No. 6, was brought into the courtroom for the resumption of testimony.
The judge expressed disappointment that the defence again raised the racial issue in a letter to the judge over the weekend and tried to accuse prosecutors of misconduct.
“There has been no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct brought to the court’s attention. Zero,” he said, rejecting a defence request for a mistrial.
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Prosecutors have said they expect to rest some time this week. The trial is in its sixth week.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. He has been active throughout the trial with his lawyers and nodded his head Friday as his lawyers argued outside the presence of the jury against dismissing the juror.
Earlier in the trial, he was warned by the judge that he could be excluded from the courtroom if Subramanian believed he was trying to influence jurors after the judge said he saw him twice nodding his head toward jurors as his lawyer carried out an aggressive cross-examination of a witness.
Last week, prosecutors complained he was continuing to nod and shake his head at times with the jury in the room, although he was no longer looking toward jurors as he did it.
Combs was arrested last September at a New York hotel. He was denied bail multiple times and has remained incarcerated at a federal lockup in Brooklyn ever since.