The choose within the Sean “Diddy” Combs intercourse trafficking path is more likely to take away a juror and may have him changed with an alternate after prosecutors discovered inconsistencies in his solutions about the place he lives.
Throughout jury choice, the juror (Juror #6) mentioned he lived within the Bronx. However, prosecutors mentioned, he instructed a court docket worker that he just lately moved to New Jersey.
Underneath questioning by Decide Arun Subramanian, the juror acknowledged shifting, however mentioned he retains a New York driver’s license and stays there through the week. Solely New York residents can function Manhattan federal court docket jurors.
Subramanian determined there have been critical questions concerning the juror’s candor and talent to observe instructions, primarily based on inconsistencies he has given at completely different instances. Due to that, the choose mentioned the juror should be eliminated, however he would withhold his official ruling till Monday, when he’ll have the ability to discuss with the person yet one more time.
Combs’ legal professionals referred to as it a “thinly veiled effort to dismiss a Black juror” and instructed Subramanian was “conflating inconsistencies with lying.” As a result of protection’s intense protestations, the choose was satisfied to carry off on making the ultimate determination till Monday.
The choose famous that even when the juror is ousted, the jury continues to be numerous.
It got here as a part of a wierd day within the trial, however not for something that truly transpired in court docket. Simply hours earlier than the dismissal, Ye — the rapper previously often called Kanye West — briefly confirmed as much as the decrease Manhattan courthouse on Friday to help the hip-hop mogul, a longtime good friend. However he wasn’t allowed into the courtroom and left after briefly watching the trial on a video monitor in one other room.
Ye, wearing white, arrived at Manhattan federal court docket earlier than midday whereas the trial was on a break and spent about 40 minutes within the constructing.
After rising from an airport-style safety screening, Ye was requested if he was on the courthouse to help Combs.
“Yes,” he responded with a nod. He then hustled to an elevator and didn’t reply when requested if he may testify on Combs’ behalf when the protection begins its presentation as early as subsequent week.
Courthouse safety didn’t take him to the twenty sixth flooring the place the trial happens in one of many constructing’s largest courtrooms. Admittance there may be strictly managed, with seats reserved for Combs’ household and authorized group, the media and spectators who wait in line for hours to get a coveted seat.
The rapper was taken as a substitute to a courtroom three flooring under the trial flooring. There, he briefly noticed testimony on a big closed-circuit monitor in an overflow room that was one flooring under the same old overflow room, which was filled with media representatives and courthouse workers who heard erroneously that he is perhaps there.
As phrase of his precise location unfold and spectators trickled into the room the place Ye sat within the entrance row with Combs’ son, Christian, a bodyguard and one other Combs’ supporter on a facet of the room that was in any other case stored vacant by a court docket officer, Ye seemed across the room earlier than abruptly getting up and leaving, together with the others with him.
Ye did not reply additional questions as he left the courthouse, strolling previous reporters and TV cameras and ducking right into a ready black Mercedes sedan.
MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER
