The district judge presiding over the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial dismissed Juror Number Six on Monday morning. There also appears to be an issue with yet another juror that the judge will address after Monday’s testimony concludes.   

“There’s nothing that the juror could say at this point that would put the genie back in the bottle,” the district judge, Arun Subramanian, said in federal court on Monday morning regarding Juror Number Six.

The judge had questioned the juror in his chambers to inquire if the “inconsistencies” he found last week with the man’s answers regarding his residency could be resolved. The judge said they were not. 

Last week, federal prosecutors asked the judge to remove Juror Number Six because there “appeared to be a lack of candor with the court,” as the Sun reported.  

The man had told the court during jury selection that he lives in the Bronx with his fiancée and “baby daughter.” But recently he told a court staffer in what the judge described as “an offhand conversation” that he had moved to New Jersey. When questioned by the judge last week, the man gave contradictory answers. 

The juror first said he spends most of his time in New Jersey with his girlfriend. Then he said he actually spends most of his time in an apartment in New York with his aunt, and to add to the confusion he told the court that his girlfriend lives with his daughter in New Jersey, instead of the Bronx as he had originally stated during the voir dire. 

Over the weekend, defense attorneys, who opposed the removal since the prosecution first raised the concern to the court, filed a letter in which they reiterated their disagreement and insisted that the reason the man was removed was because of his race. 

Juror Number Six is a 41-year-old Black man and he was replaced by a 57-year-old white man.   

“We believe that motive is supported not only by the government’s remarkable decision to use 7 of its 9 peremptory strikes on Black jurors but also by the history of the investigation and prosecution, which has been characterized by extreme government overreach from the beginning,” defense attorneys wrote in their filing.

“All of this was part of a coordinated effort to try to destroy one of the most successful Black men in American history,” the defense added. 

Mr. Combs’s net worth was estimated at $1 billion in 2022. He is believed to be worth far less now. The music producer, rapper, fashion designer, and entrepreneur lost a significant amount of money after his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, filed an explosive lawsuit against him in 2023, accusing him of years of sexual and physical abuse.

Adding further to his demise was the now infamous video of Mr. Combs kicking and dragging Ms. Ventura through the hallway of a hotel in Los Angeles, which was first aired by CNN and went viral. After the allegations and the video were published several companies cut ties with Mr. Combs. He is also spending vast amounts of money to settle lawsuits, fund his defense, and, according to Rolling Stone, pay for a concerted lobbying effort to win a pardon from President Trump.     

The defense has long blamed prosecutors for Mr. Combs’s downfall, including blaming them for leaking the hotel video to CNN (which the prosecution denied). The defense attorneys had previously raised the racism issue during jury selection, when they moved for a Batson challenge, a legal objection to using peremptory challenges to exclude potential jurors based on their race, ethnicity, or gender. The judge denied the request. 

Last week, defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro said the request to remove the juror was a “thinly veiled effort, to dismiss a black juror.” 

“It’s essentially a pretext … there’s no substance there,” Ms. Shapiro said.

Juror Number Six was one of only two Black jurors on the eight-man, four-woman panel that has been picked to decide Mr. Combs’s case. Racial justice advocates have long complained that Black people are underrepresented in juries in the Southern District of New York — whose population is more than 20 percent Black —where Mr. Combs is being tried. Last year, an appeals court said the racial disparities are “troubling” but declined to throw out a Black man’s weapons conviction. 

Mr. Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation for the purpose of prostitution. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

After questioning the juror for what appears to have been the third time, the judge said his answers “raised serious questions about the juror shading his answers to be on the jury,” meaning he believed the juror may have lied just to serve on the jury. 

The man, who works as an accountant in a correctional facility in New York, claimed to live in the Bronx. To be a juror in the Southern District of New York, one has to reside in Manhattan, the Bronx, or in one of the six New York State counties north of the Bronx. If Juror Number Six does not in fact reside in the Bronx, and lives in New Jersey, then he is not legally eligible to serve on the jury because he lives outside the court’s jurisdiction.

Beside the unresolved issue of where the man actually lives, the “changing answers” and the “inconsistency” were also problematic in terms of the man being able to follow instructions and answer truthfully in other matters regarding the case, the judge reasoned, saying that giving  honest answers “goes to a juror’s basic criteria to serve.”

In respect of the defense’s allegation that there was racism at play, the judge said, “To be perfectly clear, from the outset of this proceeding to the current date, there has been no evidence and no showing of any kind of any biased conduct or biased manner of proceeding from the government.”

The judge further reasoned that Mr. Combs does not get “the right to a boutique jury” that resembles his own race. 

The alternate juror who has replaced Juror Number Six is a 57-year-old architect from Westchester County. He has a degree in mechanical engineering, enjoys hiking and biking, and is a fan of the New York Mets.

But there appears to be yet another juror — whose number has not been disclosed — who will face more questions from the judge, because he allegedly had a conversation with a colleague about Mr. Combs’s case. Judge Subramanian questioned the juror on Friday, and asked him to give his cellphone to the court. 

The judge said he would speak to the juror again at the end of the day on Monday.