A federal judge on Friday denied a request by the rapper and music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs to delay his upcoming sex trafficking trial by two months. The high-profile trial will begin, as scheduled, in May.      

“It is unclear why there isn’t sufficient time to prepare,” the district judge, Arun Subramanian, told defense attorneys at a pre-trial hearing. The defense had requested to postpone the trial after their client was charged with two additional counts earlier this month and they said they needed more time to investigate the evidence. But Judge Subramanian pointed out that with four separate defense teams, Mr. Combs, a former billionaire, had enough manpower to get ready by May.  

On Monday, court documents showed that an Atlanta-based defense attorney, Brian Steel, had asked for permission to practice in the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, where the trial will be held, so he can  join Mr. Combs’ defense team.  

Mr. Steel successfully represented another rapper, Jeffery Lamar Williams II, or Young Thug, in an epic RICO case in Atlanta. The case, the longest in the history of Georgia, ended with a plea bargain where Mr. Williams was released on probation for time served, a major defeat for Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney and enemy of President Trump.

Mr. Combs, 55, who is also known by his current and former stage names of Diddy, P. Diddy or Puff Daddy, is credited with the discovery and development of singer Mary J. Blige, Usher, and the Notorious B.I.G. He also dated the singer and actress Jennifer Lopez for two years. In 2001, he was found not guilty by a jury after he was charged with firing a gun in a Manhattan nightclub. 

In recent years, Mr. Combs’ reputation and business empire began to collapse under the weight of lawsuits and media cover alleging sexual abuse and violence. And last year, after years circling him for years, federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Combs on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, and transportation for purposes of prostitution last year. 

Numerous witnesses and victims accuse Mr. Combs of hosting sex parties, or “Freak Offs” as he is said to have called them, during which he drugged women and coerced them into having sex with him. During March 2024 raids on Mr. Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles during their investigation, federal authorities seized more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil. 

Mr. Combs has denied the claims in the indictment and pleaded not guilty to all charges. His attorneys say any of his sexual activities were consensual and among adults.

During the two-hour long hearing on Friday, Mr. Combs sat at his defense table, appearing solemn. The hair on his head as well as his goatee had notably grayed since his arrest last September. He wore beige colored prison clothing. Judge Subramanian denied him bail three times, leaving the former rap star – who was known for fancy suits, fur coats, flashy jewelry and sunglasses – incarcerated at Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, the same federal jail, where the Ivy League graduate, Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is currently detained. The two defendants also share the same attorney, Marc Agnifilo. Although Mr. Agnifilo’s wife, Karen Friedman Agnifilo has mostly argued on Mr. Mangione’s behalf during the hearings.

In recent months, Mr. Combs’ legal team has gone to great lengths to win him bail, saying he’ll pay for extensive security to guard him at his Florida estate. But the judge has been unmoved.   

While Judge Subramanian granted the prosecution’s request that three of the victims could testify using pseudonyms, he did allow Mr. Agnifilo’s request to submit further arguments as to why such anonymity would harm the defense’s case, and said he would be willing, if convinced, to alter his ruling.     

One of the victims who will testify will not hide her name: Mr. Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Casandra Ventura. In 2023, the rapper and Ms. Ventura settled a civil lawsuit she filed against him, in one day, without Mr. Combs admitting any wrongdoing. 

The lawsuit has been credited for laying the groundwork for the criminal trial. Ms. Ventura accused Mr. Combs of repeated physical abuse over more than a decade, of forcing her to have sex with male sex workers while he masturbated and filmed them, and of raping her in September 2018, toward the end of their relationship, among other allegations.  

Before the settlement was reached, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Ben Brafman, who successfully represented Mr. Combs in the 2001 gun trial, said that Ms. Ventura had blackmailed his client, by demanding $30 million so she wouldn’t publish a book about their relationship. The book, it appears, has now been written, and Judge Subramanian has ordered prosecutors to provide a draft of the unpublished memoir to the defense by April 25. 

Last year, CNN first aired a video from March 2016, which shows Mr. Combs, wearing only a towel, kicking and dragging a cowering Ms. Ventura through a hallway at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles in March 2026. The shocking video was hugely damaging to public perceptions of Mr. Combs.

On Thursday, defense attorneys asked the judge in court filings to exclude the video from evidence, arguing that CNN had “altered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited” the video footage in such a way that it was “inaccurate.” CNN has repeatedly denied this allegation, saying it never touched the footage and is still in possession of the original copy. 

After the video surfaced last year, Mr. Combs publicly apologized, saying in a post on Instagram that, “It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you got to do that… I hit rock bottom but I make no excuses… My behavior on that video is inexcusable.” 

The defense accuses the government of leaking the hotel surveillance video to CNN, and has sought, so far unsuccessfully, to have the prosecution barred from admitting the video as evidence. The defense has requested a separate hearing with a forensic video analyst to demonstrate how and where the video was, as they argue, altered. The prosecution has yet to respond to the motion. 

The judge ruled that most of the evidence regarding prior sexual assault allegations against Mr. Combs, which are not part of the indictment, would not be allowed at trial. 

Another point of contention were the expert witnesses that prosecutors and defense attorneys intend to call. One defense attorney, Alexandera Shapiro, raised the concern that one expert witness would make statements about sexual abuse that were too general, and could thus mislead the jury into thinking her psychological findings were facts. “You can’t make general statements about individual people,” Ms. Shapiro argued. 

“I am mindful of your concern,” the judge said. He had previously ruled that the term ‘coercive control’ could not be used as a psychological concept because it is also a legal term.           

At the end of the hearing, court officers permitted Mr. Combs to turn around and look at his mother, Janice Combs, who was sitting in the courtroom audience. Mr. Combs told her, “I love you. Everything will be alright.” 

Jury selection is scheduled for May 5. The trial is expected to last between eight and ten weeks.