After the rapper and music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs formally rejected a plea deal with the government in his high-profile sex trafficking case on Thursday, the trial will begin, as planned, with jury selection at a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Monday. 

“Have you rejected the government’s offer?” the presiding district judge, Arun Subramanian, asked Mr. Combs. “Yes I do, your honor,” Mr. Combs replied.

He wore a beige prison jumpsuit and black rimmed glasses; his hair was gray and he appeared to have lost weight. Yet he seemed to be in a rather upbeat mood. He had waved and smiled at someone he seemed to recognize in the gallery when he entered the courtroom. He hugged his attorneys and even fist-bumped one of them, Teny Geragos, whose father, the celebrity defense attorney Mark Geragos, is reportedly joining Mr. Combs’s large defense team. 

An assistant United States attorney, Maurene Comey, the daughter of a former FBI director, James Comey, confirmed to the judge that a plea deal had been offered, and that it involved a lighter sentence than what  Mr. Combs will face if he is convicted. But the rapper was undeterred. When the judge asked if his counsel had made any “recommendations,” the lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, stood up and said they had discussed the offer and reached the decision “together.” 

The details of the rejected deal were not made public, but it likely involved a stiff enough sentence that Mr. Combs decided to roll the dice. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. 

The five-count indictment includes charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. While these kinds of charges were originally designed to break mob organizations and prostitution operations in which women were bonded into sexual slavery, prosecutors in the last decade have successfully convicted a variety of individuals, many of them celebrities, on “racketeering” and “sex trafficking” charges, like the former singer, songwriter and music producer R. Kelly, who is serving a 31-year combined sentence. 

Federal prosecutors allege that Mr. Combs ran a “criminal enterprise” over two decades, spanning between 2004 and 2024, that coerced women and men into consuming drugs and participating in sex marathons during extravagant sex parties. 

Mr. Combs, 55, who is also known by his current and former stage names of Diddy, P. Diddy, or Puff Daddy, was known to throw extravagant parties in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills, among other jet-setter destinations. Some of these parties, such as his White Parties, the last of which was in 2009, were highly sought invitations filled with celebrities and featured in glossy magazines. But there were other, less public parties that Mr. Combs referred to as “Freak Offs.”

Now prosecutors accuse the rapper of having staged these “Freak Offs” to force people satisfy his lust for sex and control, writing in the indictment that he allegedly “abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.” 

“Combs relied on the employees, resources, and influence of the multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled—creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice,” prosecutors wrote.

During March 2024 raids on Mr. Combs’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles, federal authorities seized more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil. 

Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges and insists that all sexual encounters were “consensual” and “transactional,” his defense attorneys wrote. In a pre-trial hearing last Friday, Mr. Agnifilo told the judge that his client was a “swinger.”

“There’s a lifestyle, call it swingers or whatever you will, that he thought was appropriate because it was common,” Mr. Agnifilo told the court, the New York Post reported. “Many people think it’s appropriate because it’s common.”

Four alleged victims are expected to testify during the trial, which could last up to 10 weeks. Three of them, the judge ruled, will testify under pseudonyms. The fourth victim will not hide her name: Casandra Ventura. She was Mr. Combs’s girlfriend between 2007 and 2018. 

Ms. Ventura sued Mr. Combs in November 2023, accusing her ex-boyfriend 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.  

The lawsuit was settled in one day without Mr. Combs admitting any wrongdoing. But it has been credited for laying the groundwork for the criminal trial. 

Several months after the lawsuit was settled, CNN first aired a video from March 2016 that shows Mr. Combs, wearing only a towel, kicking and dragging a cowering Ms. Ventura through a hallway at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles. The shocking video was damaging to public perceptions of Mr. Combs, so damaging that New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, took back a symbolic award he had given to Mr. Combs to honor his contributions to the city. In a ceremony in Times Square in September 2023, the mayor had handed the rapper the key to New York City, but after the video surfaced, he asked the rapper to return the key, which he did. 

Defense attorneys had asked the judge 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. Defense attorneys have also accused prosecutors of leaking the video to CNN during their investigation in order to increase pressure on Mr. Combs and turn public opinion against him. But last week, the judge denied the defense’s request and ruled that the video can be shown to the jury.  

During Thursday’s hearing, Judge Subramanian explained how jury selection will proceed on Monday. He said he wanted to seat a jury of 12 people and six alternates in three days. 

The court has already screened potential jurors from a pool of hundreds of  New Yorkers over the last few days, discussing scheduling and other conflicting issues that could prevent someone from serving in the trial. 

On Monday, the judge will call 50 people into the courtroom. Each prospective juror will either be excused for cause, meaning for a reason the judge deems valid, or be asked to return for further questioning by the attorneys. 

If a potential juror wishes to discuss any concerns in private, attorneys from both parties and the judge will exclude other jurors and the media from such discussions. The court transcript will also be sealed for those conversations. 

The potential jurors have also been asked to fill out a questionnaire, which has not been made public. Court filings by both parties indicated that jurors would be asked about their experiences with and opinions about partner violence, cheating in a relationship, prostitution, the use of illegal drugs and alcohol, substance abuse, and about the music industry.

“The defendant in this case is a wealthy celebrity,” a filing from the defense stated, suggesting a question about whether “wealthy people get away with things that the less wealthy do not?”

On Thursday, Mr. Agnifilo told the judge that considering the significant media attention around the case, he would like to add this question: “Have you read anything since completing the questionnaire?” The judge agreed to do so. 

Defense attorneys raised another issue regarding the media, specifically the public comments made by two attorneys, Douglas Wigdor, who represents Ms. Ventura, and Los Angeles-based Lisa Bloom, who represent other accusers who have filed separate civil suits against Mr. Combs.   

Ms. Geragos, whom Mr. Combs had greeted with a fist-bump, told the judge that Ms. Bloom, who is the daughter of celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, made comments in a documentary aired on the BBC, where she discussed her client’s allegations against the defendant. 

“It is deeply disturbing to us and could violate the rules of judicial conduct,” Ms. Geragos complained to the judge, adding, “We’re concerned with her behavior here.” 

Judge Subramanian reminded everyone to refrain from making public statements, saying, “now that we’re on the eve of the trial,” he wanted everyone “to be mindful of their actions that would disrupt and impair the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” 

One of the few requests Mr. Combs was granted was his request to wear regular clothing during the course of his trial. The judge said on Wednesday that the defendant can select up to five button-down shirts, five pairs of pants, five sweaters, five pairs of socks, and two pairs of laceless shoes when he appears in the courtroom. The clothing will be given to him at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he has been detained since his arrest last September. He was denied bail three times, despite a proposal including elaborate arrangements whereby he could be under house arrest at his Florida estate. 

The judge told the parties to appear in court on Monday at 8 a.m.