Opening arguments will begin Monday morning at federal court in the sex-trafficking trial of a fallen music mogul, Sean “Diddy” Combs. The judge will first select and seat the jury, followed by opening arguments and a first witness the government intends to call. That’s the plan. But court proceedings are always slightly unpredictable, especially in a case as unusual and high stakes as this one against Mr. Combs.   

On Friday, federal prosecutors said they were still unable to contact one of the four alleged victims, referred to as “victim three.” 

“She has been served with a subpoena. We do not know whether she intends to appear, and we are trying very hard to find out because we are having trouble communicating with her counsel,” an assistant United States attorney, Maurene Comey, told the presiding judge. 

Ms. Comey, the daughter of a former FBI director, James Comey, had first raised the issue last Monday, when jury selection began. The alleged victim “does not live locally,” Ms. Comey said, “and her attorney has had some personal issues, so it’s been difficult to get in touch with the attorney and it’s been difficult to get in touch with her.” 

Defense attorneys asked the judge to pressure the prosecution for a definite answer on the missing witness by the end of last week, because they wanted to know whether to include the victim’s story in their upcoming opening arguments. 

But prosecutors pushed back, saying: “There is no particular count that requires her testimony in order for us to carry our burden. … She is referenced as one of many, many acts of racketeering … activity. … And as is always the case at trial, it’s possible that a party, the government or the trial progresses, decides not to call a witness.”

The presiding district judge, Arun Subramanian, agreed, and by Friday it remained unclear if the victim had been found.   

A fifth accuser will be allowed to testify, the judge ruled, even though she is not related to the charges against Mr. Combs, because her account mirrors the coerced sex accusations by the other four victims. 

Mr. Combs, 55, who is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, and transportation for purposes of prostitution, and faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted, was arrested last September. The judge denied him bail three times, despite his elaborate proposals to be guarded at his own expense at his Florida estate. One of the reasons for the denial was the concern that his release would pose a “high risk” of “witness tampering.” Mr. Combs has been incarcerated at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Once one of the most powerful figures in the music business, Mr. Combs, 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 singers Mary J. Blige, Usher, and the Notorious B.I.G. He also dated the singer and actress Jennifer Lopez for two years. The music producer, rapper, and entrepreneur, who founded the successful fashion brand “Sean Jean” and partnered with Ciroc vodka and DeLeon tequila, was a self-made billionaire in 2022. 

But Mr. Combs has long skated at the edge of the law, starting with his involvement in a fatal stampede at a City College event he was promoting in 1991, and then, a decade later, his involvement in a nightclub shooting that ended with a not guilty verdict. Three bystanders were injured, including one woman who was shot in the face.

Mr. Combs’s protégé, a young rapper known by his stage name Shyne, was convicted for illegal gun possession and other charges and served nearly nine years in state prisons. Shyne, who is a citizen of Belize and was a green card holder, was deported from the United States after his release. He has insisted that he fired his gun into the air and acted in self-defense, and was the “fall guy” for Mr. Combs. The woman who was shot in the face, Natania Reuben, claims to this day that it was Mr. Combs who shot her, which he denies.

In recent years, Mr. Combs’s reputation and business empire began to collapse under the weight of lawsuits and media coverage alleging years of sexual abuse and violence. 

Mr. Combs’s lucrative partnerships with Ciroc and DeLeon ended in 2023, the same year his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, filed an explosive lawsuit against him. (Although Mr. Combs has lost some of his fortune; he still has an estimated net worth of about $300 million, according to NewsNation.) 

The lawsuit, which was settled in one day, without Mr. Combs admitting any wrongdoing, laid the roadmap for the criminal trial. Ms. Ventura accused Mr. Combs of repeated physical abuse over more than a decade, of drugging her and 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. 

Last year, during a time when federal prosecutors were believed to be investigating Mr. Combs, 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. The defense filed several motions, trying in vain to get the video excluded from the evidence, and accused prosecutors of leaking it to CNN. They did not provide evidence for their claims and the judge dismissed the defense’s objections. The video will be shown to the jury.  

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

“The defendant abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct,” the five-count indictment states. Federal prosecutors allege he “created a criminal enterprise, whose members and associates engaged in … sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”         

Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty and denied all criminal charges as well as the accusations in the dozens of civil lawsuits filed against him. His attorneys say his sexual activities were all consensual and among adults, and that Mr. Combs was a “swinger.” 

On Friday, defense attorneys said that they may raise arguments of “mutual domestic violence” when they will cross-examine Ms. Ventura, who will testify during the trial.   

“We are going to take the position that there was mutual violence in their relationship,” the lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, told the judge. “We’re probably going to call it domestic violence.”

“I think it’s independently relevant to show that she [Ms. Ventura] is a strong, capable individual who does not shy away from confrontations,” Mr. Agnifilo added. 

Another defense attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, clarified that demonstrating Ms. Ventura’s inclination to violence would rebuff the argument by the prosecution that she was a defenseless victim of Mr. Combs.  

“And so it’s highly relevant, the whole dynamic between these two individuals is at the very heart of this case and at the very heart of whether or not the government can sustain its burden to prove the coercion element of the sex trafficking charge,” she said.  

But the judge was skeptical. “I’m not seeing the connection between that and coercion because strong people can be coerced just like weak people, right? Even if that were relevant, the strength or weakness of a person is not the issue,” he said.  

On Monday, both parties will strike the potential jurors they deem unfit to serve. After screening and questioning hundreds of New Yorkers last week, the judge selected a pool of roughly 43 prospective panelists. Once the prosecution and the defense have stricken the candidates they don’t want on the jury, the judge will seat 12 jurors and six alternates. After that, the opening arguments will commence and then the prosecution will call its first witness. 

The trial is expected to last eight to 10 weeks, and could possibly include testimonies from celebrities from the entertainment industry who were affiliated with Mr. Combs over the years. The potential jurors were given a list of places and names that could come up during the trial, which included the rappers Kanye West, Kid Cudi, and the actor Michael B. Jordan. Mr. Combs is believed to have considered Kid Cudi and Mr. Jordan to be romantic rivals for Cassie’s affections (prosecuted say he firebombed Kid Cudi’s car). Mr. West has been a strong supporter of Mr. Combs throughout his legal ordeal..            

Meanwhile, the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan has reportedly geared up for the media avalanche that will descend onto its doorsteps during the coming weeks. TMZ reported that security barricades outside were being repainted on Sunday, and that a public park across the street is now being referred to as “media row,” where national and international media will set up their cameras. Line sitters, hired to hold spots for reporters seeking to enter the courtroom, were said to be camping out outside the courthouse overnight.