Photo: AFP
Jury selection began Monday in the federal sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “P-Diddy” Combs in Manhattan. The process is expected to take place over the next week. Combs is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Those charges stem from the wild, so-called “freak-offs” that Combs allegedly ran at many lavish parties, which led to the existence of the now-infamous “thousand bottles of baby oil” as proof of his wrong-doing. Combs turned down a plea offer from prosecutors last week; if he is found guilty of the charges, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
The Bad Boy Records founder was arrested and formally charged last year and has been waiting since then in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for this day, so now that Combs’ trial is finally ready to start, how do New Yorkers feel? WOR’s Beat on the Street reporter Natalie Migliore stood outside the Grand Hyatt, the Manhattan hotel where Diddy was arrested over a year ago and asked pedestrians what they thought of P-Diddy’s saga.
Most of the pedestrians Migliore encountered couldn’t fathom why Combs threw away everything he achieved, like this man: “I know the history of him, yes. It’s so sad that he would do that, yeah. So, he had the need to do all of what he did, that’s the sad part. He had a need to do what he did, [that] was terrible. He made all kinds of money, he was famous- why the hell would you want to get involved in something like that? He got a problem somewhere. I feel sorry for that problem.”
Migliore found one passer-by who seemed to imply that Combs’ accusers got what they deserved: “I said holy cow. I cannot believe it- someone that we all admired and [followed] for the music. Even my own girls, and I turned around, I told my daughters, if a man ever tells you I’ll give you music or a high position in your job and you stay quiet, don’t come later and say something. Say it immediately, cause we need to be respected as women.”
But another woman found Diddy to be a disgrace because he disrespected so many women: “He should respect every woman not here. Every woman- including his mom- if it is embarrassing what he has done, and if he did it, he should pay for it.”
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