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A juror in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial was dismissed on Monday, June 16th, due to conflicting information about his residency. The decision by US District Judge Arun Subramanian came over the objections of Combs’ lawyers, who had accused the prosecution of racial bias.
The issue was first raised last week by the lead prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey, who cited a “lack of candor” from Juror No. 6 about his place of residency.
During jury selection, the juror, a 41-year-old Black man, said he lived in the Bronx with his fiancée. In a recent conversation with a court staff member, however, he said he had recently moved in with his girlfriend in New Jersey.
After speaking with the juror in his robing room on Friday, Judge Subramanian concluded the man had given inconsistent answers. On Monday, he finalized the decision by saying, “There’s nothing that the juror could say at this point that would put the genie back in the bottle,” according to The New York Times.
When prosecutors initially raised concerns, Combs’ attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, accused the government of making a “thinly veiled effort to dismiss a Black juror,” noting that Juror No. 6 was one of two Black men on the jury.
In direct response to this claim, Judge Subramanian stated, “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.”
As reported in PEOPLE, the dismissed juror has been replaced by a 57-year-old white accountant from Westchester County.
English (US) · 