Sean 'Diddy' Combs Pleads Not Guilty Amid Allegations of Employee Mistreatment
Sean "Diddy" Combs has entered a not guilty plea in response to a superseding indictment filed earlier this month. The charges accuse him of coercing employees into working long hours with minimal rest while under the threat of both physical harm and damage to their reputations.
Initially, Combs' trial was set to begin on May 5. However, the judge granted him additional time to prepare his defense. As a result, jury selection will now take place on the originally scheduled date, with the actual trial postponed to May 12.
His legal team has been aggressively challenging the prosecution's evidence, particularly a widely circulated video showing him physically assaulting his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a hotel hallway. The footage was first made public by CNN, but Combs' attorneys have argued that the news network manipulated the video to distort the events.
A 2016 surveillance video obtained by CNN shows Sean "Diddy" Combs violently grab, shove, drag and kick his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura during an altercation in a hotel in California. https://t.co/qgD40mRPtQ pic.twitter.com/1u7qJgn3mC
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 17, 2024
"All CNN video footage was substantially altered in significant respects. This includes covering the time stamp and then changing the video sequence," his lawyers claim. "It also includes speeding up the video to make it falsely appear that the actions in the video are taking place faster than they are. As a result, the CNN videos do not fairly and accurately depict the events in question."
Furthermore, Combs' defense team has alleged that CNN deliberately destroyed the original version of the footage. The network has firmly denied these claims.
"CNN never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source. CNN aired the story about the video several months before Combs was arrested," CNN stated in response.
Shortly after the footage surfaced online, Combs publicly addressed the situation in a video message. He described his actions as "inexcusable" and stated that he was taking for what had occurred.
