Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy on Trial: Johnny Depp’s Lawyer on Jury Selection in Sex Trafficking Case

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Wednesday marked day three of jury selection in the high-profile federal trial of disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. The judge is hoping to narrow a large jury pool down to forty-five people, then whittle those down to a final twelve jurors and six alternates. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discussed all the latest developments with celebrity attorney Ben Chew, who famously represented actor Johnny Depp in his multi-million dollar lawsuit against his ex, Amber Heard.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you or a loved one were diagnosed with stomach cancer or gastric cancer after using an antacid, visit https://antacidclaims.com/sidebar to answer less than 10 questions and check your eligibility to file a claim! HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. With day three of jury selection in Sean P. Diddy Combs' federal trial, prosecutors, defense attorneys, the court, they are all asking questions of these prospective jurors to try to find a panel by the end of week. Who better to talk about jury selection in a high-profile trial with a high-profile celebrity client than Ben Chu, the attorney who famously represented Johnny Depp. Let's hear what he thinks of the process so far. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody, this is another law and crime legal alert. So lawsuits allege that anti-acid use

has been linked to increases in stomach cancer and gastric cancer. So if you were a loved one We're diagnosed with stomach cancer or gastric cancer after using an antacid, you may qualify for compensation. One of our legal sponsors is partnering with the Driscoll firm. This is a national firm, helping those injured to ensure their claims are thoroughly presented. Just visit antacidclaims.com slash sidebar or scan the QR code on screen to answer less than 10 questions and check your eligibility to file a claim. Well, Sean Diddy Combs was back in court today alongside his ever-expanding team of high-powered lawyers. We talked about how he added another lawyer yesterday, Nicole Westmoreland, but he was back for day three of jury selection. And it has been a fascinating process to go through over, what, 100 potential prospective jurors to get to about 45 jurors or so, before that number is then whittled down to 12 jurors and six alternates.

And reporting is a bit mixed on this, but by the end of the day on Monday, we believe 19 prospective jurors move forward. And then yesterday, we're seeing reporting that 16 move forward. So you have men, women, according to USA Today, wide range of people from their 30s to their 80s, those in the fields of design, medicine, social work, manufacturing. Apparently, they get their news from a variety of different outlets, including on YouTube and social media. Did they watch Sidebar? I don't know. They shouldn't be watching it now.

They shouldn't be watching it anymore for the next eight weeks, especially if they're selected. Well, only if they're selected. But that is how long we think this trial is going to last, by the way. eight weeks with opening scheduled for May 12th. And remember, remember what we're talking about here. Combs faces five federal charges. He's accused of running a criminal enterprise that was focused on his sexual needs and desires, hiring sex workers, procuring drugs and baby oil, setting up hotel rooms for elaborate sex parties called freakoffs. We expect that multiple alleged victims, including his ex-girlfriend Cassandra Ventura, who we believed to be victim one in

the case, to testify against him, that they felt forced or coerced to participate in these sexual episodes. He's facing racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution charges, potentially life in prison if convicted. And Combs, as we know, has been behind at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the MDC out in Brooklyn since his arrest last fall. And again, here at Sidebar, we plan to cover every aspect of this trial. After all, we have been covering this Sean Combs saga since Ventura first sued him back in November of 2023. So with all that in mine. Now I want to bring on a special guest. I want to bring on trial attorney Ben Chu, who famously represented Johnny Depp in his high-profile celebrity trial a few years back.

Ben, so good to see you. Thanks for taking the time. Well, you're welcome. Great to see you, Jesse. So, Ben, what do you make so far of the jury selection process? As somebody who went through a jury selection for a high-profile celebrity in a high-profile case, what do you make of what we're seeing so far? Well, it's taking longer than I would have expected in the In the case of Depp v. Heard, everybody wanted to serve on the jury. So in many cases, as you know, jurors are trying to make excuses as to why they can't sit through a long trial in eight weeks, as you say, is a very long trial. But in these celebrity trials, I think people are more inclined to want to serve as a jury,

as a juror. So I'm a little surprised it's taken as long as it has. Well, I'll talk about some of the reasons why they're being excused, but that's interesting you say that because look, there was a lot of attention on your trial. A lot of people were interested in it. You get a front row seat if you're sitting in the jury. I wonder if this is a bit different, right? So it's eight weeks criminal trial, very tough subject matter, you know, video evidence. And I wonder if it's a bit different. And by the way, you know, maybe they're nervous of sitting on a jury like this. And too, I mean, it's hard to get into people's minds.

But do you think that the criminal aspect of this might play a difference? Yeah, that's a great point. In the civil trial, all that's really at stake is money. Also, in our case, it was reputation. Sure. It was existential for our client. But I think that's a great point. When there is a prospect of somebody losing his or her liberty, that's a pretty weighty issue.

Now, if you're representing a celebrity like Sean Combs, whose name has been dragged through the mud in the last year and a half, two years, Put that to the side. Who do you want as a juror on this case? For a celebrity client, celebrity defendant, who do you want on this jury? I think you want somebody who wants to serve, someone eager to serve because that suggests that person might be inclined toward a celebrity like Diddy. I would also, in this case, I would want men, not because men support abuse, but I could see this being very difficult for women jurors.

I would want younger jurors as well. I don't know that older jurors would would be good for him. Do you care where they get their news? Do you care if they go on social media? I wouldn't care so much about social media. Certainly watching you on law and crime would be it would be a real problem. But no, I wouldn't care too much. I mean, in fact, if they were reading the celebrity media, TMZ, Rolling Stone, you know,

that might be an encouraging thing for Diddy's counsel? Now, Ben, according to the court today, they expect preemptory challenges on Friday. So that's going to be the next stage of the jury selection process. So once you have about, what, 45 prospective jurors, then each side gets those specific challenges to exclude a juror for whatever reason they want. But there are some limitations to that. how important are those preemptory challenges for the prosecution and the defense? Well, they're extremely important for both sides. And I suspect that Diddy has a very good jury consultant, probably more than one who was profiling the type of juror who would be most

sympathetic to him. And I think it's wise for attorneys, even experienced attorneys, to defer for the most part to those jury consultants. Now, ultimately, it's the client's choice and the client should be participating in the process, especially where it's here. His liberty is at stake. And was that something that you had in your case where your client wanted to get involved in the jury selection process? Because it's been reported that Diddy has been almost like nodding to his attorneys or maybe even shaking his head regarding certain prospective jurors. Is that common? Is that what you saw? I think that is common. And it's natural that you would want to be have some role in the people who in choosing the people who decide your fate and it also

gives the client I think some measure or some feeling of control in a situation where any defendant would have to feel a profound lack of control because this is not as he's used to controlling his business, his social life and this is a situation over which he has almost no control so this is an opportunity for him to have at least a modicum of control. Disemptory challenges, each side will get a certain amount of them to strike jurors. It doesn't have to be for cause. It could be for whatever reason they want, but there are limitations. So they can't be strike jurors because of race or gender or ethnicity.

How on earth is the court supposed to know that? How on earth, the defense of the prosecution is not going to come out and say that's the reason they're excluding a juror. How do you make that accusation that they were, you know, excluding somebody for an improper reason like that? I think it's, as you point out, I think it's extremely difficult. And I think the judges generally defer to counsel in making those decisions. And I suppose if you had something egregious where, for example, one side was striking all African American women, then I think you would have a pattern that the court might call out. But I don't see that very often.

Now, Ben, it's so interesting what happened today because you had a juror who was excused. because I believe she had worked for HBO, and we know that HBO produced a documentary on Diddy. Mark Agnifalo, who's one of Sean Combs' attorney, said he believes this doc will come into trial in some capacity. And you had another juror who, according to the defense, apparently didn't disclose on her jury questionnaire, that she worked at Legal Aid Society, although the judge didn't believe that she lied, allowed her to remain in the pool. The other juror, the HBO juror, was excluded. So it's something very interesting to try to understand who these people are and hoping that they're truthful and hoping that they're fair and impartial feels very tough. Yeah, it does. And in my experience, judges are tough on those issues where there is a potential of bias or prejudice.

They will tend to exclude those jurors even if ultimately they could have been fair. Can you get me a little inside baseball? How much research do you do on these jurors? Maybe not at the first stage, right, where you're just, you know, going over their jury questionnaires, but I guess the next stage, so leading into Friday with peremptory challenges, how much do these attorneys actually do research on these jurors? And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it happens before. Maybe it happens when they're just being selected for the pool.

What should we, what happens? Yeah. I think if you get a list of potential jurors, which depending on the court, can be several weeks before the trial, and it's a high-stakes trial. You start the research then. And then there is a list of the actual jury pool, at which point you get really intense research. And now, whereas here that the jury selection has stretched out over a period of days, I would think that they're coming at, they're looking at every potential issue. Every night. Every night of trial. Every night of trial before preparing for the next day's cross-examination or direct examination or arguments

that are going to be made. Do you also have a member of the team going through the social media of these jurors making sure they didn't do anything? I mean, how much research can you do in terms of they searched for something, did they say something? I always am curious about that because you come into court the next day and you always hear a prosecutor or defense attorney say, juror, court, we have an issue we like to bring to your attention.

Juror number five was looking, like, it's like, how did they find that out? Is that what happens? Well, it is in a high-stakes case like this. I mean, as you know, not all clients have the resources to hire, you know, jury consultants and to hire investigators, but in this case, you have a defendant who's, you know, who could theoretically be sentenced to life in prison, who has the means. So I'm sure, or I would think that his counsel have a team of investigators following the jurors around to the extent they can and looking for.

for any electronic footprint. Now, I mentioned before how can you believe the jurors? How do you know they're telling the truth? I'll tell you what, what we've seen so far in the Combs jury selection process, you have what seems to be a lot of honesty, okay? Because you had one prospective juror who told the court that she had been sexually assaulted

as a teenager and that if the defense brings up a trial that look, these alleged victims didn't report what they say happened to them, this juror indicated they would understand understand why. And they would be biased in the alleged victim's favor. This juror was excluded. Talked about another juror hearing about the Combs case on CNN admitted that they leaned in a negative light towards him, having committed some sort of crimes. That juror was excluded. You had another juror who wrote on the questionnaire that P. Diddy has money and could buy his way out. And when

asked by the court, what did you mean by that? This potential juror doubled down and said, just what I wrote. That juror was excused for cause. You have a juror who reportedly told the court that they saw the Cassie Ventura video, and despite this juror saying they could be fair in court on the questionnaire, apparently the juror wrote they were unsure if they could be fair. That juror was excluded. So, Ben, you know, someone can look at it and say, oh, they're just saying whatever they need to say to get off the jury, but maybe I'm not cynical and I'm taking as truthful everything they say. Kudos to them, right? Jesse, I agree. And that's been my experience. I think people take the oath very seriously and they see jury service, honest jury service as part of their civic duties.

So that that's my experience too, that the jurors tend to be forthcoming. And I don't think that this is a case, even though some people wouldn't be disinclined to serve on a criminal case. I don't think this is the type of case that there'd be a lot of jurors trying to get out of service. Do you think it's going to be tough to ultimately get a fair and impartial jury? Because as you're seeing, you have a lot of jurors who saw the Cassie tape. You have a lot of jurors who were exposed to this case or something that's been going on with Sean Combs, know who he is, maybe know a list of the celebrities or places that were potentially going to be brought up in this case, difficulty of sitting eight weeks on this jury, but they're going to be seeing and hearing a lot. Do you think that's going to be tough to sit a fair and impartial jury in Sean Combs' criminal case? Well, I think they will have a fair and impartial jury.

I think the problem is going to come in, you know, with the Cassandra Ventura's tape. I mean, whether you've seen that before, you're certainly going to see that during the trial. And I think that's highly problematic, obviously, for Ditting, whether they've seen it before or not. Yeah, because the prosecution is saying she was not only running away from Combs, she was running away from a freakoff that there was a sex worker in that hotel room. And that goes to the charge of sex trafficking and also racketeering because sex trafficking is a part of that as well. Okay, so trial's about to start. We know that Sean Combs early in the week said to the court, I'm feeling a little nervous today. Let's say openings begin day one, May 12th, okay?

What do you advise your celebrity client to do and not to do as this trial begins and progresses for eight weeks? I would remind him to remember that every second he is in the courtroom, at least one juror and probably more are going to be looking at him. So he should act as if he were testifying every second he's in the courtroom. And given the nature of the seriousness of the charges and the fact that they're going to be seeing this video, which is very disturbing, I think he should avoid a lot of, well, I think he's, should avoid any levity because I think that will definitely be off-putting to certain members of the jury. This is not a case where you can have light moments, at least on his side. Do you think he takes the stand? He took the stand in his other criminal trial 25 years ago, very different kind of case. Someone would say quite a risk to do it here. You think he takes the stand? I think he does.

I mean, as you know, the general rule, if you're a criminal defendant, is not to take the stand, but because the judge has ruled that tape comes in, and in that regard, you know, the only saving grace, minor saving grace is that there's no audio on the tape, that there's, there's, it's, it's, it's a pretty high quality tape. Knowing that that's coming in, I think he has to take the stand and explain that. I mean, going back to the issue of celebrity client, you have a tension between image and what's best for the public image in the court of public opinion and what's better for the client. His apology was probably done to help his image, but I think it will hurt him in the criminal trial. And I think that's another factor which requires him to testify because you have not only the video, but you have the prior apology coming into evidence. And that wasn't a very good apology.

No, and I will tell you, though, that what version will be shown to the jury has been part of a lot of pre-litigation leading into this trial, that it's not going to be necessarily the CNN tape, but you might have the raw version or cell phone versions. So it's going to be interesting to see what the jury sees. Real quick, Ben, 30 seconds. Do you think that this is a strong case against Sean Combe? Sure, this is the Southern District of New York. They have a lot of evidence, a lot of digital evidence, testimonial evidence. but at the same time, I've spoken to people, I've thought about it myself, racketeering,

sex trafficking, those are very specific charges, very specific elements. And I do wonder if at the end of the day, maybe even the complexity of those charges or what's actually being alleged, does it fit? Does it actually match for that? And maybe transportation to engage in prostitution is more of the easier one, but I don't know. You tell me. It's a great question. And I think the jury instructions are going to be crucial, and they're going to be highly technical. And in my experience, the juries really do try to follow the judge's instructions. So I could see an acquittal or a hung jury on some of these more complex charges. There's a

possibility that this has been overcharged. But I think some of the counts are stronger than others, as you point out. Well, we shall see. We first got to get a jury selected. Then we got opening statements. The start of a very high profile and high stakes case is about the begin. Ben Shue, so good seeing you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Great to see you. Thank you so much, Jesse. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.