← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
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Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Drop Dead Serious. I'm Ashley Banfield. From free cost to felony counts, P. Diddy is staring down the trial of his life, and we are on the eve of liftoff. 20 years of sex, power and silence are finally headed into a courtroom and in front of a jury. And if prosecutors have their way, the bad boy for life might be looking at life behind bars. If Diddy gets his way, it'll all be an embarrassing outing of his kinky sexual lifestyle and the lifestyles of a lot of other famous people, too. Today was day two of jury selection, and if you thought yesterday sounded like a red carpet of the rich and famous, buckle up. You're not going to believe this. We're talking about jurors confessing to daily marijuana use, a fear of fainting over kinky details, and yes, someone got dismissed for watching a Russian comedy video about this very case. So let's get right into it, shall we? Before the jurors even took their seats, prosecutors fired a shot across the bow. They wanted the judge to reign in a famous defense attorney, Mark Garagos. Garagos happens to be the father of Tenny Garagos, one of Diddy's current lawyers. Mark Garagos also hosts two podcasts, one called Reasonable Doubt and the other called Two Angry Men, alongside TMZ's Harvey Levin. On Two Angry Men, Mark Aragos went off calling the 2016 video of Diddy dragging Cassie Ventura down a hotel hallway character assassination, end quote. And then he took aim at the prosecution, saying the all female team, quote, looked like they were prosecuting a cause as opposed to a case.
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It does. And jury selection starts Monday. And now we know what the teams on the prosecution and defense side are comprised of, which I really want to get into, especially the prosecution, an all female prosecution. Really interesting. But before we do, jury selection in this case seems almost impossible.
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They've taken that video. They, meaning the prosecution. They've recast it. They've said, no, no, no, this isn't about Domestic violence. This isn't about whatever was going on between the two of them. What it is, is you look at this to see the kind of coercive effect or the kind of control that he had over Cassie and the. That. That's. That you can now believe that he would be a violent person. It really, to my mind, is character assassination. I mean, they. I. I don't think they're going to run away from the fact that Sean has. I mean, I've known Sean for a long time. He has a violent temper, and especially, I think, when you combine it with kind of the. The drug use. But that isn't what he's charged with, as you said. How do you get over that when the jurors may shut down once they've seen the video?
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Prosecutors said his remarks could taint the jury pool and asked the judge to admonish him for that. They even filed a request for a gag order. And the judge, well, he called the parties back into his chambers for a little fireside chat. And then the judge called in the next round of potential jurors. And there sat Diddy, wearing the same outfit he was wearing in court yesterday. I can't imagine there was ever a day in his life where he showed up at a public event wearing the same clothes that he was wearing at the event the day before. But what a different time we are in now. And when he's not in court, he wears the same damn jumpsuit every single day in jail. So, again, no chains today. No swagger, no entourage. Just a crew neck sweater over a dress shirt, gray slacks, and glasses that he slid on and off to read the paperwork in front of him. Stars. They really are just like us. According to reports from inside the courtroom, Diddy even put a hand over his heart when he spotted somebody familiar. And he made a lot of eye contact with his cousin, who showed up in a free puff sweatshirt. He did that again yesterday, too, and both times, he was forced to turn it inside out. You just can't do that in court these days. You can't just come in wearing messages that favor one side of a procedure, even though at this point, we don't have the jury, but we have a lot of prospective jurors. So it seemed to onlookers as well that Diddy and that cousin kept looking at each other about maybe selecting potential jurors, as if almost to be communicating approval back and forth. Otherwise, for the most part, Diddy sat still. No comments, no theatrics. Which brings us to the real action of the day voir dire. Voir dire is asking questions of jurors. And it got weird real fast. One of the first people questioned was a woman who shared that she had survived an attempted rape in the Bronx. When asked if she could be fair in this case, she said, yes, calm, collected, quote, I can separate it, she said, and for now, she is staying in the jury pool. I, for one, cannot believe that. I think if you're a victim of a crime, the same kind of crime that's being depicted in the case you're about to adjudicate, from my history, that's meant immediate no. So I'm wondering if it's just going to be so hard to find a panel of jurors that they can't get rid of all of them fast. They may have to grab some frogs before they get their princes. And who knows if this lady will remain a frog. You know, there's another round coming, so wait for it. Soon, though, the court began dismissing prospective jurors left and right, and the pace was like, breakneck. One woman told the judge that she'd already leaned negative about Diddy based on what she'd heard. She admitted, quote, I guess I leaned toward him having committed the crimes, end quote. Ouch. The defense immediately objected. Mark Agnifolo, Diddy's lawyer, said, quote, there is no presumption of innocence in this juror's mind, end quote. And that juror dismissed for cause. Oh, and by the way, this attorney of Diddy's, Mark Agnifolo, little known fact, he's married to another high profile defense lawyer who happens to be representing a guy you may have heard of, Luigi Mangione. So talk about a power couple. But back to Diddy. Another prospective juror was let go after she said she worried Diddy's money and power might influence the outcome. And another one out of there, gone. So the next one also gone because her son is a prosecutor. And one man dismissed because his medication makes it hard for him to travel. A real estate broker admitted that he'd seen the Cassie Ventura video, the one where she was being beaten in a hotel hallway. He wasn't sure how it would affect him, and the judge struck him for cause after noting he had a very long pause before he gave his answer. And then came the guy who admitted to reading an article about jury selection while on the train ride home from court yesterday. He said, I shouldn't have, but I did. The prosecutors flagged it, and just like that, he was out. And by the way, this guy was an Attorney. An attorney, like, who should have known better. And then came marijuana Guy, prospective juror number 210. He admitted that he smokes weed every day. The judge asked him flat out, quote, can you stop during the trial? End quote. And the man said, yeah. The judge followed up by asking, but would that be hard for you? And the Prospective juror number 210 admitted that, yeah, quote, it would. But the judge looked at him and said, well, at least he's honest, drawing actual chuckles in the courtroom. And then marijuana guy was excused. Another woman was dismissed after telling the court that she heard a Russian comedy song about the case. Yeah, really? A Russian comedy song. So even the Russians are getting in on this trial. And out she went, too. Then there was the woman who said she couldn't participate in sexually explicit discussions because she was, quote, a very sensitive person and could faint or black out. Well, I do declare. Better get me the smelling salts or maybe a fainting couch. I guess that exists. People who get so uncomfortable about kinky talk that they just pass out. So she gone. She long gone. A father of two was also struck. After initially saying he'd only seen the headlines about the case, but then revealing a surprising amount of detail about the accusations, the defense wasn't buying it. Quote, this man has an agenda. Mark Agnifolo said, quote, I feel like he's trying to get on this jury, end quote. And still another juror, who works for an avocado import company, said that she had a, quote, slight bias in favor of police because her relatives are in law enforcement. She tried to walk it back, but the judge struck her anyway. By late afternoon, the judge reminded both sides that they were running out of time and criticized the lawyers for not screening out these hardships earlier in the process, like when the prospective jurors filled out their juror questionnaire. So as of now, They've got only 35 qualified jurors, but they need 45 before they begin picking the actual panel. Both sides say they're getting close and that they plan to start peremptory strikes next. And remember, those are strikes that go beyond cause. Peremptory strikes can be for anything, and they're secret. The lawyers don't have to say why they strike a candidate, but you only get a couple of them. It's not unlimited, so you really got to be careful and use them wisely. And this is important. You cannot strike a juror for race or religion or anything related to a protected class. The expectation is that a jury will be seated tomorrow. Good luck with that. And that opening statements should begin on Monday. And as for Diddy, mostly quiet at the end of the day. But according to reports inside the courtroom, he did crack a smile when one woman asked if she recognized any celebrity names on the list and answered, quote, I wish I did. So that's day two. No jurors sworn in officially yet, but the stage is almost set to begin that process. And tomorrow we could have a jury. Monday. This trial, one of the more explosive trials in the music industry, could finally actually begin. I'm Ashley Banfield. Remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.