Lawyers for Sean Combs lost their bid to keep all footage of his 2016 hotel assault on his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, out of his racketeering and sex trafficking trial, which starts next month.
At a hearing on Friday, Judge Arun Subramanian ruled that some footage surrounding the assault could be admitted, but it is not yet clear how much of it will be shown.
The music mogul’s lawyers argued that the security footage, published by CNN last year, had been sped up, and that the events depicted in it were presented out of sequence. They did not dispute that the video showed their client beating, kicking and dragging Ms. Ventura, but they asserted that the way the footage had been presented was “deceptive” and not fit to be used as evidence.
The government is not seeking to admit the entire CNN broadcast into the trial, but there is other footage of the incident, including files provided by CNN through a subpoena.
Prosecutors said they were working to slow down some of the CNN footage based on the defense’s concerns. They also said there are two iPhone videos taken of the original footage that partially depict the incident, and the witness who took them will be testifying at the trial.
The jury selection process in the case begins on Monday, and opening statements are scheduled for May 12.
Mr. Combs, who has been held at a Brooklyn jail since shortly after his arrest last September, has denied the government’s depiction of him as someone with a pattern of sexually exploiting women, arguing that the sex the government has described was consensual. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
At the hearing, Mr. Combs, wearing tan jail clothes and black-framed glasses, listened intently as the judge offered a series of decisions on aspects of the trial, sometimes looking back to nod at one of his sons, Justin Combs.
On Friday, the prosecution said it had offered Mr. Combs a plea deal in the case — the specifics of which were not shared — but he had rejected it.
Mr. Combs’s assault of Ms. Ventura is a core event in the government’s sex trafficking case. Ms. Ventura, who is expected to be a key witness at trial, will likely testify about her own experience, and prosecutors have collected other evidence about what they have described as a cover-up effort by Mr. Combs and his associates following the beating.
The footage has already been widely viewed by the public after CNN published it last year. (CNN has denied altering the video, and it is not clear who did.)
The video shows Ms. Ventura standing near a bank of elevators with two bags, before Mr. Combs arrives, wearing only a towel. He grabs her and throws her to the ground, kicks her backside twice and begins dragging her down the hallway by her sweatshirt.
Prosecutors have said that Mr. Combs assaulted Ms. Ventura after she sneaked out of the hotel room, which had recently been the site of a freak-off, a sexual encounter involving a male prostitute and drugs that they have described as coercive and directed by Mr. Combs. They have alleged that after the assault, hotel security helped Ms. Ventura leave the hotel, and then Mr. Combs bribed hotel security officers with $100,000 to “make the original video go away.”
Mr. Combs has put forward a different version of events surrounding the assault, arguing that it was completely disconnected from sex. According to his version, Ms. Ventura found evidence of infidelity on Mr. Combs’s phone, then hit him in the head while he was sleeping and left the room with a bag of his clothes.
His lawyers argued that the clips that were published by CNN exclude “important context” and that the increase in speed makes the assault look “more violent.”
Prosecutors have been sparring with Mr. Combs’s defense team over what the jury will be allowed to see as part of a complex trial that is expected to last well into the summer.
One of the key battles was over whether the judge will allow testimony from several other alleged victims accusing Mr. Combs of sexual abuse. Judge Subramanian ruled last week that only one additional person, whose accusations have not been publicly specified, would be allowed to testify.
Those accusers are not connected to the sex trafficking charges against him, but prosecutors have argued that the additional testimony would help show that Mr. Combs had a “history of refusing to take no for an answer and intentionally seeking to gratify his own sexual desires regardless of consent.”
Ben Sisario contributed reporting.
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