Sean 'Diddy' Combs has trial date set for May 2025 in sex trafficking case

Developing at five, music mogul Sha Diddy comes back inside a federal courtroom here in New York. All right, a trial date has now been set for May 5th of next year. Lisa Evers live in lower Manhattan with the very latest.

Today, Lisa? Well, Stephen, Natasha, this was Sha Diddy's third time in the courthouse you see right behind me. His first time was before a new judge.

They did handle these calendar matters and also set that May 5th, 2025 date for the trial to begin. But what was most striking was that his mother, Janice Colmes, who's been with him his whole life, flew up from Florida to be with him, as did most of his children, in a show of support. Shan Combs' son, Christian, known professionally as King Colmes, held his grandmother's hand as they left the courthouse with his other siblings.

"We want to hear from you. Anything you want to say at this point? " Judge Arun Submanan acknowledged that his mother, Janice Colmes, came from Florida for her son and that his kids also traveled to be in the same courtroom with him.

Combs' attorney, Anthony Rico, said he was by his side throughout the proceeding. He's handling the appeal of his bail denial, which is a separate case in the appeals court. "He's making an adjustment.

He had his family here today to support him. We really want to put an end to all of the clowning that we see on the Internet. This is a serious proceeding with serious consequences.

" The judge set a trial date of May 5th, 2025. The lead federal prosecutor took issue with Colmes' attorney, Mark Agnifilo's, extensive comments in a TMZ documentary alleging the government was guilty of racial bias and targeting Combs. Agnifilo complained about government leaks to the media.

The result was a mutual gag order. "I made a request for the judge to issue what we call a gag order, and the judge is going to issue it on a reciprocal basis. So, I'm not going to say anything that I didn't say in my papers and in court.

" Women's rights attorney Gloria Allred represents some of the accusers of Combs in civil cases and spoke outside the court. "It's challenging because for many of them, remembering what they alleged he did to them is triggering and traumatizing. " Now, a date of December 18th was set for the next status conference.

For now, Combs is back at MDC; he's been denied bail twice. His last hope of getting out before that May 2025 trial date beginning is for the appeals court to reverse the bail denial, and that could happen any time within the next couple of weeks. We're live here in front of the courthouse.

Let's check in with Teresa Priolo; she's been outside most of the day. Here, Teresa, what was it like out here? There were so many people out here, Lisa.

As you know, you were out here as well. P. Diddy is an international superstar, and so you have to imagine that this is a case that is bringing people from all over the world.

We've seen local media, national media, and yes, international media too, with also a huge showing among entertainment journalists. But we also saw today a lot of citizen journalists that were out here as well; people who grew up on Diddy's music, whose albums were the soundtrack of their lives. They just told me that they felt like they needed to come down here and just catch a glimpse of it all.

Of course, we know that Diddy remains behind bars at MDC, but that's not stopping the crowds or the interest in this case. "I'm studying forensic sciences, and my big thing is women and children: to protect women and children. So, when I heard all of this going down, the hair on my back just went up.

If he's doing things like this, he needs to be in jail. There's nothing Diddy needs to go to jail if this is what he's about. " So you might be wondering how the crowds that we saw out here today compared to other high-profile trials like Ghislaine Maxwell, maybe Harvey Weinstein, or even Donald Trump.

I can tell you, at least from what I saw out here today, this is nothing like what we saw with Donald Trump. But Lisa, I would imagine that as this trial gets closer to its date of May 5th, we might be seeing some of the crowds like we saw with Ghislaine Maxwell—people lining up really early in the morning, getting their tickets, trying to get inside. No, Teresa, definitely this is very early in the whole process.

I mean, they just set the trial date today for May 5th, and I think it's going to draw more and more people as we go forward. In fact, the next court date here is December 18th; that will be for the next status conference. But there are a lot of other issues that they have to consider as well in terms of the evidence.

The judge gave them until December 31st to deal with all the discovery of the evidence. That means both sides have to have access to all of the evidence they have, which is many dozens of terabytes from more than 90 telephones and electronic devices they confiscated during those raids. And then the other thing that was significant about today too, Teresa, was that the prosecutor said in no uncertain terms and quite emphatically—because everything else was, she was very even-tempered—she said, "Make no mistake about it, this investigation is still ongoing, and we expect to have a superseding indictment, meaning more charges against Diddy.

" That's the latest here from federal court. Back to you in the studio.