If You Want a Seat at the Trial of Sean Combs, Leave Yesterday
Hours before sunset, the line begins to form outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. By the time the sun has risen again, some 13 hours later, the sidewalk is quite full.
Queue psychologists, who study things like how to keep the hordes happy in lines at Disney World, would have a field day at the trial of Sean Combs.
Since the trial started two weeks ago, folks have been showing up at ungodly hours to wait for a seat in the room where the music mogul is facing racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
News reporters assigned to cover the trial are joined in equal numbers by vloggers who have made the case their subject of the moment and members of the public who are simply interested in hearing the courtroom testimony.
During the first two days of the trial, when the crowds were bigger, one YouTuber, Mel Smith, said he would leave his house in Beacon, N.Y., at about 3:30 p.m. to get a seat for the next morning's testimony. When he arrived at about 5 p.m., he said, there were already a half-dozen people waiting in front of him.
'Everybody knows P. Diddy — he's a household brand — and everybody's clicking all day to see what's the latest updates,' he said.
Many major trials are now broadcast online, but rules for the federal court on Pearl Street forbid it, making it all the more valuable for content creators to score a seat. Most attendees must also surrender their phones and other electronic devices when they enter the courthouse. This has forced YouTubers and TikTokers — known for being chronically online — to rely on paper and pen.
'Live, from the federal building,' the podcaster Sean Gunby said while livestreaming outside the courthouse on Thursday after Kid Cudi's testimony had ended. He was holding the green notebook where he had taken notes. 'You understand, everything that you gonna hear me say on this video is what I just heard in court,' he said.
For many, the scarce number of courtroom seats, about three dozen for media and the public, has made the line both a necessity and an ordeal. Some of the other seats are reserved for Mr. Combs's family — who have included his six adult children and his sister — and others are for associates of the lawyers on both sides.
Some news organizations, including The New York Times, have hired professional line holders to start the wait; reporters relieve them in the early morning.
Court officers typically assume control of the line in the morning when it moves from the sidewalk to the courthouse property, but they are not involved in settling disputes before that. Like at other high-profile cases, there have been some moments of jostling, shoving and yelling.
But the scene is not nearly as chaotic as those that have arisen outside courtrooms when throngs of supporters and detractors show up. Johnny Depp drew a large crowd of fans to his defamation dispute with Amber Heard in Fairfax, Va. The criminal case against Karen Read, who is accused of murdering her boyfriend, has drawn so many people to a courthouse in Dedham, Mass., that the judge imposed a buffer zone around the building.
In the case against Mr. Combs, there is not a huge presence of fans or protesters. A group of people wearing shirts that said 'Free Puff' appeared briefly one day early in the trial, but they soon disappeared.
Some of the draw to see the Combs case in person is the content, which includes narratives of domestic violence and drug abuse, hotel sex marathons and considerable wealth. And some is the defendant: a man who cultivated a larger-than-life personality, generally avoided major consequences in other brushes with the law and is now staring at the potential of life in prison if convicted on the most serious charges.
'There were so many fantasies that he wove together to help his image,' said Tisa Tells, a popular YouTuber who has followed the case since the beginning and attends the trial daily.
The instigating force for investigators who brought the case against Mr. Combs was a 2023 lawsuit by Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs's longtime girlfriend, a singer known as Cassie. She accused him of rampant physical abuse and of coercing her into drug-fueled sexual encounters with male prostitutes known as 'freak-offs.' Mr. Combs settled the suit for $20 million, but Ms. Ventura's accusations quickly became the roots of a criminal case.
She testified over four days this month, telling the jury that she continued to participate in the freak-offs despite her discomfort because of Mr. Combs's pattern of violent outbursts and threats of blackmailing her with sexually explicit footage.
Lawyers for Mr. Combs, who is known by the nicknames Diddy and Puff, have denied the existence of any racketeering conspiracy, and have asserted that the sexual encounters at the center of the charges were fully consensual. In the case of Ms. Ventura, the defense has pointed to messages that they argue show she was a willing participant in freak-offs.
'If it's a point for Puff,' said Mr. Gunby, the podcaster, 'I'mma say it's a point for Puff. If it's a point taken away from Puff, I'mma take a point away.'
Ms. Tells, who also livestreams from outside the courthouse, said she had seen a boom in her follower count. She has become a familiar face to many following the case. As Ms. Ventura's mother, Regina Ventura, walked out of the courtroom after testifying, she passed Ms. Tells in the spectators' gallery and said in a friendly tone, 'I know you.'
Some are going to great lengths to get to the trial.
Samson Crouppen, a self-proclaimed comedy journalist who inhabits the persona of 'Secret Service Sam' on TikTok, lives in Los Angeles and zips from coast to coast each week to set up shop outside the courthouse for a couple of days.
Mr. Crouppen said he decided to make the trip after his followers implored him to.
'Everybody being like, 'Sam, you've gotta be there for us,'' he said. 'I'm like, 'OK,' and I took a leap of faith.'
So far, his followers have donated about two thousand dollars to help cover his expenses for the anticipated eight weeks of legal proceedings. He said the trial had more than doubled his TikTok following.
The allure, Mr. Crouppen said, has been buttressed by years of internet rumors and speculation about Mr. Combs, an entertainment industry titan.
'It's just like a Pandora's box, you know, it's like how deep do you want to go down the Diddy-hole, the Diddy-verse?' he said.
Each day as the trial adjourns, the perimeter of the courthouse is dotted with vloggers sharing their takes of the day, recording on phones set up on tripods, and television news crews operating under tents.
In Ms. Tells's view, interest in the case goes beyond the lurid details of drugs, violence, sex and celebrity. 'I think there is kind of a cultural war,' she said, 'between the old way of thinking between women, bodies and also what is acceptable in a domestic relationship.'
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