The federal sex trafficking trial of the US rapper Sean Diddy Combs is scheduled to start on May 5, a judge in New York declared on Thursday.
The embattled rapper was arrested on September 16 over sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
The US magistrate judge Robyn Tarnofsky ordered that the entertainer be jailed while awaiting trial.
Tarnofsky’s order followed after the Bad Boy Records founder pleaded not guilty to the 14-page federal indictment against him.
Diddy was also accused of sexually abusing 120 more people, including a 9-year-old boy.
On Thursday, the rapper, wearing a beige shirt and pants, was brought to Manhattan federal court from a Brooklyn jail for an afternoon appearance before Arun Subramanian, the new presiding judge.
Subramanian was assigned to the case after another judge recused himself based on his past associations with lawyers in the case.
Combs’ lawyers have unsuccessfully tried to get the Bad Boy Records founder freed on bail. Two separate judges denied him bail twice, with one arguing that Combs was a “serious flight risk.”
At the recent hearing, Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ lawyer, expressed concerns about what he termed improper leaks by federal agents about the case. He also asked the judge to exclude a video of the 54-year-old rap star assaulting a former girlfriend Cassie in 2016 from being used in the trial.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson, however, called the claim baseless. The assistant US attorney said the claim was “simply a means to try to exclude a damning piece of evidence”.
“Not a single one of those alleged leaks are from members of the prosecution team,” Johnson stated.
Diddy faces life in prison if convicted on the racketeering charge. He faces another statutory minimum of 15 years for the sex trafficking charge.