SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
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New York: As anyone who has set foot in the place knows, New York is a city of coexisting extremes. The insanely wealthy and the grievously poor. Penthouses and drunk tanks; glamour and grime; stratospheric success and humiliating failure. Mega-celebrities and people who are there to disappear into anonymity.
And it’s a place where you realise how easily you can slip between the two.
Two of Sean Combs’ children Chance, left, and Christian “King” Combs”, arrive at the federal courthouse in New York.Credit: AP
I thought about that a lot as I covered the opening days of the trial of Sean Combs, the rapper, producer and music executive you might know as Diddy, P. Diddy or Puff Daddy.
Few people soared higher in the world of rap and R&B, or on music’s rich list. Now the 55-year-old is on trial accused of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, with the possibility he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. He has pleaded not guilty.
It’s a classic fall from grace story, and the whole world is watching. Media from across the globe are camped outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in Lower Manhattan, with TV huts set up across the street where reporters can do live crosses. It remains busy, but less hectic than day one.
On Monday, ahead of opening statements, a queue extended down Worth Street toward Thomas Paine Park as people – mostly journalists – waited for the courthouse doors to open.
Tempers flared, as they often do in this larger-than-life town. Reporters and cameramen fought for prime positions outside the court entrance. “I don’t have to silence myself,” one female reporter shouted at a male camera operator amid an altercation. “If I’m not talking to you, don’t talk to me.”
Some news organisations had paid $US500 ($775) for a professional line-sitter. This is a miniature industry in New York; you can pay people to wait in line outside court, or at hotspot restaurants such as Lucali in Brooklyn.
Then there are the supporters, the court-watchers and the clingers-on. Some appear to have little interest in the case itself, but are drawn to the cameras and the crowds – they rant about Jesus or the Rapture, or hope to be paid to go away. The ones who line up, get through security and go into the court or overflow room are more likely to be supporters of the accused or a victim.
Professional line-sitting is a mini industry in New York, where some news organisations paid $US500 to have someone queue outside Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial.Credit: Michael Koziol
One woman, who said she had attended court every day since jury selection began last week, caused a scene in the overflow room by audibly reacting to testimony from Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura. She complained that prosecutors should not have brought the case while Ventura was heavily pregnant, and said they would be responsible if any complications arose.
Outside the courthouse, the same woman yelled at paparazzi and reporters as they waited for Combs’ family. “Give them their f—ing dignity, pardon my French,” she shouted at the scrum. “Don’t be up in their six feet unless you wanna start.”
The Combs case has also attracted a throng of social media influencers. One regularly attending court is Stephanie Soo, a YouTuber and podcaster with 5.6 million followers on TikTok. In a recent video, she compared Combs’ appearance to a koala.
“You know koalas, when they get fuzzy – like if it’s really humid and they have, like, very fuzzy greyish-white hair,” Soo said. “He is reminiscent to that.”
Cassie Ventura and Sean Combs at the Met Gala in 2015.Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Other people stopped by the courthouse to catch a glimpse of the commotion. Four young men in T-shirts and shorts, who didn’t want to give their names, said Combs was a major music figure when they grew up, even if he had become more of a business mogul than a performer.
“It’s super-surprising that something like that would happen,” one man said of the case. “You never think that somebody that big could be capable of doing stuff like that.”
Such is the essence of the celebrity trial, and this one is more salacious than most. We have heard awkward, intimate details about Combs’ sexual fantasies, and graphic accounts of how he would realise them. We have glimpsed a world most of us will never access: luxe hotels and boat parties and escorts being flown across the country, and a seemingly endless supply of sex, drugs and money.
And we have seen the star witness, Ventura, provide two days of painful, personal evidence while pregnant. Now, she is to be cross-examined by the defence. It is a reminder that justice rarely comes easily.
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