- Title: Showbiz in 2024: Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Alec Baldwin, Justin Timberlake in court
- Date: 3rd December 2024
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK UNITED STATES (FILE - SEPTEMBER 18, 2024) (REUTERS) DEFENSE ATTORNEY, MARC AGNIFILO WALKING OVER TO MICS AFTER LEAVING COURT/ (SOUNDBITE) (English) DEFENSE ATTORNEY, MARC AGNIFILO, SAYING: "Good afternoon, everybody. So, we made a bail appeal to Judge Carter. It did not go our way. The fight continues. We're not giving up by a long shot." AGNIFILO SPEAKI
- Embargoed: 17th December 2024 01:43
- Keywords: A$AP Rocky Alec Baldwin Harvey Weinstein Jonathan Majors Justin Timberlake DUI arrest R Kelly Rust Sean 'P Diddy' Combs armorer Hannah Gutierrez
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- Country: UK
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
- Reuters ID: LVA00B560220092024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3 AND PROFANITY IN SHOT 6
EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT IS FROM A SERIES OF SHOWBIZ YEARENDERS RUNNING DEC. 2-5, 2024
Music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, actor Alec Baldwin and singer Justin Timberlake were among the celebrities in court this year.
Combs was arrested in Manhattan by federal agents in September following a year in which his career was derailed by several lawsuits accusing him of physical and sexual abuse.
The 55-year-old, who is one of the most influential producers and executives in hip-hop, was arrested on charges accusing him of using his business empire including record label Bad Boy Entertainment to transport women and male sex workers across state lines to take part in recorded performances called "Freak Offs". He has pleaded not guilty.
Combs is scheduled to go on trial starting on May 5 on three felony counts: racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prosecution.
Combs' lawyers have said the sexual activity described in the indictment was consensual.
Prosecutors have said Combs' employees helped arrange the "Freak Offs" by booking hotel rooms and buying controlled substances and other items used during sex, according to the indictment.
During raids of his homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida in March, authorities found drugs and 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, along with AR-15 rifles with defaced serial numbers, the indictment said.
He was denied bail several times with multiple judges citing a risk that he might tamper with witnesses. His most recent bid was denied in late November after 10 weeks in jail.
His defense lawyers argued he should be confined to an apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he would be monitored around the clock by private security personnel he would pay for, and be barred from having contact with alleged victims or witnesses.
But prosecutors said it was unlikely Combs would abide by those rules.
From behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Combs used other inmates' identification numbers to make phone calls in violation of jail policy designed to monitor communications, prosecutors said. Defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro said such sharing among inmates was routine.
Prosecutors also said a 2016 hotel surveillance video of Combs assaulting former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, showed there was a risk he would act violently if released.
In May, Combs issued an apology after the release of the video, in which he appears to grab Ventura as she waits by an elevator at the hotel.
"I'm truly sorry," he said in a video post on his Instagram page. "My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I'm disgusted. I was disgusted then when I did it. I'm disgusted now."
The week before his arrest, a Michigan judge ordered Combs to pay $100 million to Derrick Lee Smith, who said Combs drugged and sexually assaulted him at a party almost 30 years ago, after Combs failed to show up to defend himself in court. A lawyer for Combs said he would seek to dismiss that judgment.
Combs also faces civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct, including one that accuses him of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in 2005. The latter was filed by Tony Buzbee, a lawyer who says he represents more than 150 victims of Combs' abuse, and has filed at least 17 lawsuits.
Combs' lawyers have said "he never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone - man or woman, adult or minor."
Both actor Alex Baldwin and armourer Hannah Gutierrez faced trials over the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Western "Rust".
The Ukrainian director of photography died when Baldwin's gun fired a live round inadvertently loaded by Gutierrez as the actor set up a camera shot in a movie-set church southwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Director Joel Souza was wounded.
Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March and is serving an 18-month prison sentence. In September, a judge denied a motion from her lawyers for a new trial or dismissal and a second motion for her immediate release from detention.
Baldwin's trial began in July but a New Mexico judge dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against him, agreeing with his lawyers that prosecutors and police withheld evidence on the source of the live round that killed Hutchins.
New Mexico district court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer threw out the case as the actors' lawyers alleged a "cover up" by prosecutors who have been plagued by missteps since first filing charges.
Prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey filed a notice of appeal in late November.
The film premiered at a low-key Polish film festival the same month.
Harvey Weinstein's 2020 conviction for sexual assault and rape was overturned by New York's highest court, reopening the landmark case that fueled the #MeToo movement and highlighting the challenges of holding powerful men accountable.
The New York Court of Appeals threw out the conviction in April, finding Weinstein did not get a fair trial because a judge improperly allowed testimony by accusers he was not formally charged with assaulting.
Many accusers of the former Hollywood movie mogul condemned the decision, with actress Ashley Judd telling reporters it was "an act of institutional betrayal."
Weinstein, who has denied having any non-consensual sexual encounters with anyone, was found guilty on rape charges in February 2020 in a case that provided impetus for the #MeToo movement. He is in prison awaiting a retrial.
Weinstein still faces two other criminal counts from an earlier indictment where he also pleaded not guilty, including another first-degree criminal sexual act charge and a third-degree rape charge. In September, he pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of sexual assault.
In October, NBC News reported that the 72-year-old has chronic myeloid leukemia, a type of bone marrow cancer, and was undergoing treatment while in prison at Rikers Island in New York. He was rushed to hospital in September to undergo heart surgery.
Pop star Justin Timberlake pleaded guilty in a New York State in September to a lesser traffic charge than drunk driving after he was arrested over the summer when police spotted him failing to obey a stop sign and veering off lane.
Timberlake, 43, agreed to plead guilty to driving while ability impaired, a lesser traffic violation than driving while impaired. He was fined $500 and ordered to perform community service, according to various media reports. His license had already been suspended.
Timberlake pleaded not guilty in August to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was arrested in June in the town of Sag Harbor on Long Island, where he was driving a 2025 gray BMW shortly after midnight.
When stopped by police, Timberlake's eyes "were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he was unsteady afoot and performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests," court documents said.
Timberlake told the officer he had one martini before driving and refused to take a breathalyzer test.
"I'm hoping that whoever's watching and listening right now can learn from this mistake," Timberlake said after his September hearing.
"I know that I certainly have. And like I said, even one drink - don't get behind the wheel of a car."
Jonathan Majors, a fast-rising Hollywood star before domestic violence charges derailed his career, avoided jail and was sentenced to one year of domestic-violence counseling in April after being found guilty of attacking his former girlfriend.
The sentence was imposed by Justice Michael Gaffey of the state Supreme Court in Manhattan, where Majors was convicted in December 2023 of one count each of third-degree assault and second-degree harassment, neither a felony, against Grace Jabbari.
Majors had faced up to one year in jail, but prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office recommended the counseling. He was told he must also continue therapy and stay away from Jabbari.
The criminal case against Majors stemmed from a March 2023 altercation in a hired SUV that left Jabbari, his girlfriend at the time, with a broken finger and swollen arm and ear.
In November, Jabbari dropped her assault and defamation lawsuit against the actor after reaching a settlement, various media outlets reported.
U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky, the romantic partner of singer Rihanna and father of her two sons, pleaded not guilty on two felony counts of assault with a semi-automatic weapon in January.
The scheduled November start of his trial was postponed to January after his team asked for it to be pushed back because of his headline performance at a festival in Thailand.
Rocky, 36, whose given name is Rakim Mayers, is accused of pointing a handgun at another hip-hop artist and former friend, Terell Ephron, during a heated argument, then firing twice in Ephron's direction during in a second confrontation. Both encounters occurred on November 6, 2021. Prosecutors alleged that Ephron suffered a minor injury in the shooting.
Mayers was arrested in connection with the altercation five months later, in April 2022, as he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Barbados. He was charged in August of that year.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined in October to hear imprisoned former R&B superstar R. Kelly's appeal of his 2022 federal conviction on charges involving child pornography and luring underage girls to have sex with him, one of two cases in which he was found guilty of sex crimes.
The justices turned away Kelly's challenge to a lower court's decision upholding his conviction by a federal jury in Chicago.
Kelly, now 57, claimed in his Supreme Court filing that prosecutors filed the charges against him in the case after the statute of limitations had expired.
During that trial, several women testified that Kelly sexually abused them when they were minors. The jury was also shown video of Kelly molesting his goddaughter, who testified that the abuse began in the 1990s when she was a teenager.
Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the case. He was found guilty of three child pornography counts and three counts of enticing minors for sex, but acquitted of seven other charges that included obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to receive child pornography.
Kelly in 2021 was convicted in another trial by a jury in New York City's borough of Brooklyn on all nine charges he faced, including racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which forbids transporting people across state lines for prostitution. He was given a 30-year prison sentence in that case, set to largely overlap with his sentence in the Chicago case.
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