Jury for Sean 'Diddy' Combs sex trafficking trial to be finalized next week | Live updates

A jury is expected to be seated Wednesday in the racketeering and sex trafficking trial of Sean Combs, lawyers signaled Tuesday after struggling to reach a pool of 45 qualified prospective jurors.

At one point, after dismissing several prospective jurors who could not serve due to their jobs or for health reasons, Judge Arun Subramanian chided the parties for failing to weed out such hardships.

"We are running out of time," Subramanian said.

Opening statements are scheduled to begin Monday.

There are 35 qualified potential jurors so far and Subramanian said, "By tomorrow, I am sure, we will have 45 jurors who have not been struck for cause."

Attorneys on both sides agreed they could begin peremptory strikes after a brief break "and then we would have our jury," prosecutor Maureen Comey said.

After Combs told the judge he was "a little nervous" on Monday when jury selection started, he did not make any audible remarks on Tuesday. He sat at the defense table in a dress shirt, crew neck sweater and slate grey slacks. He put his hand over his heart when he spotted a familiar face and put on glasses when reading documents.

Combs appeared to follow the responses of potential jurors. He smiled when one woman, asked if she recognized any of the celebrity names who could come up at trial, responded "I wish I did."

At least, the judge said, prospective juror #210 was honest after the man admitted he smokes marijuana.

"I'm going to order you not to use marijuana during this trial. Can you follow that?" Judge Arun Subramanian asked.

"Yes," the man responded.

Then the man said he used marijuana once a day and the judge followed up, "Would that be hard for you given how often you use it?"

The man responded, "It would be."

Both sides agreed he should be excused and the judge agreed.

"He is honest, I'll say that," Subramanian said, drawing a chuckle in the courtroom.

Qualified potential jurors have been harder to come by on the second day of jury selection in Sean Combs' racketeering and sex trafficking trial.

A woman was excused after she said she heard a Russian comedy song about the case. She mentioned the name of the comedian. Subramanian said he hadn't heard of him.

Another woman was excused after she said she could not participate in sexually explicit discussions.

"I'm a very sensitive person and I could faint or black out," the woman said.

The judge excused a father of two who called the accusations "troubling." The man claimed to have seen only a few headlines about the Combs case but, when pressed, the man showed a fluency with some of the details.

"This man has an agenda of some sort," defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said. "I feel like he's trying to get on this jury."

A woman, who works for a company that imports avocados, was excused when she said she is "slightly biased" toward police officers because her relatives work in law enforcement.

"I would like to think that I wouldn't but there may be some bias," prospective juror #204 said before the judge struck her for cause.

It's a slow start to the second day of jury selection in Sean Combs' racketeering and sex trafficking trial after six of the first seven prospective jurors failed to qualify for the jury pool.

A woman was excused after she told the judge that things she had heard about the case caused her view of Combs to "lean negative."

"I guess I lean towards him having committed the crimes but I don't know," the woman said.

The defense asked for her to be excused.

"The juror said that she leans toward her belief that Mr. Combs committed the crimes," defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said. "What the juror is basically saying is that there is not a presumption of innocence in this individual juror's mind."

A second woman was excused after she questioned whether Combs' access to money could influence the outcome of the trial. A third woman, whose son is an assistant district attorney in Rockland County, was excused after she indicated she did not know whether she would be biased toward the prosecution. A man was dismissed after he told the judge he was taking medication that would prevent him from traveling to court.

A real estate broker was also dismissed after he said he was "unsure" how seeing the 2016 video of Combs kicking and dragging Cassie Ventura through a Los Angeles hotel affected his impression of the case.

"The juror had a very long, very thoughtful delay when your honor was asking about the video," Agnifilo said. "There's just such a danger when these videos are out in the public and then we try to get them into jury selection."

Judge Arun Subramanian agreed to strike the juror for cause.

The judge also dismissed a man who said he clicked on a news article about jury selection while he was riding MetroNorth home from court.

"I shouldn't have but I did," the man admitted.

Prosecutors sought his dismissal. "This is going to be a long trial. There's going to be a lot of media. The government is concerned with this juror's ability to follow directions," prosecutor Christy Slavik said.

Before the second day of jury selection began Tuesday, federal prosecutors asked the judge to admonish criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos, whose daughter, Teny Geragos, is a member of Sean Combs' legal team.

Mark Geragos has not filed a formal notice that he is part of the defense team but he has a longstanding relationship with Combs and appeared to consult with his lawyers during jury selection.

Federal prosecutors asked the judge to remind Geragos about court policies that forbid statements outside court that could interfere with a fair trial.

"The need for the Court's admonishment is necessary given that as recently as three days ago, Mr. Geragos spoke at length about the trial in this case in his podcast called '2 Angry Men,' Mr. Geragos's podcast with Harvey Levin, the creator of the tabloid news organization TMZ," federal prosecutors said in a letter to the judge.

Geragos described the use of the 2016 video showing Combs kicking and dragging Cassie through the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel as a "character assassination," the government's letter said. Geragos described the all-female prosecution team as having a "look like you're prosecuting a cause," the letter said.

The judge did not address the letter or Mark Geragos before calling prospective jurors.

Combs is dressed similarly to how he appeared Monday, in grey slacks and crew neck sweater over a dress shirt. In such pedestrian clothing, thinner frame and greying hair Combs cuts a less imposing figure than he did when he carried himself for decades with the swagger of the music, fashion and spirits mogul that he was.

The first prospective juror questioned Tuesday is a woman who said she was the victim of an attempted rape in the Bronx.

Judge Arun Subramanian asked whether she would be tempted to side with the alleged victims or whether she could keep an open mind.

"I'll be able to do it," the woman said. "Separate that out?" Subramanian asked. "Yes," she answered.