When Diddy or Depp go to court, trial tourists get in line
On a spring trip to Manhattan, Yoshi Obayashi spent his days and nights watching celebrities. The Los Angeles comedian saw George Clooney in “Goodnight and Good Luck” on Broadway and Sarah Snook in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” He also caught Sean “Diddy” Combs as the defendant in the United States of America v. Sean Combs at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.
“It has power, money, sex and crime, and it’s part of history,” Obayashi, who is also a podcaster, said of the real-life trial, which commenced May 12.
Obayashi was among the crush of spectators who showed up for the first week of the Combs trial, drawn to the marquee names and salacious details. None of them had received a summons to be here, the opposite of jury duty. They traveled from other boroughs, states and countries, braving long queues, sidewalk skirmishes and rainstorms to watch the federal government try Combs, 55, for charges of sex-trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty.
Trial tourism is not for the faint of heart.
“It’s reality television on steroids,” said Abbe Smith, a criminal defense attorney and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “Nothing is edited out. For better or worse, people are seeing what a real trial looks like.”
For fans of court dramas or celebrity scandals, a vacation centered on a high-profile trial is the ultimate true-crime-themed trip. In recent years, state and federal courthouses have become a surprise attraction because of their links to famous—or infamous—defendants, such as Bill Cosby; Amber Heard; Harvey Weinstein; R. Kelly; Ghislaine Maxwell; the Menendez brothers; and Luigi Mangione, who is expected to return to court in early December.
“The other one I really want to see is Luigi,” said Kange Kaneene, a venture capitalist from Brooklyn, who took time off from work to attend the Combs trial.
One of the most anticipated Hollywood cases, scheduled for next year in New York City, involves Blake Lively’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, her director and co-star in the film “It Ends With Us.”
The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution grants “the right to a speedy and public trial,” guaranteeing spectators access to most U.S. courtrooms. In the court of law, there is no VIP treatment or velvet rope. Members of the public can take a seat in any state or federal courtroom and observe a criminal or civil trial committed by a commoner or celebrity. (There are a few exceptions, such as juvenile cases.) Smith said this “bedrock principle” ensures transparency and prevents secret trials and judicial fiefdoms.
“The best way for there to be public accountability is to let the public in,” Smith said.
All trials are different. They can last an afternoon, weeks or months. The court might use a lottery system or hand out colored bracelets to viewers. Or, like Broadway rush tickets, they may let the public jockey for a coveted seat.
“I could see Denzel Washington live onstage playing Shakespeare,” Smith said of the limited-run “Othello” performance, “or I could see Sean Combs accused of sex trafficking.”
From Salem witches to O.J.
The history of sensational trials is long and lurid, Smith said, citing the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts and the Dreyfus affair in France. In modern times, the O.J. Simpson case irrevocably changed the relationship between the public and the legal system. The 1995 trial in which Simpson was acquitted of murder charges became must-see programming on network news, cable channels and Court TV. It is estimated that more than 150 million people, or about 57 percent of the U.S. population, tuned in to the televised verdict, according to CNN.
“People were staying home from work to watch it on television, or lining up to see it, booing or cheering when the lawyers went in,” said Gloria Allred, the victims’ rights attorney and advocate for the family of Nicole Brown Simpson, the defendant’s slain ex-wife, in the criminal case. “People just wanted more, and more, and more and more.”
Trials became fan-fueled events resembling concerts. After pleading not guilty to child molestation charges in 2004, Michael Jackson waved and blew kisses atop a black SUV surrounded by a mob of supporters. In 2021, the Britney Army showed up in full force at the Los Angeles courthouse where Britney Spears was seeking to end her conservatorship. They toted “Free Britney” signs and wore outfits inspired by her MTV videos. Two years ago, Ed Sheeran strummed a victory song on the roof of a car after a jury found him not guilty of copyright infringement. A crowd swarmed the star, hooting and hollering.
“This falls into lockstep with American popular culture and the turn toward reality television,” Smith said. “Sometimes I think it’s hard for people to distinguish between what’s real and what’s fiction.”
High-profile trials involve real people who may have suffered real trauma, and judicial decisions can have serious consequences for all parties involved. Smith, in defense of trial tourism, cast the public’s obsession with celebrity cases in a more flattering light.
“Is it voyeurism? Yeah! Absolutely,” she said. “But voyeurism could also be called curiosity. I sometimes wish we had more curious people.”
Trial superfans
On May 11, the evening before opening statements for the Combs trial, a line wriggled down the sidewalk outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in New York. Professional line-sitters holding spots for journalists sank into folding beach chairs or curled up in tents, a still life of urban camping. The faithful, lacking outdoor sleeping gear, steeled themselves for an all-nighter. Strains of Diddy songs floated through the air.
Obayashi arrived just before midnight with a comedian friend and his sidekick, a ventriloquist dummy. It was the duo’s first trial, but not Obayashi’s. The veteran of destination trials has observed cases in New York (Maxwell, Donald Trump, Sam Bankman-Fried), Chicago (Jussie Smollett), France (the Gisèle Pelicot case) and Romania (Andrew Tate). In his home state of California, he watched Elizabeth Holmes face wire fraud charges in San Jose, and a Hollywood actor and film producer fight—and lose—their sexual abuses charges on the same floor of an L.A. courthouse.
“Harvey Weinstein was on the right courtroom. Danny Masterson was on the left,” said Obayashi, who rolls his experiences into his act. “So I was going back and forth between them.”
Jessica Jarva, a mixed-media artist who goes by Jarvaland, also frequents trials. For the Combs case, she wore pink sweatpants, white ankle boots and a baseball cap that could be misconstrued as Team Diddy.
“It’s not ‘Propuff,’” Jarva said of her hat from a grocery-delivery company, which was not a reference to the rapper’s former name Puff Daddy. “It says ‘Gopuff.’”
Jarva typically picks trials—Maxwell, Trump, Kevin Spacey—within easy commuting distance from her New York City apartment. But in 2022, she drove five hours to the Virginia courthouse where Johnny Depp and Heard, his ex, were ensnared in a defamation lawsuit. Jarva said she slept in her car before upgrading to a Ritz-Carlton, where other court attendees were bunking.
“That was like a whole microculture,” Jarva said. “You got sucked in. I mean, everybody’s in love with Johnny Depp.”
Jarva planned to divide her time between Combs and Weinstein, who was being retried for sexual assault at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse around the corner.
“I’ll do Mondays at P. Diddy’s, but Harvey is such an important case, and it’s so overlooked,” Jarva said. “You can go any time of day and walk right in, because nobody’s there.”
Meanwhile, the gathering outside the Southern District of New York courthouse had doubled in size. Line-holders had sold their “one spot” to multiple customers, sparking a small uprising among the tired and irritable.
An officer materialized, reassuring the crowd.
“We’re going to try to get everyone in,” he said.
He then reminded everyone to call their friends and loved ones before entering the building. The public is welcome inside; their electronics are not.
Skip lunch for a courtroom seat
The court officer was right. Everybody waiting outside was now inside: the mainstream and independent journalists, podcasters, YouTubers, true-crime buffs, celebrity-scandal sleuths, Combs sympathizers and the ventriloquist dummy.
Federal courthouses prohibit video and audio recordings of the proceedings. So all visitors, including the Combs family, had to hand over their devices in return for a token. From a post-security line, the officers directed a few dozen people to the courtroom on the 26th floor and dispatched the rest to an overflow room.
The room was a funhouse of screens displaying a live broadcast of the trial two floors below. The best spot in the house was the first wooden pew on the right, inches from the largest screen. Allred, whose two clients have filed civil lawsuits against Combs, nabbed a prime seat. Across the aisle, a woman in a red puffer jacket gazed at the scene through a pair of binoculars.
As the day progressed, the overflow room grew livelier. Without our phones, we worked together to identify the Combs family members sitting a few rows behind the defendant and his eight-member legal team. Jamie Caradine, who drove more than three hours from Pennsylvania, recorded the answers in a notebook titled “Diddy Trial.”
When Judge Arun Subramanian entered, everyone in the courtroom stood up. The crowd in the overflow room stayed seated. A voice rang out, “Are you ready to rumble?” A woman complained to her friend that a guy behind them was eating a sandwich. Obayashi struggled to stay awake, the sleepless night finally hitting him.
From the get-go, the trial was riveting. Every word and gesture seemed charged with meaning. A gray-haired Combs turned toward his family and flashed them a hopeful smile. The prosecutors ticked off their reasons for striking several jurors from the panel—one went to the same high school as Combs, another had watched his reality show “Making the Band.” The opening statements were an elaborate preview of the upcoming eight weeks.
“You will hear things that should never be heard in a federal courthouse,” said Teny Geragos, a defense lawyer, warning of sexually explicit and violent testimony.
Slightly after noon, the judge called a lunch break. The courthouse has a cafeteria, but many people returned to the line instead. The seasoned spectators pulled out snacks and sandwiches and ate standing up. Skipping the midday meal paid off. An officer led me to my seat, two rows behind the Combs family and two spots away from Jarva, the artist.
The courtroom was much stricter and more intense than the overflow room. An officer reprimanded me for holding an empty coffee cup and ordered me to return to my seat after a short break. During the testimony of an escort, a bailiff confiscated Jarva’s sketch pad and ejected her.
After the judge wrapped up the first day, I ran into Jarva on the courthouse steps. She was hopeful the officers would return her art supplies. She needed them for the Weinstein trial, where she could freely draw any face in the state courtroom.
Midway through the first week of the Combs trial, I walked four minutes in the pouring rain to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. A security officer told me that Weinstein’s first trial was a circus of news outlets and #MeToo advocates. Five years later, I stepped into a deserted lobby.
I rode the elevator alone to the clerk’s office and checked the schedule on a whiteboard. A note of etiquette read, “To watch a trial, please enter the courtroom quietly and silence your phone.” I located Weinstein’s trial, which was listed as “criminal sexual act 1st.” He has pleaded not guilty.
Inside the courtroom, members of the public were tapping on laptops and thumbing their phones. Several court officers joked around like extras on “Night Court.”
Jarva, who was also there, poked me. “Weinstein,” she whispered, as a bailiff pushed the defendant in a wheelchair. The jury shuffled in. The alleged victim, a Polish model, took the stand and dissolved into tears as the lawyers dissected her Alcoholics Anonymous journal.
A subplot bubbled up between Judge Curtis Farber and defense lawyer Arthur Aidala.
“Can’t you just say ‘objection?’” the tea-sipping judge asked the brassy attorney. “You don’t have to yell at the witness.”
Farber ordered a pause in the proceedings. A few people left the building and walked the short distance to the federal courthouse. They wanted to catch a bit of Combs before lunch.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
