Judge threatens to expel Sean Combs from trial if he makes facial expressions in courtroom

Sean Combs' sex trafficking and racketeering trial resumed Thursday with a cross-examination of Cassie Ventura's friend Bryana Bongolana. During the break and without the jury present, Judge Arun Subramanian threatened to expel Combs from the courtroom if he continues to make facial expressions during testimony.

“I was very clear there were not to be any facial expressions,” Subramanian told lead defense counsel Marc Agnifilo. “There’s a line of questioning where your client was nodding vigorously and looking at the jury and there was a subsequent moment when there was a sidebar and I saw your client looking at the jury.”

Subramanian added emphatically, “That is absolutely unacceptable.”

He then asked Agnifilo: “Will it happen again?”

Agnifilo said it would not.

“If it happens again, if it happens even once, I will hear an application from the government to give a curative instruction to the jury, which you don’t want,” Subramanian said, also declaring that an additional violation “could result in the exclusion of your client from the courtroom.”

He instructed Agnifilo to talk with Combs, telling the attorney “there should be no efforts whatsoever to have interaction with this jury."

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