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TRIAL DATE SET FOR DIDDY ASSAULT CASE: Sean John accused of socking a man at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel.
*Sean "Diddy" Combs will face trial in a civil lawsuit that accuses him of punching a man outside of Hollywood hot spot Teddy's during a post-Oscar party last year.
At a hearing Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge set May 27 as the start date, according to E! Online. As previously reported, four witnesses testified under oath that Combs socked Gerald Rechnitzer around 2:30 a.m. outside of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on the night of Feb. 26, 2007.
The rap mogul, who recently changed his moniker from Diddy to Sean John, reportedly man-handled Rechnitzer after he tried to stop the entertainer from flirting with his girlfriend, Sofia Sokolov.
Marianna Ruiz, one of the deposed witnesses, said that she and her friends were "just standing around and not paying attention" when she saw Diddy smack Rechnitzer's face unprovoked with the back of his right hand, causing him to "go flying" backwards.
"What caught my attention the most was I saw Mr. Combs reach back towards his left hand and sock Gerard in the face," Ruiz stated.
Another deposed witness, Michael Sherman, said the two men were staring each other down when "all of a sudden...Sean said something stupid like, 'I'm going to smack fire out of your [ass].'
"And then all of a sudden, he hit him. And there was a taxi behind Gerard. Gerard got knocked into the taxi," said Sherman, adding that Combs and his entourage then turned his attention to Ruiz and spat in her direction when she started screaming at him.
Sokolov, the third witness, said Sean John yelled as she and Rechnitzer walked away. She testified: "He got angry and said, 'What the f*** are you looking at?'"
The fourth witness, Nick Bregman, said he saw Rechnitzer falling backwards after the punch. "I didn't necessarily see where he went," Bergman said. "It was kind of shocking at the moment that that occurred."
Rechnitzer filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department, but their brief investigation resulted in no charges filed.
In other Sean John news, the impresario has reportedly upset neighbors of his Utah home by throwing late-night parties there during the Sundance Film Festival.
In town to promote the Feb. 25 premiere of his ABC TV movie "Raisin in the Sun," Diddy has already had the likes of Paris Hilton, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Kim Kardashian at his hilltop crib on a nightly basis since the festival began on Thursday, reports Britain's The Sun. Needless to say, neighbors are extremely frustrated with the gridlock created by his shindigs.
"We came back from Main Street to see cars packed on our property and numerous people being dropped off by taxis to his house," one neighbor told the newspaper. "It made it quite hard for other residents to drive down the road."
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