NEW YORK (AP) — Witnesses began testifying this week in the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, one of the biggest music moguls and cultural figures of the past four decades.
Combs’ former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, is expected to take the stand Tuesday after prosecutors on Monday showed jurors video of the performer beating her in a hotel in 2016.
The trial is expected to last at least eight weeks in all. Here's a look at some of the details.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
Prosecutors allege Combs used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “freak offs.”
They say he coerced and abused women with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
“During this trial you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant’s crimes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told jurors in her opening statement Monday. "But he didn’t do it alone. He had an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees who helped him commit crimes and cover them up.”
Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos, however, told jurors that prosecutors are trying to turn sex between consenting adults into a sex trafficking case.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” she said.
Prosecutors revealed shortly before trial that Combs rejected a plea agreement that might have meant a lighter sentence than a conviction could. They did not disclose the terms of the proposed deal.
The prosecution on Monday showed the jury security video of Combs beating and kicking Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
The trial's first witness, Israel Florez, who was working hotel security at the time, testified about responding to a report of a woman in distress and witnessing Combs tell Cassie:, “You’re not going to leave.” Florez said he told Combs, “If she wants to leave, she’s going to leave.”
Cassie, who is expected to testify herself, was Combs' on-again-off-again romantic partner for more than a decade. Her 2023 lawsuit against Combs alleging years of abuse, including rape, began the scrutiny that eventually led to his prosecution.
Jurors on Monday also heard from Daniel Phillip, who said he was a professional stripper who was paid to have sex with Cassie while Combs watched and gave instructions. He testified that he once saw Combs drag her by her hair as she screamed.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie did.
The trial is in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. He's a Columbia Law School graduate and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and was appointed a federal judge by President Joe Biden in 2022.
The prosecution team consists of eight assistant U.S. attorneys, seven of them women. They include Maurene Ryan Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. She was among the prosecutors in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.
Combs' team of seven defense attorneys is led by New York lawyer Marc Agnifilo, who along with his wife Karen Friedman Agnifilo is also defending Luigi Mangione, the man accused of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Also on the defense team is Atlanta attorney Brian Steel, who represented Young Thug in a trial that went on for nearly two years before the rapper pleaded guilty to gang, drug and gun charges.
Twelve jurors — eight men and four women — and six alternates were chosen just before opening statements began Monday. They include include a massage therapist, an investment analyst and a deli clerk.
The jurors’ identities are known to the court and the prosecution and defense sides, but won’t be made public.
It’s common in federal cases to keep juries anonymous, particularly in sensitive, high-profile matters where juror safety is a concern
Combs, 55, has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his September arrest. His formerly jet-black hair is now almost completely gray because dye isn’t allowed at the detention center.
Combs, who had his own fashion line, has worn yellow jail uniforms in pretrial hearings. But for the trial, the judge said he can have up to five button-down shirts, five pairs of pants, five sweaters, five pairs of socks and two pairs of shoes without laces.
Under federal court rules, no photos or video of the trial will be allowed. Courtroom sketches are permitted.
Since 2023, dozens of women and men have been filing lawsuits against Combs claiming he sexually or physically abused them. Many of those people said they were slipped drugs at events hosted by Combs and were abused while they were incapacitated.
Combs has denied all of the allegations through his lawyers.
Some of those lawsuits have claimed that other celebrities were either present for or participated in the abuse.
The great majority of those allegations, however, aren't part of the criminal case. Prosecutors have chosen to focus on a relatively small number of accusers and allegations where there is physical evidence or corroboration by witnesses.
Sean Diddy Combs, left, stands as his defense attorney, Teny Geragos, gives her opening statement to the jury on the first day of trial in Manhattan federal court, Monday, May 12, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Sean 'Diddy' Combs, far left, looks on from the defense table with his attorneys, as a prospective juror, far right, answers questions posed by Judge Arun Subramanian, center, at Manhattan federal court, Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Sean 'Diddy' Combs, right, turns around and looks at the audience during jury selection at Manhattan federal court, Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
FILE - Sean 'P.' Diddy' Combs arrives at the annual Independence Day 'White Party' at the PlayStation 2 Estate in Bridgehampton, New York, July 4, 2004. (AP Photo/Jennifer Szymaszek, File)
The new Israeli military operation against Iran is giving President Donald Trump a fresh test of his campaign promise to disentangle the U.S. from foreign conflicts. It lands as he's dealing with domestic turmoil: Opponents of his administration are set to rally in hundreds of cities on Saturday during the military parade in Washington to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary, which coincides with Trump’s birthday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, doubling as Trump’s national security adviser, asserted that the U.S. was “not involved” and that protecting U.S. forces in the region is the Republican administration’s central concern. Trump, however, said Friday that he knows of Israel’s plans and warned Iran of “a lot more to come.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order directing Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California after he deployed them against people protesting immigration raids in Los Angeles.
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Authorities are looking for four detainees who escaped from an immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
More “law enforcement partners” have been brought in to find the detainees missing from Delaney Hall, according to an emailed statement attributed to a senior DHS official whom the department did not identify. The statement also didn’t specify which law enforcement agencies are involved.
▶Read more about what’s going on at Delaney Hall.
Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, commander of Task Force 51 who is overseeing the 4,700 troops deployed in Los Angeles, said Friday that 200 Marines have finished training on civil disturbance.
Sherman said the Marines will take over operations at noon local time in downtown Los Angeles. He says they will be protecting federal property and personnel.
The Marines will join some 2,000 National Guard troops that have been on the streets of the city since last week when immigration raids set off protests.
The meeting in the Situation Room, which was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., is the only item listed on Trump’s public schedule for Friday. There are currently no plans for him to appear before reporters.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia ’s plea was the first chance the Maryland construction worker has had in a U.S. courtroom to answer the Trump administration’s allegations against him since he was mistakenly deported in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The Republican administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last week to face a new indictment charging him with human smuggling for transported immigrants inside the United States. Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers during a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee.
“There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,” his lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said last week.
U.S. attorneys have asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes to keep Abrego Garcia in jail, describing him as a danger to the community and a flight risk.
Most of the sprawling city has been spared as protests continue downtown, near City Hall and a federal detention center where some immigrants are being held.
On the third night of an 8 p.m. curfew, Los Angeles police arrested several demonstrators who refused to leave a downtown street, and Homeland Security officers deployed flash bangs to disperse a crowd near the jail.
Those incidents were outliers. As with the previous two nights, the hourslong demonstrations remained peaceful and upbeat, drawing a few hundred attendees who were chanting, dancing and poking fun at the Trump administration’s characterization of the city as a “war zone.”
The LAPD said there have been about 470 arrests since Saturday, the vast majority for failing to leave the downtown area at the request of law enforcement. A handful of more serious charges include assault against officers and possession of a Molotov cocktail and a gun. Nine officers have been hurt, mostly with minor injuries.
▶ Read more about the crackdown and protests in Los Angeles
The letter lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil sent Friday to U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey says Khalil has satisfied all the court’s requirements for his release, including posting a $1 bond, while lawyers for the government missed the judge’s Friday’s 9:30 a.m. deadline. In response, the judge gave the government until 1:30 p.m. Friday.
Khalil’s lawyers say the government hasn’t shown any grounds to keep detaining him, other than reasons the judge already dismissed.
“The deadline has come and gone and Mahmoud Khalil must be released immediately,” his lawyers said in a statement provided by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Anything further is an attempt to prolong his unconstitutional, arbitrary, and cruel detention.”
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
▶ Read more about Khalil’s case
Gavin Newsom ’s office expressed concern that the data will be used for immigration raids supported by the National Guard troops and Marines Trump deployed in Los Angeles.
“We deeply value the privacy of all Californians,” the statement said. “This potential data transfer brought to our attention by the AP is extremely concerning, and if true, potentially unlawful, particularly given numerous headlines highlighting potential improper federal use of personal information and federal actions to target the personal information of Americans.”
Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said the data was shared legally, “to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them.”
Nixon wouldn’t answer questions about how DHS would use it, and DHS officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The data includes the immigration status of millions of Medicaid enrollees, which could facilitate locating people to deport as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown.
An internal memo and emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, citing legal and ethical concerns. Nevertheless, two top advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the dataset handed over to the Department of Homeland Security, the emails show.
The dataset includes people living in California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C., all of which allow non-U.S. citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that use only state taxpayer dollars.
▶ Read more about how DHS now has personal data of immigrant Medicaid enrollees
The tech billionaire has lost some of his luster with Republicans since his messy public falling-out with the president last week.
Fewer Republicans view Trump’s onetime government efficiency bulldog “very favorably” compared with April, according to the new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Though most Republicans continue to hold a positive view of Musk, their diminished fervor suggests his vocal opposition to Trump’s signature spending and tax cut legislation — and Musk’s subsequent online political and personal taunts — may have cost him.
About half of Americans have a negative opinion of Tesla — far more than other car companies. Tesla has dropped in value and amid protests in the U.S. and Europe.
▶ Read more about the AP/NORC poll on opinions about Elon Musk
“If I didn’t send the Military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform Friday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order directing Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California, and set an appellate hearing for Tuesday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had asked for an emergency intervention to stop troops from supporting immigration raids. “Today was really about a test of democracy, and today we passed the test,” Newsom said before the appeals court decision.
“The district court has no authority to usurp the President’s authority as Commander in Chief,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.
▶ Read more about California’s legal challenge of Trump’s military deployment in Los Angeles
The U.S. president said Friday morning that “we know what’s going on” when asked what sort of advance warning he got from Israel about its attack on Iran.
“Heads-up? It wasn’t a heads-up. It was, we know what’s going on,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
Trump again cited the Israel attack as a warning to Iran to make a nuclear deal.
The United States is shifting ships and other military resources in the Middle East in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two U.S. officials said Friday.
The Navy has directed the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner to begin sailing toward the Eastern Mediterranean and also has directed a second destroyer to begin moving forward, so it can be available if requested by the White House.
The president is meeting with his National Security Council principals, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday morning to discuss the situation, one of the officials said.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public.
— Tara Copp.
The Republican president’s March 25 executive order sought to overhaul elections nationwide by compelling officials to require documentary proof of citizenship for everyone registering to vote for federal elections, accepting only mailed ballots received by Election Day and conditioning federal election grant funding on states adhering to the new ballot deadline.
The White House has defended the order as “standing up for free, fair and honest elections” and called proof of citizenship a “commonsense” requirement.
The judge sided with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.
The attorneys general said the directive “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.”
Israel told the Trump administration that large-scale attacks were coming and expected Iranian retaliation would be severe and that’s why the United States ordered the evacuations of some nonessential embassy staffers and authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents in the region, U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic discussions.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff still plans to go to Oman this weekend for talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, but it’s not clear if the Iranians would participate, officials said.
In an interview with ABC News on Friday morning, Trump said the Israeli attack on Iran was “excellent” and again previewed more attacks to come.
“We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it,” Trump told ABC’s Jon Karl. “They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come. A lot more.”
Just hours before Israel launched strikes on Iran early Friday, President Donald Trump was still holding onto tattered threads of hope that a long-simmering dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program could be resolved without military action.
But with the Israeli military operation called “Rising Lion” now underway — something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says will go on for “as many days as it takes” — Trump will be tested anew on his ability to make good on a campaign promise to disentangle the U.S. from foreign conflicts.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal,” Trump said in a Friday morning social media post. “I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done.”
▶ Read more about the new test to Trump’s agenda
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order that directed President Donald Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California after he deployed them there following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.
The court said it would hold a hearing on the matter on Tuesday. The ruling came only hours after a federal judge’s order was to take effect at noon Friday.
▶ Read more about the court ruling
Marines are expected to begin moving into the city soon and will formally take over security from National Guard troops at some of the protest locations Friday morning.
The arriving Marines will take some time to transition with the Guard soldiers leaving the posts, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday night to discuss troop movements.
About 700 Marines have been undergoing civil disturbance training at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in Orange County, California.
Associated Press reporter Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Trump's deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles without approval of California's governor exceeded was illegal and violates the Tenth Amendment. The order applied only to the National Guard troops and not Marines who were also deployed to the LA protests. The judge said he would not rule on the Marines because they were not out on the streets yet.
“We’re talking about the president exercising his authority, and the president is of course limited in that authority. That’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George,” Breyer said during Thursday's court hearing, referring to the king of England during the American Revolution.
“This country was founded in response to a monarch, and the Constitution is a document of limitations,” Breyer said. “I’m trying to figure out where the lines are drawn.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom requested that the judge temporarily block Trump’s use of the National Guard specifically for immigration raids.
But Thursday’s hearing opened with Senior U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer asking attorneys whether Trump followed the law when he called in the National Guard.
Thursday’s executive order is meant to centralize duties now split among five agencies and two Cabinet departments.
Former federal officials have warned that such a consolidation could be costly and increase the risk of catastrophic blazes as global warming makes wildfires more severe and destructive.
Officials have not disclosed how much the change could cost.
In its first months, the administration sharply reduced the ranks of firefighters through layoffs and retirement offers and temporarily cut off money for wildfire prevention work.
The Department of Homeland Security is notifying hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that their temporary permission to live and work in the United States has been revoked and they should leave the country.
The termination notices are being sent by email to about 532,000 people who came to the country under the humanitarian parole program created by the Biden administration. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S.
DHS said the letters informed people that both their temporary legal status and work permit were revoked “effective immediately.”
▶ Read more about the termination notices
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at a news conference on President Donald Trump's spending and tax bill, Thursday, June 12, 2025, outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
The U.S. Capitol is seen through security fencing, set up on the National Mall, during preparations for an upcoming military parade commemorating the Army's 250th anniversary and coinciding with President Donald Trump's 79th birthday, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
President Donald Trump arrives on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Washington. The Washington Monument is seen in background. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
