NEW YORK (AP) — A lawyer for Sean “Diddy” Combs protested the rising tide of secrecy at the hip-hop icon’s federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial on Thursday after Combs and the public were excluded from arguments over whether another famous rapper's name could be disclosed.
Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo complained to Judge Arun Subramanian after Combs was excluded from a meeting outside the courtroom between lawyers and the judge.
That meeting delayed the final day of weeklong testimony from a woman identified in court only by the pseudonym “Jane,” who dated Combs from 2001 until his September arrest.
When her emotional testimony ended, she hugged a prosecutor, Maureen Comey, in front of the jury, which would have drawn an outcry from the defense except she hugged defense attorney Teny Geragos too.
Her testimony likely helped both sides. She admitted still loving Combs, but she said she now resents that she felt forced to have sex with strangers to satisfy his sexual fantasies.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges that carry a potential prison sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Prosecutors say he used fame, fortune, violence and threats to manipulate girlfriends into sex with paid sex workers in multi-day events that they later regretted.
Defense attorneys say the government is prosecuting consensual sex between adults.
Under cross-examination by Geragos, Jane testified Thursday that she flew to Las Vegas in January 2023 with a famous rapper and his girlfriend.
Geragos didn't identify the rapper but asked Jane if he had recorded with Combs, “an individual at the top of the music industry as well ... an icon in the music industry.” She also asked if Combs and the rapper were “really close.”
“Yes,” Jane replied.
Once in Las Vegas, Jane testified, she went with a group including the rapper to dinner, a strip club and a hotel room party, where a sex worker had sex with a woman while a half-dozen others watched.
She said there was dancing and the rapper said, “hey beautiful,” and told her he'd always wanted to have sex with her. Jane said she didn't recall exactly when but she flashed her breasts while dancing.
The testimony followed the closed-door session Thursday, when lawyers discussed what facts could be disclosed about the hotel room encounter.
Agnifilo said the need for a public trial was “an important issue, a constitutional issue” and objected to so much happening out of the earshot of his client.
In response, the judge offered more secrecy, saying “If your client wishes to be heard ... we can clear this courtroom if need be to address it.”
Agnifilo rejected the offer.
“Part of the reason trials are fully public is so if other people realize they know something about an event discussed in a public courtroom, they can come forward and share their recollection of it,” the lawyer said, adding: “That is kind of the practical side of the constitutional right to a public trial.”
A monitor that is used to show exhibits to spectators has been shut off throughout Jane's testimony, although lawyers, the judge, Combs and jurors can view them. Some sidebar conversations between lawyers and the judge have been sealed.
The judge also has banned the public from viewing any exhibits containing sexual content, even though the defense has said images from the group sex episodes proves they were consensual acts between adults, and not proof of crimes.
And many of the letters to the judge from lawyers each day are filed under seal, preventing the public from quickly knowing, for instance, the details about why prosecutors want a Black juror ejected from the jury in mid-trial. The judge has said he'll decide the juror's fate Friday.
Defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro has called the prosecution's quest a “thinly veiled effort to dismiss a Black juror.”
Jane and Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who testified for four days in the trial’s first week about her relationship with Combs from 2007 through 2018, both said they participated in the sex marathons for years, with Cassie calling them “freak-off” nights and Jane referring to them as “hotel nights.”
Agnifilo said the defense consented to Jane testifying with a pseudonym but did not consent to other events related to her testimony and the testimony of other witnesses not being public.
Comey, the lead prosecutor, attacked Agnifilo's rationale for disclosing more information publicly with the risk that it would be easier for someone to guess Jane's identity, saying it was an “attempt to harass and intimidate this witness.”
FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2015 file photo, Sean "Diddy" Combs presents the award for best collaboration of the year at the American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)
Inside a federal courtroom is shown, similar to the room where the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ is being held in Federal District court in Manhattan on Friday, June 6, 2025 in New York. (Jefferson Siegel /The New York Times via AP, Pool)
FILE - Sean Combs arrives at the Pre-Grammy Gala And Salute To Industry Icons at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 25, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
