Sean 'Diddy' Combs' lawyer complains about trial secrecy as a famous rapper's name goes unmentioned
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER
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 lengthy arguments over whether another famous rapper's name could be disclosed.
Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo complained to Judge Arun Subramanian after Combs was left out of an hour-long meeting in a private room outside the courtroom where lawyers and the judge discussed a hotel room 'event' in January 2024.
That meeting added a two-hour delay to the start of the sixth and final day of testimony from a woman identified in court only by the pseudonym 'Jane,' who dated Combs from 2001 until his arrest last September.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges that carry a potential prison sentence of 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted. Prosecutors say he used his fame, fortune, violence and threats to manipulate girlfriends into sex with paid sex workers in multi-day events that they later said they regretted.
Defense attorneys say the government is trying to prosecute consensual sex between adults.
Under cross-examination, Jane testified Thursday that she flew to Las Vegas in January 2023 with a famous rapper and his girlfriend.
Defense attorney Teny Geragos did not identify the rapper, but asked Jane if he was 'an individual at the top of the music industry as well ... an icon in the music industry?'
'Yes,' Jane replied.
Once in Las Vegas, Jane testified, she went with a group including the rapper to dinner, a strip club and then a hotel room party, where a sex worker had sex with a woman while a half-dozen others in the room watched.
She said there was dancing in the room and the rapper said, 'hey beautiful,' and told her that he'd always wanted to have sex with her. Jane said she didn't recall exactly when she did it, but said she flashed her breasts in the room as she danced.
The testimony came soon after 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 turned down 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 during the testimony 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 grounds under which prosecutors are trying to get a Black juror ejected from the jury in mid-trial. The judge has said he'll rule on the request on Friday.
Defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro has called the prosecution's effort 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.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Comey 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.'
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asahi Shimbun
5 hours ago
- Asahi Shimbun
California man who admitted shipping weapons to North Korea is sentenced to 8 years in prison
Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, announced charges on Dec. 3, 2024, against a Chinese man in California who is accused of illegally shipping weapons and ammunition to North Korea. (AP Photo) LOS ANGELES--A California man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after admitting to shipping weapons and ammunition to North Korea that he said were to be used for a surprise attack on South Korea, authorities said Tuesday. Shenghua Wen, 42, came to the U.S. from China on a student visa in 2012 and remained in the country illegally after it expired, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles. Wen pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, the statement says. He was sentenced on Monday. Wen told investigators that before he entered the U.S., he met with North Korean officials at an embassy in China, where they instructed him to procure goods for the North Korean government. He also admitted that he tried to buy uniforms to disguise North Korean soldiers for the surprise attack, a federal complaint says. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has demonstrated an intent to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons along the North's border with South Korea, a U.S. ally, recently delivering nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline military units. United Nations resolutions ban North Korea from importing or exporting weapons. In 2022, North Korean officials contacted him via an online messaging app and instructed him to buy firearms, prosecutors said. He shipped two containers of weapons and other items from Long Beach, California, to North Korea via Hong Kong in 2023. He told U.S. authorities that he was wired about $2 million to do so, according to the complaint. Authorities did not specify in the complaint the types of weapons that were exported. To carry out his operation, Wen purchased a business in 2023 called Super Armory, a federal firearms licensee, for $150,000, and registered it under his business partner's name in Texas. He had other people purchase the firearms and then drove them to California, misrepresenting the shipments as a refrigerator and camera parts. Investigators did not say whether Wen had organized any shipments during his first 10 years in the U.S. The FBI in September seized 50,000 rounds of ammunition from Wen's home in the LA suburb of Ontario that had been stored in a van parked in the driveway, the complaint says. They also seized a chemical threat identification device and a transmission detective device that Wen said he planned to send to the North Korean government for military use, the complaint says.
Japan Today
12 hours ago
- Japan Today
New Zealand soldier admits attempted espionage in country's first spying conviction
New Zealand army officer cadets move on exercise in the Waiouru training area in the central North Island of New Zealand, May 6, 2022. (Corporal Naomi James/NZDF via AP) By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY A New Zealand soldier who tried to spy for a foreign power has admitted to attempted espionage in a military court. Monday's conviction was the first for spying in New Zealand's history. The soldier's name was suppressed, as was what country he sought to pass secrets to. Military court documents said the man believed he was engaged with a foreign agent in 2019 when he tried to communicate military information including base telephone directories and maps, assessments of security weaknesses, his own identity card and log-in details for a military network. The wording of the charge said his actions were 'likely to prejudice the security or defense of New Zealand.' He wasn't speaking to a foreign agent, but an undercover New Zealand police officer collecting intelligence on alleged right-wing extremist groups, documents supplied by the military court showed. The soldier came to law enforcement attention as part of an operation that was established after a March 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, when an Australian white supremacist opened fire on Muslim worshipers, killing 51. Officers spoke to the man twice about his involvement in a group, court documents showed, and after the government became aware he had expressed a desire to defect he was contacted by the undercover officer. When the soldier's hard drive was searched, investigators found a copy of Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant's livestreamed video of his massacre and a manifesto document he published online before the killings. Possession of either without permission is a criminal offense in New Zealand and the soldier, who admitted that charge too, joins several others convicted in New Zealand of having or sharing the terrorist's banned material. In a statement read to the court by his lawyer, the man said the two nationalist groups with which he was involved were 'no more than groups of friends with similar points of view to my own,' according to Radio New Zealand. The laywer, Steve Winter, added that his client denied supporting the Christchurch shooter's ideology, RNZ reported. The soldier — who was based at Linton Military Camp near the city of Palmerston North — also pleaded guilty to accessing a military computer system for dishonest purposes. The amended suite of three charges replaced 17 counts levelled against him earlier in the proceedings. Each of the three charges he admitted carries a maximum prison term of either seven or 10 years in New Zealand. His sentence was expected to be delivered by a military panel within days after Monday's conviction. The man was due to stand trial by court martial on the charges before he admitted the offenses. His was the first charge in a New Zealand military court for espionage or attempted spying. The last time such a case reached the civilian courts before was in 1975, when a public servant was acquitted on charges alleging he had passed information to Russian agents. A spokesperson for New Zealand's military said they would not comment until the proceedings against the soldier finished. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
a day ago
- Japan Today
'Ketamine Queen' accused of selling fatal dose to Matthew Perry agrees to plead guilty
FILE - Actor Matthew Perry arrives at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 23, 2012. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) By ANDREW DALTON A woman known as the 'Ketamine Queen,' charged with selling Matthew Perry the drug that killed him, agreed to plead guilty Monday. Jasveen Sangha becomes the fifth and final defendant charged in the overdose death of the 'Friends' star to strike a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, avoiding a trial that had been planned for September. She agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry's death, federal prosecutors said in a statement. Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a 42-year-old citizen of the U.S. and the U.K., as a prolific drug dealer who was known to her customers as the 'Ketamine Queen,' using the term often in press releases and court documents and even including it in the official name of the case. She agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. She admitted in the agreement to selling four vials of ketamine to another man, Cody McLaury, hours before he died from an overdose in 2019. McLaury had no relationship to Perry. Prosecutors will drop three other counts related to the distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of methamphetamine that was unrelated to the Perry case. Sangha will officially change her plea to guilty at an upcoming hearing, where sentencing will be scheduled, prosecutors said. She could get up to 45 years in prison. An email sent to Sangha's lawyers seeking comment was not immediately answered. She and Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal June 16, had been the primary targets of the investigation. Three other defendants — Dr. Mark Chavez, Kenneth Iwamasa and Erik Fleming — agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia. Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home by Iwamasa, his assistant, on Oct. 28, 2023. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death. The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal, but off-label, treatment for depression, which has become increasingly common. Perry, 54, sought more ketamine than his doctor would give him. He began getting it from Plasencia about a month before his death, then started getting still more from Sangha about two weeks before his death, prosecutors said. Perry and Iwamasa found Sangha through Perry's friend Fleming. In their plea agreements, both men described the subsequent deals in detail. Fleming messaged Iwamasa saying Sangha's ketamine was 'unmarked but it's amazing,' according to court documents. Fleming texted Iwamasa that she only deals 'with high end and celebs. If it were not great stuff she'd lose her business.' With the two men acting as middlemen, Perry bought large amounts of ketamine from Sangha, including 25 vials for $6,000 in cash four days before his death. That purchase included the doses that killed Perry, prosecutors said. On the day of Perry's death, Sangha told Fleming they should delete all the messages they had sent each other, according to her indictment. Her home in North Hollywood, California, was raided in March 2024 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents who found large amounts of methamphetamines and ketamine, according to an affidavit from an agent. She was indicted that June, arrested that August and has been held in jail since. None of the defendants has yet been sentenced. Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on 'Friends,' when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing. He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC's megahit series. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
