• In the past week, Trump has fought in four courthouses to block Friday's hush-money sentencing.
• Safeguarding his golf resort liquor licenses may be one reason he's fighting sentencing so hard.
• Sentencing will let NJ officials resume last year's efforts to revoke his licenses in the state.

Over the past week, lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump have fought in four courthouses to make his Friday hush-money sentencing date disappear — and safeguarding the liquor licenses at his three New Jersey golf courses may be one reason for that effort.

Little will change for Trump, practically speaking, if his sentencing proceeds in a Manhattan courtroom despite an 11th-hour US Supreme Court challenge filed by his lawyers. New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has said he's inclined to hand down a zero-punishment sentence. Trump won't need to attend in person.

However, the instant he becomes a sentenced felon, Trump will have received what Jersey liquor officials consider to be a final judgment of conviction.

That finality would allow the state's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control to resume last year's efforts to revoke two of his licenses, an ABC spokesperson told Business Insider on Wednesday.

The ABC began these efforts soon after Trump's May 30 conviction, by pulling the liquor licenses for two of Trump's Jersey clubs — the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck, and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

In anticipation of a hush-money sentencing initially set for July 11, 2024 the ABC gave the two clubs interim permits to continue selling and serving alcohol and set a July 19, 2024 date for a Trenton liquor license revocation hearing.

As Trump continued to win sentencing delays over the past half year, the ABC, run by Jersey's attorney general's office, has kept those revocation hearing plans on ice.

Meanwhile, the interim licenses at the Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs have remained in effect, "allowing the facilities to continue serving alcohol until a hearing on the renewals is held," the spokesperson told BI Wednesday.

Trump's third Jersey club is the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, located 45 minutes from that city, in Pine Hill. Last June, the Borough of Pine Hill renewed the club's license for one year, the ABC spokesperson said. Pine Hill officials did not immediately respond when asked Wednesday for their plans regarding that license.

All three licenses are in Donald Trump Jr.'s name, not his father's, but the ABC said last summer that the president-elect is the sole financial beneficiary of those licenses, a finding officials continued to stand by on Wednesday.

"There has been no change to ABC's review that indicates that the president-elect maintains a direct beneficial interest in the three liquor licenses through the receipt of revenues and profits from them, as the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust," the spokesperson said.

State law requires revocation if anyone who either holds or is the primary beneficiary of a liquor license commits a crime of moral turpitude.

"In New Jersey, felony convictions are universally considered to be crimes of moral turpitude," said attorney Peter M. Rhodes, partner at the Haddonfield-based law firm Cahill Wilinsky Rhodes & Joyce.

"Obviously, it's a fairly unusual circumstance when a president-elect is the felon," added Rhodes, whose firm has served for 50 years as counsel to the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association.

The three Jersey golf club licenses are set to expire on June 30. Once Trump's felony status is finalized at sentencing, the ABC can immediately set a hearing, at which Trump's side would have the burden of proving he remains qualified to profit from the licenses.

A spokesperson for The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What about his licenses in other states?

Trump golf resorts in other states also have liquor licenses, but officials in those states have not signaled they are in jeopardy as a result of the president-elect's felony conviction.

Regulators with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in California, home to the Trump National Golf Club outside Los Angeles, "are not aware of his having any direct or indirect beneficial interests in any ABC license," a spokesperson said Wednesday of the president-elect.

A spokesman for the State Liquor Authority in New York, where Trump has two golf courses, issued a similar response. Officials in Florida, where Trump has three courses, and in North Carolina, where he has one, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

• President-elect Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to block Friday's hush-money sentencing in NY.
• Wednesday's request seeks "to prevent grave injustice and harm to the presidency."
• The court asked for a response by 10 a.m. Thursday from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked the US Supreme Court to block the president-elect's Manhattan hush-money sentencing, currently set for Friday.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is assigned to handle emergency applications from New York for the court, and she will get first pass at the application.

Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009, wrote a scathing dissent of the high court's July 1 opinion granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution. The 525-page application filed by Trump on Wednesday morning refers to presidential immunity more than 300 times, and argues that it voids his conviction and indictment.

If she is unpersuaded by Trump's application, she will refer it to the full panel of justices, where he would need a majority 5/9 vote to prevail.

There is enough time between now and 9:30 a.m. Friday — the scheduled sentencing time — for a full panel decision, said Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

"If they want to, they can do it," Paradis said, adding that the justices can forgo oral arguments and decide on the paperwork alone.

The wording on a denial, should one come, would be terse, he said: "The application for a stay having been bought before Justice Sotomayor, and by her referred to the whole court, is denied."

If Trump wins, "that would be a few more lines, accompanied probably by a briefing schedule on the merits," he said, potentially pushing the matter past the January 20 inauguration, after which presidential immunity from prosecution kicks in.

In that instance, the sentencing could be postponed until after Trump leaves office in 2029, assuming SCOTUS doesn't toss the case on constitutional and immunity grounds.

Trump's 11th-hour bid to avoid sentencing comes one day after a New York appellate judge nixed a similar stay, rejecting arguments by a defense lawyer that presidential immunity from prosecution extends to presidents-elect.

Defense lawyers on Wednesday morning simultaneously filed an application with the state's highest appellate court seeking to block Trump's sentencing. That application was rejected Thursday morning.

Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed response papers Thursday morning, as requested by Sotomayor.

The response argued that SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over the case until after a final judgment of sentence, and took a swipe at what Bragg called Trump's "novel invocation of President-elect immunity." Such a thing does not exist, the DA argued.

SCOTUS can now decide at any time whether the sentencing happens as scheduled.

Trump is seeking "to correct the unjust actions by New York courts and stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.'s Witch Hunt," Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said. "The Supreme Court's historic decision on Immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed."

January 9, 2025: This story was updated to reflect ongoing developments in the legal cases.

• Trump has won three sentencing delays since his historic May 30 felony conviction in Manhattan.
• On Monday, Trump sought a fourth delay of his hush-money sentencing, now set for Friday.
• A judge rejected that request.

President-elect Donald Trump failed on Monday to win an immediate halting of Friday's sentencing date for his Manhattan hush-money conviction.

In turning down what would have been Trump's fourth delay of his sentencing date, the trial judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, said most of the president-elect's arguments were a repetition of those he's raised "numerous times in the past."

Trump's defense lawyers still have the rest of the week to fight the sentencing date —and the conviction itself — while pursuing a state-level appellate petition. The petition was also filed Monday and challenges what Trump's lawyers call "this politically-motivated prosecution."

Merchan's decision shifts the focus of Trump's sentencing-delay efforts to the appellate division, which can decide to hear his challenge — either before or after Friday — or simply send the case back to Merchan for sentencing as scheduled.

The filing asks the state Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, for the chance to be heard on January 27, when they would argue against Merchan's two recent refusals to dismiss the case.

On December 16, Merchan rejected Trump's request to toss the case presidential-immunity grounds. Late last week, the judge rejected Trump's request to toss the case in the interest of justice. The president-elect's Appellate Division efforts will focus on those two Merchan decisions.

"The Supreme Court's historic decision on immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedents mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed," Trump said through spokesman Steven Cheung.

Merchan's refusal to move the sentencing date on Monday was the latest loss in Trump's two-year battle to free himself from his sole criminal conviction.

Repeatedly since before his 2023 indictment, Trump's lawyers have asked state and federal judges to dismiss his hush-money prosecution, citing grounds of presidential immunity, prosecutorial and judicial bias, and — most recently — the interest of justice given his November election win.

Trump continues to fight to clear his rap sheet now despite Merchan revealing last week that Friday's sentencing will likely result in zero punishment.

State sentencing guidelines allow Merchan to sentence Trump to anywhere from no jail up to four years in prison on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

But Merchan said last week that he is inclined to hand down a sentence of no punishment at all — no jail, no probation, no fines, no community service, instead granting what's called an unconditional discharge — in recognition of the demands of the presidential transition and his pending second term in office.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did not oppose a no-jail sentence. In writing Merchan on Monday to oppose a fourth sentencing delay, Bragg revealed that Trump has elected to appear virtually if Friday's sentencing happens.

A spokesperson for Bragg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A jury in May found that throughout his first year in office, Trump ordered that 34 Trump Organization records be altered to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush-money payment that silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels 11 days before the 2016 election.

In a letter to Merchan on Monday, Bragg urged the judge to proceed with Friday's sentencing, "given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings."

Besides, it's Trump's own fault that his sentencing will happen just 10 days before his inauguration, Bragg said.

"He should not now be heard to complain of harm from delays he caused," the DA said.

This would have been the fourth sentencing delay

Merchan has granted Trump three sentencing delays in the months since his May 30 conviction.

The first delay allowed the parties time to respond to the US Supreme Court's July 1 opinion granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution. Sentencing was pushed back a second time after Trump complained the new date was too close to the November election, and it was moved a third time to let the parties respond to Trump's win.

• Ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani risks being held in contempt in federal court in Manhattan.
• Two GA election workers said he repeatedly ignored court orders in their federal defamation case.
• If he's found in contempt, Trump could not issue a pardon or commute his sentence.

Rudy Giuliani took the witness stand in federal court in New York on Friday, battling a potential contempt-of-court finding sought by two Georgia election workers — and Donald Trump can't come to his rescue if he loses.

If a judge decides Giuliani has flouted court orders by failing to turn over assets and evidence in the three-year-old defamation case, he could fine Giuliani or send him to jail until he complies.

The federal pardon and commutation powers Trump regains on his return to the White House next month do not extend to civil contempt sentences.

According to experts in constitutional law and federal pardons, Giuliani would not be able to rely on his former client to save him from jail or fines.

"Generally criminal contempt is within the power of the president, but civil contempt is not," said Margaret Love, a lawyer who served as the Justice Department pardon attorney in the 1990s.

Giuliani was combative on the stand on Friday, at a daylong contempt-of-court hearing overseen by US District Judge Lewis Liman in a courthouse in downtown Manhattan.

The hearing, which will continue next week, is part of a suite of civil cases brought by mother-daughter Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss.

"This is monstrously overbroad," Giuliani complained of Moss-Freeman asset-document requests during questioning at one point on Friday. "It's abusive and overbroad."

A federal judge in Washington, DC, found in 2023 that Giuliani defamed the pair — and subjected them to a barrage of racist death threats — by repeatedly and falsely accusing them of voter fraud, including by lying that they had tallied suitcases full of illegal ballots for Joe Biden.

In December 2023, a jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss $148 million. In recent weeks, the two plaintiffs have sought to have him held in contempt in DC and in Manhattan to force him to comply with judges' demands that he cease defaming them and turn over assets and evidence as ordered.

The contempt hearing is scheduled to continue Monday morning.

Giuliani's defense has focused on his recent switch of lawyers from Kenneth Caruso, an experienced New York-based attorney he has known for nearly 50 years, to Joseph Cammarata, best known for representing a woman who accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.

Giuliani swapped lawyers sometime in November. Giuliani said that changing attorneys had made it a challenge to meet deadlines — an excuse that the pair's lawyers did not accept.

Cammarata said in court Friday that his client has completed "substantial compliance" with his obligations and should not be held in contempt.

He said that Giuliani, who is 80 years old, has struggled to deal with an avalanche of legal proceedings against him, including criminal investigations. Prosecutors in Arizona and Georgia have brought cases against Giuliani over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump.

"Mayor Giuliani, as this court knows, has multiple litigations going on in multiple states, both civil and criminal in nature," Cammarata said.

Giuliani took the stand — struggling up a step by the podium — after the court's lunch break. At the beginning of the break, he complained to Jane Rosenberg, a courtroom artist, about how she depicted him in one of her pastel drawings.

"You made me look like my dog," he told her, Rosenberg said.

Giuliani was cross-examined by Meryl Conant Governski, an attorney representing Freeman and Moss, about two sworn declarations he had submitted to the court saying that he's abided by all of the judge's orders and provided proper responses to information requests and interrogatories.

He said that the turnaround time required for discovery requests was "unusually short" even though his previous attorney, Caruso, had agreed to the 14-day response deadlines.

In the morning, Cammarata cross-examined Aaron Nathan, an attorney representing Freeman and Moss, over how he determined whether the former New York mayor had failed to account for his property. Many of the questions concerned Giuliani's framed Joe DiMaggio jersey that once hung over the fireplace in his Manhattan apartment.

When Nathan gained access to the apartment in October and searched the residence, it was gone.

"This jersey has been at the forefront of the case," Cammarata said in one heated moment. "There have been accusations that my client absconded with the jersey. And that is not the case."

Cammarata, in winding and plodding cross-examination, pointed out that the photo of the jersey in the apartment was taken in the summer of 2023, and time had passed before Nathan went into the apartment and saw the location himself.

"Your honor, if I may, I want to take his testimony about the passage of time," Cammarata objected after the judge cut off his questioning on the subject.

The day before Friday's hearing, Giuliani asked for permission to attend virtually, due to "medical issues with his left knee and breathing problems due to lung issues discovered last year," as his lawyer, explained it in a letter to the judge.

The breathing problems are "attributable to Defendant Rudolph W. Giuliani being at the World Trade Center site on September 11, 2001," Cammarata wrote.

Giuliani attended in person after the judge warned he'd otherwise be barred from testifying on his own behalf.

Should Giuliani be found in contempt, "the executive pardon power would not extend to a civil contempt sentence," even in a federal court, said former federal prosecutor Ephraim Savitt.

That's because Giuliani's jailing wouldn't be a punishment for a past infraction — instead, it would be a remedial sentence, meant to force his compliance with the judge's orders.

"Civil contempt sentences are essentially open-ended," meaning Giuliani could only be freed once he had complied, said Savitt.

"It's a means of coercing a party to take some action, to compel compliance," said Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

"So long as Giuliani has the keys to his own cell, and can be freed by simply complying with the judge's order, then there is no crime to be pardoned or punishment to be reprieved," he added.

• Since his reelection, Trump has sought to dismiss his hush-money case in the interest of justice.
• His lawyers cited his victory, presidential immunity, and the supremacy of US law over state law.
• On Friday, Judge Merchan rejected those arguments and set a January 10 sentencing date.

A New York judge has rejected Donald Trump's bid to dismiss his hush-money indictment in the interest of justice, instead setting a January 10 sentencing date — just 10 days before the inauguration.

In his 18-page ruling, State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan gave Trump the choice of appearing in person in his Manhattan courtroom or virtually.

Merchan also said he is inclined to sentence Trump to zero penalties — what's called an "unconditional discharge" — meaning no jail term, no fines, no community service, no probation.

Such a sentence would honor Trump's concerns about the demands of the transition and pending presidency, as well as reflect prosecutors' view that jail is not a practical sentencing recommendation, the judge wrote.

Still, Trump's arguments failed to justify the outright dismissal of the indictment or overturning the jury's May 30 verdict, the judge found.

Trump's arguments were "unpersuasive as no compelling factor, consideration or circumstance submitted demonstrate that imposition of sentence would result in injustice," the judge wrote.

Trump has called the case a politically-motivated witch hunt — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a democrat — and his lawyers have promised to exhaust both his state and federal appellate options in hopes of clearing his rap sheet of the historic conviction.

No other former, current, or future president has been tried and convicted of a felony.

"This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said of Merchan's decision.

"President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts," Cheung added.

"There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead."

Criticism for Trump's character

Trump's dismissal motion required Merchan to consider Trump's character, and in his decision the judge took a short but sharp swing at the president-elect's repeated disparagements of the court system in the nearly two years since his indictment.

"Defendant has gone to great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries, and the justice system as a whole," the judge wrote.

Trump was also found in contempt of court ten times for his repeated violations of the court's order barring out-of-court statements attacking prosecutors, witnesses, and the jury, Merchan noted.

"It does not weigh in his favor," he added.

Criticism for defense 'rhetoric'

Some of Merchan's most heated language came in a footnote criticizing Trump's lawyers for "rhetoric that has no place in legal pleadings."

In their latest dismissal bid, Trump's lawyers crossed a line by accusing prosecutors and the judge of engaging in unlawful and unconstitutional conduct, Merchan said.

"Those words, by definition, mean 'criminally punishable,'" the judge wrote Friday, saying accusations of political bias and criminal conduct could endanger judges and "create a chilling effect" on the courts.

"Dangerous rhetoric is not a welcome form of argument and will have no impact on how the Court renders this or any other Decision," Merchan wrote.

Three prior sentencing delays

Trump's sentencing has been delayed three times in the half-year since a Manhattan jury found he falsified Trump Organization records throughout his first year in office to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush-money payment that silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels 11 days before the 2016 election.

His first sentencing date, July 11, was scratched to allow time for a back-and-forth over the impact of the US Supreme Court's July 1 presidential immunity opinion.

The second sentencing date, September 18, was scuttled after Trump argued it was too close to the November 5 election. The third date, November 26, was ditched because the parties needed time to litigate the next steps triggered by his win.

Trump had faced up to four years in prison at sentencing, though former New York judges called it unlikely that Trump — a 78-year-old non-violent felon with no prior criminal record — would be sent to jail. Any sentence — including probation and community service — would almost certainly be stayed during the yearslong appeal process, they also said.

Over the past two years, Trump has sought more than a dozen times to dismiss the hush money case on various grounds, to convince the judge to recuse himself, and to have the case transferred to federal court.

In a dismissal motion from early December, his lawyers argued without success that Trump has presidential immunity from prosecution now, as president-elect.

Merchan rejected that bid two weeks later, finding that the hush-money case hinged on "decidedly personal acts," plus copious non-official-act evidence of guilt, all of which are exempt from presidential-immunity protection.

Interest-of-justice dismissal

New York's "furtherance of justice" law lets a judge dismiss a conviction or indictment when, due to "some compelling factor," it is clear that continuing the case "would constitute or result in injustice."

That compelling factor is Trump's pending presidency, his lawyers argued last month.

Meanwhile, Bragg's side countered that Trump has not met the high legal bar for an interest-of-justice dismissal.

By law, a judge must weigh the seriousness of the offense, the "history, character and condition of the defendant," and "the impact of a dismissal upon the confidence of the public in the criminal justice system."

In Friday's decision, Merchan said that high bar had not been cleared.

The judge made particular mention of "the sanctity of a jury verdict," calling it "a bedrock principle in our Nation's jurisprudence" that cannot be casually overridden.

That jury found that Trump promoted his 2016 candidacy for president "by unlawful means—" a serious offense, Merchan wrote.

"Here, 12 jurors unanimously found Defendant guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to defraud, which included an intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to promote a presidential election by unlawful means," Merchan wrote.

"It was the premediated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world that is the gravamen of this offense," he wrote.

• In the new year, blockbuster legal cases will play out in US courts.
• Major criminal cases include Sean "Diddy" Combs and Luigi Mangione.
• In the civil arena, the DOJ's list of antitrust lawsuits will make their way to court.

As we enter the new year, dockets are filling up with blockbuster court cases in the US.

Criminal courts in Manhattan are preparing for the trial of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs and early hearings in the prosecution of Luigi Mangione, who is accused of the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

In the civil arena, lawyers are gearing up for a year of antitrust lawsuits brought by the DOJ against Big Tech, Visa, and other companies it accuses of monopolizing their industries.

While 2024 was the year of Donald Trump in court, there's still much to be done in the coming year as his fight to clear his rap sheet and zero out his civil judgments continues.

Here are some of the cases Business Insider will be watching this year:

Sean "Diddy" Combs cases

Sean "Diddy" Combs — founder of Bad Boy Records and the Sean John brand — is due to stand trial in federal court in Manhattan on May 5 on a sex-trafficking indictment that could send him to prison for life. Prosecutors have also warned that a second indictment is imminent.

Given what's already in the record, trial testimony and evidence will be graphic, and the courtroom jousting will be heated. Combs' defense is that he never forced anyone to have sex, and that his accusers have financial motive to implicate him. The trial will likely focus on consent and credibility.

Combs' mother and his six oldest children — who range from teenagers to early 30s — have attended pretrial hearings, waving and smiling at him from the audience. The trial may prove less family-friendly. The evidence includes hundreds of hours of videotape from the rap mogul's sex parties — especially from his so-called freak-off performances, along with testimony by male sex workers who attended the parties. The trial will not be televised.

Separately, Combs faces more than 30 civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual abuse. "No matter how many lawsuits are filed it won't change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted, or sex trafficked anyone," his attorneys recently said in a statement.

Luigi Mangione court case

Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old software developer from a Maryland real estate family, will face state and federal murder charges in Manhattan this year in the December ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He risks a maximum sentence of life in prison and, in the federal case, the death penalty — though it has been more than 60 years since a Manhattan jury has sent anyone to death row.

Both the state and federal prosecutions are in their early days. While Mangione has pleaded not guilty in his state case, he is not set to enter a plea to his federal indictment until later this month.

It's possible Mangione will go to trial in 2025, though it's unlikely. His attorney suggested prior to taking the case that he could pursue some kind of psychiatric defense, which could delay the trial into 2026.

Donald Trump's court cases

The president-elect's criminal indictments have sputtered to a halt, thanks in large part to the US Supreme Court's July presidential immunity decision. Loose ends remain in the Manhattan hush-money case, as Trump works to clear his rap sheet of its sole conviction before his January 20 inauguration.

There is still no sentencing date, and New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has yet to rule on Trump's demand that the case be tossed in the interest of justice, given the election. Also pending is Trump's Second Circuit appellate efforts to move the hush-money case to federal court.

Meanwhile, Trump begins 2025 with a half-billion-dollars in civil court judgments hanging over his head, all of which he's in the midst of aggressively appealing, including his two E. Jean Carroll defamation cases. A midlevel New York appellate court could keep, trim, or overturn the biggest of Trump's judgments at any time — his massive civil fraud penalty, a debt to New York state that remains frozen on appeal, which has now ballooned to $490 million with interest. He remains a defendant in eight civil cases brought by injured Capitol Police officers and members of Congress involving his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

TikTok ban

In the spring, Congress passed a law that would ban TikTok from app stores in the United States unless Bytedance, the platform's Chinese owner, divested itself from the app.

The deadline is January 19. Bytedance still owns TikTok. A Washington, DC-based appeals court was unpersuaded by TikTok's arguments that its users' First Amendment rights outweigh the national security-based reasoning of Congress's law.

All eyes are on the US Supreme Court to see whether it will strike down the law before the deadline. The court agreed to hear oral arguments in the case on January 10.

Nvidia

The Justice Department has reportedly been ramping up an antitrust investigation into the chipmaker throughout 2024. Competitors have said Nvidia uses unfair marketing tactics to gain a stranglehold on the market for chips used in AI development, while the company says it simply offers a best-in-class product. If the DOJ brings a lawsuit or comes to a settlement with Nvidia, it'll likely come in 2025.

Meta antitrust lawsuit

The Federal Trade Commission sued Meta during the first Trump administration, alleging it had an illegal monopoly on the social media market through its ownership of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The Biden administration has kept up the lawsuit, which scored a major victory in November when a federal judge allowed most of the case to go to trial.

Meta says the company's acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram have been good for consumers. If it loses the trial — scheduled for April — the FTC will seek to force the company to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp.

Google antitrust lawsuit

Google search case

Alphabet was dealt a major blow in 2024 when a federal judge concluded Google formed an illegal monopoly in the search market. Now the company is tussling with the Justice Department over how it should be punished. Google suggested it could pull back some of its partnerships with other companies. The DOJ has asked the judge to force Google to divest from its Chrome browser, a more dramatic move. The decision — and the many appeals to come — will continue to play out in 2025.

Google advertising case

Another major Google antitrust case is over its role in online advertising. In September, a federal court held a bench trial to determine whether the company formed another illegal monopoly, in the adtech market.

Google claims the Justice Department has overstated its role in the market, where it competes fiercely with the likes of Meta and Amazon.

A decision is expected to come sometime in 2025, with appeals to follow.

Amazon antitrust lawsuit

In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and a group of states sued Amazon, alleging it abused its dominance in the online retail space to inflate prices, squeeze third-party sellers with onerous fees, and push its in-house products at the expense of others. Amazon has said it does everything for the benefit of consumers, to whom it provides better products and better prices.

In September, a federal judge knocked down some of the states' claims but allowed the bulk of the lawsuit to proceed to trial. The trial date is scheduled for 2026, with more litigation and appeals expected to take place before then.

New York Times vs OpenAI

All sorts of content creators — journalists, novelists, filmmakers, photographers — have filed a slew of copyright lawsuits against AI companies, accusing them of illegally siphoning their creations to train their AI models.

The AI companies have generally argued that the use of the material is sufficiently "transformative" to be considered "fair use" under copyright law.

One of the major cases to watch is The New York Times's lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, which has progressed further than many of the other cases. In January, a federal judge is scheduled to oversee a marathon day of oral arguments over whether the case is on firm enough legal ground to proceed to trial.

Elon Musk vs Sam Altman and OpenAI

In the past few years, OpenAI has become a tech behemoth, setting the pace for generative artificial intelligence technology.

The company is technically structured as a nonprofit that seeks to build artificial intelligence in a way that benefits all of humanity. However, under its leader Sam Altman, OpenAI has signed a lucrative deal with Microsoft, which hopes to harness the tech to drive its own growth.

Now OpenAI is trying to formally convert itself into a for-profit company, shedding the nonprofit label. Musk — who was involved in OpenAI's early stages and who runs a competitor, xAI — is trying to stop that from happening.

The case has been moving at a fast clip, with lawyers for Musk and OpenAI dropping legal filings that reveal internal emails and other records about the other. It's set to continue heating up in 2025 as OpenAI tries to become a corporation.

Eric Adams indictment

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused New York City Mayor Eric Adams of taking bribes from Turkey to fuel his political career — charges that he has strenuously denied. Adams hired Alex Spiro, a hard-charging lawyer best known for representing Musk, to fight the cases. The case is on the fast track and is expected to go to trial in April, before the city's Democratic primary.

DOJ's Apple antitrust lawsuit

The Justice Department sued Apple in March, accusing it of violating antitrust laws by illegally maintaining a smartphone monopoly. More than a dozen states have since joined the lawsuit against the tech giant, and the initial conference in the case will be held on February 27 in federal court in Newark, New Jersey.

The DOJ accuses Apple of making its rivals' products worse by selectively imposing contractual restrictions on developers and by withholding critical access points from them.

Apple does this, according to the Justice Department, by suppressing the development of cloud-streaming apps and services, worsening the quality of cross-platform messaging with rivals like Android, limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches unless the owners keep buying iPhones, blocking the development of "super apps," and limiting functions on non-Apple wallet tap-to-pay.

Apple previously told Business Insider that if the lawsuit was successful, it could set a dangerous precedent by "empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people's technology."

"This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets," Apple said in a March 2024 statement to BI. "If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect."

Live Nation Ticketmaster lawsuit

A little over a year after the historic Ticketmaster crash, which prevented Taylor Swift fans from purchasing Eras tour tickets, the Justice Department in May sued Live Nation, the website's parent company.

The DOJ accuses Live Nation of unlawfully dominating the live music market, stifling innovation, and exerting control over how fans can purchase tickets and where artists can perform. It seeks to break up the company.

A final pretrial conference is scheduled for February 12 in federal court in Manhattan, but the case isn't expected to go to trial until early 2026.

Live Nation previously told BI in a statement that the lawsuit would fail in court.

"The DOJ's lawsuit won't solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows," the company said in May.

Visa antitrust lawsuit

The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa in September, accusing the company of engaging in anticompetitive behavior with its US debit transactions. Initial hearings in the case are expected in January.

The lawsuit accuses the payment-processing giant of entering into contracts with potential competitors that prevent them from becoming actual competitors. By doing so, Visa is able to collect fees that it wouldn't be able to in a competitive market, the Justice Department alleges.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, said Visa handled more than 60% of US debit transactions, earning the company more than $7 billion in fees a year.

In September, a lawyer for Visa told BI the lawsuit was "meritless."

"Today's lawsuit ignores the reality that Visa is just one of many competitors in a debit space that is growing, with entrants who are thriving," Julie Rottenberg said in a statement at the time.

Rudy Giuliani defamation case

This will be the fourth year for the court battle between Rudy Giuliani and Georgia election workers Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and Ruby Freeman.

The former Trump attorney and New York City mayor has owed Moss and Freeman $148 million since December 2023, after a DC judge found his repeated false accusations of election fraud subjected the mother-daughter pair to a barrage of racist death threats. The pair's lawyer complained in court recently that Giuliani has yet to turn over any assets beyond a handful of luxury watches, a Mercedes without a title, and a New York apartment without a current lease.

Giuliani now faces contempt of court for allegedly continuing to defame the pair on his nightly podcast and for what defense lawyers complain has been his heel-dragging in turning over assets and complying with subpoenas.

He is scheduled for a January 3 contempt hearing and a January 16 bench trial, both in federal court in Manhattan. The trial will determine if Giuliani must surrender his Palm Beach condo and three World Series rings.

• An appeals court upheld a jury verdict finding Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.
• He owes her $5 million in damages for sexual abuse and defamation — but plans to keep appealing.
• Trump is also appealing a separate jury verdict for an additional $83.3 million in defamation damages.

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a verdict finding Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, starting a 30-day clock for her to receive the $5 million jury award, plus interest.

In an exhaustive, 77-page opinion, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected all of the legal arguments brought by Trump in seeking to overturn the May 2023 trial verdict.

But Carroll, now 81 years old, shouldn't hold her breath. A spokesperson for Trump told Business Insider the president-elect plans to keep appealing the verdict.

The appeal could keep the cash frozen well into next year, at least, legal experts told BI.

In the year and a half since the jury verdict, the $5 million Trump owes Carroll — plus $500,000 to cover interest — has been sitting in an interest-bearing bank account controlled by the federal trial court.

If Trump does not file a further appeal in the next 30 days, the court will automatically transfer that $5.5 million and any further interest directly to Carroll and her attorneys, said Nick Newton, a former president of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers.

"Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today's decision," Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan told Business Insider in a statement. "We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties' arguments."

A spokesperson for Trump called Carroll's claims a "hoax" and said he would continue to appeal.

"The American People have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate, and they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax, which will continue to be appealed," Steven Cheung told BI in an email. "We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again."

Trump's options for further appeals are two-fold, according to Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School. The funds would remain frozen until the appeals are exhausted, meaning that Carroll would need to wait longer before getting any of the jury's awards.

The president-elect can first seek an en banc review, meaning a review of Monday's three-judge decision by all 13 active judges on the Second Circuit, plus Senior Judge Denny Chin, Paradis said.

After that option, Trump could take his appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Winning — or even being considered — for en banc is a high bar, Paradis said. Trump would have to explain to the full Second Circuit why the issues are so important, and the three-judge panel's decision is so profoundly wrong that it needs to be overturned.

"In a case like this, it could take a few months" for the full panel to consider Trump's petition and any response they allow from Carroll's side, and then vote on whether to hear the case, he said.

"In this appeal, there were only basic legal questions in dispute, meaning how the law was applied, and the three-judge panel's review was limited to looking for an abuse of discretion," Paridis said.

Trump will seek review from the US Supreme Court next, Paradis predicted. The president-elect selected three of the nine justices in his first term. He could place more justices on the bench by the time oral arguments would take place.

The president-elect would first have to ask the high court to hear his appeal, and that process could keep the Carroll judgment frozen well into next year, he said.

"SCOTUS would likely not decide to hear the case until the end of next September at the earliest," he said.

It's not clear who will be on Trump's legal team if he continues to appeal the case.

John Sauer, who presented the oral argument before the Second Circuit, was designated by Trump to serve as the Justice Department Solicitor General in his next presidential term. Other attorneys who worked on the case, including Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and Alina Habba, are set to serve other posts in the Justice Department or the White House.

Monday's decision is for one of two separate civil lawsuits E. Jean Carroll brought against Trump.

The second trial took place in January 2024, and concerned additional defamation damages over Trump disparaging Carroll and calling her a liar.

The jury in that case awarded Carroll $83.3 million. Trump is appealing that case, too, with a process that is running on a separate track.

Monday's appellate court decision largely focused on whether it was appropriate for US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, the trial judge, to allow certain types of evidence to be seen by the jurors who held Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll.

Trump's lawyers argued Kaplan should not have shown jurors the "Access Hollywood" tape, where Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals.

"The jury could have reasonably concluded from those statements that, in the past, Mr. Trump had kissed women without their consent and then proceeded to touch their genitalia," they wrote.

Trump's attorneys had also argued it was inappropriate to allow testimony from Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, two other women who had accused Trump of sexual misconduct. The Second Circuit judges agreed with Kaplan, ruling that their stories helped establish a pattern of conduct from Trump.

"The jury could reasonably infer from Ms. Stoynoff's testimony and the Access Hollywood tape that Mr. Trump engaged in similar conduct with other women — a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew," the judges wrote.

• Luigi Mangione is under monitoring in a 9-by-7-foot federal solitary-confinement cell in Brooklyn.
• On Monday, he may be moved to the same protective unit as Diddy and SBF, who are in the same jail.
• A prison consultant called his conditions "miserable."

Luigi Mangione is being held in a 9-by-7-foot solitary-confinement cell at the federal jail in Brooklyn that also houses the rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs and the cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, Business Insider has learned.

The trio could be living together in the same 15-man protective-custody unit as early as Monday, Sam Mangel, a prison consultant who has knowledge of Mangione's housing, said.

Federal prison records confirmed Friday morning that Mangione, Combs, and Bankman-Fried were at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.

Mangione is set to remain in solitary until at least Monday in one of MDC's small cinderblock Special Housing Unit cells — in a unit also known as "the SHU" and "the hole," Mangel said.

He'll eat meals in his cell, and inmates in his situation are typically allowed out for one hour of recreation or showering a day. Guards are supposed to check on him every 15 minutes.

"Miserable, just miserable," Mangel said when asked to describe conditions in federal solitary-confinement cells.

"SHUs are notoriously loud. You have people in there for psychiatric issues, for disciplinary reasons, and for withdrawal" from drugs, he said, adding: "So it is the loudest place in the jail — people are banging on their doors at all hours of the night."

Mangione is being held without bail on death-penalty-eligible federal charges in the December 4 ambush fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He has yet to be arraigned on New York charges of murder as an act of terror, which carries a top sentence of life without parole.

New, high-profile inmates are often monitored in solitary cells in the days before their units are assigned, said Mangel, who said he had been in communication with the defense team through Craig Rothfeld, a prison consultant.

Rothfeld, who was in the audience for Mangione's first federal court appearance on Thursday, declined to comment.

"It's a standard protocol," Mangel said. "This is especially true for a young man that, you know, might have some psychiatric concerns or his legal team or the BOP has concerns," he added, referring to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

"Even though it's called the 'SHU,' it's not for disciplinary reasons. It's strictly for administrative reasons," Mangel said.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment, saying: "For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not discuss the conditions of confinement for any individual including their housing assignments."

Karen Friedman Agnifilo told BI that neither she nor Marc Agnifilo, her cocounsel, had spoken to Mandel. They did not immediately comment on Mangione's jail conditions.

The husband-and-wife team's Manhattan firm, Agnifilo Intrater, also represents Combs, who is being held without bail while awaiting a trial scheduled for May 5 on federal sex-trafficking charges.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

In representing Combs, the firm complained about conditions at MDC throughout three unsuccessful bail applications, arguing that there were frequent random lockdowns and that inmates were deprived of basic trial-preparation materials, such as folders and notebooks. Combs' attorney Marc Agnifilo called the conditions "horrific" in one court filing.

One former prosecutor described the federal jail as frequently too cold or too hot and crawling with cockroaches — basically, "hell on earth."

Mangione's solitary-confinement cell would be equipped with a metal bunk-style bed and a steel one-piece combination toilet and sink. If he's lucky, the cell has a small built-in writing desk.

"You're usually only allowed out for one hour a day, but it could be more restrictive due to staffing issues, where you're only allowed out three times a week to take a shower or walk in a small, enclosed area," Mangel said.

Mangione would also be allowed out of his cell for attorney calls and visits, Mangel said.

"The defendant is actually sitting in a cage during the call," he said. "It's like a fenced-in area that has a monitor, and it's behind plexiglass, and the defendant is able to talk and have an unmonitored legal call during that time, usually for one-hour blocks."

Defendants can find these calls canceled at the last minute "because there's lockdowns and staffing issues," Mangel said, adding: "You get everything arranged, and then we're on the call, waiting, and the defendant never shows up."

He said he expected Mangione would have better access to phones and visitors after he's moved to the jail's protective custody early next week.

Mangel said he had been a prison consultant for Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence for stealing $8 billion from customers of his FTX crypto exchange. Bankman-Fried has remained at MDC's protective custody unit since his arrest last year.

Mangione's next federal court date was set for January 18. As of Friday morning, a date had not been set for his Manhattan arraignment on state murder charges.

This story has been updated to include responses from the BOP and Mangione's attorney.

• Luigi Mangione is in New York to face both state and federal murder charges.
• His new federal indictment alleges he stalked and then killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
• Manhattan prosecutors say state charges will "proceed in parallel with any federal case."

Luigi Mangione appeared in federal court Thursday on new federal murder charges that could result in the death penalty or life in prison.

It was Mangione's first appearance in a Manhattan courtroom, this one crowded with press and federal staff, on charges in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He is expected to be arraigned on state murder charges in a courthouse one block away on Friday.

Mangione's voice was calm but firm as he answered the judge's questions.

"Mr. Mangione, do you understand what you have been accused of?" US Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker asked at one point before he entered his plea.

"Yes," he answered.

Edward Y. Kim, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, has yet to say if he will seek the death penalty or a life sentence for the most serious charge in the four-count indictment — murder through the use of a firearm.

One former federal prosecutor called the death penalty a "remote" possibility, given Mangione's youth, and the chance that he may have suffered a mental breakdown in the six months before the shooting.

"In New York's federal courts, it's uncommon for them to seek the death penalty, and I think probably more uncommon for juries to want to authorize it, even assuming that Mr. Mangione killed Mr. Thompson in the way the government is alleging," said Michael Bachner, now in private practice.

The other three federal counts against Mangione allege he possessed and used an illegal firearm, and that he traveled interstate — between Georgia and New York, in order to stalk and kill Thompson.

Mangione presented an orderly, if tense, appearance in the chilly 26th-floor courtroom.

He was clean-shaven and his bushy eyebrows neatly groomed. Mangione sat with his shoulders raised and held stiff and wore khaki pants and a navy quarter-zip sweater over a white collared button-down shirt.

His ankles were shackled together with thick chains beneath the table where he sat. He wore bright orange slip-on sneakers without shoelaces.

To either side of Mangione sat his lawyers, husband-wife legal team Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo. Both are veteran criminal attorneys and former prosecutors. Their firm, Agnifilo Intrater, LLC, also represents Sean "Diddy" Combs in his federal sex-trafficking case, scheduled to be tried in the same Manhattan courthouse in May.

After Parker read the charges aloud to him, Mangione's posture relaxed. He repeatedly raised his left hand to pat down the hair at the back and side of his head.

He crossed his arms and wore a skeptical expression on his face with his tongue poking out between his lips while Friedman Agnifilo demanded clarity on how different law enforcement agencies coordinated and would present evidence in the case.

Mangione's next court date was set for January 18. His lawyers did not apply for bail, though Friedman Agnifilo said in court that she may do so on a future date.

Earlier Thursday, in a Pennsylvania courtroom, Mangione abandoned his extradition fight and was whisked to New York in an NYPD aviation plane and, upon landing at a Long Island airport, via police chopper to a lower Manhattan heliport.

His arrival in federal court was greeted by dozens of reporters and a smattering of fans holding messages of support written on cardboard.

"Health over Wealth," read one.

Mangione has yet to be arraigned on his first murder case, announced Tuesday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

He faces up to life in prison on that state indictment, which alleges he murdered Thompson as an act of terror — a first-degree felony, the highest state charge and penalty available.

In a press statement after Mangione's federal appearance, Kim said he expects the state case — announced by Bragg just two days prior — would proceed to trial first.

In court Thursday, Friedman Agnifilo called the dual prosecutions "highly unusual" and said the charges between the Manhattan district attorney's office and the federal US attorney's office seemed to contradict each other.

The district attorney's indictment alleges Mangione killed Thompson in furtherance of "terrorism" that affects a "population of people," she said. But the federal charges accuse Mangione of stalking Thompson as an individual, she said.

Police and prosecutors say Mangione killed Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4.

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a five-day manhunt, on local gun and false ID charges. A Manhattan grand jury later indicted on charges related to the killing itself, and the New York cases will take priority over the lesser charges in Pennsylvania.

While in jail in Pennsylvania, Mangione received 54 email messages and 87 pieces of mail, Maria Bivens, of the state Department of Corrections, told BI.

There were also 163 deposits made into Mangione's commissary account, Bivens said. Bivens declined to say how much money was deposited in total.

These accounts can be used to buy toiletries or additional food items in the jail's store.

• Luigi Mangione's NY judge is Gregory Carro, described as tough on crime and sympathetic to victims.
• Lawyers call him no-nonsense, and some say he leans pro-prosecution.
• Carro has allowed video and still photography in his courtroom during past high-profile proceedings.

His cases have earned tabloid nicknames, including the "rape cops," a "killer nanny," and a "blowtorch hubby." In 2021, he presided over the moped hit-and-run death of Gone Girl actor Lisa Banes.

New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro has had dozens of sensational — sometimes horrific — cases in his 25 years on the Manhattan criminal bench.

As early as Thursday afternoon, Carro will preside over his most high-profile media case yet, the prosecution of Luigi Mangione, who is accused of the ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

With Carro on the bench in a likely-packed 13th-floor courtroom, Mangione, 26, will be officially informed of the first-degree murder indictment against him. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Tuesday that the indictment alleges a top charge of murder as an act of terrorism.

After the charges are read, Mangione will have the chance to enter a plea of not guilty. Carro, who is expected to keep the case, will then set a next court date and order that Mangione be taken to a city jail to await that date.

A former Manhattan narcotics and homicide prosecutor, Carro was appointed to Manhattan's criminal court bench in 1998 by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Carro is the son of retired Associate Justice John Carro, who in 1979 was the first Puerto Rican appointed as an appellate judge in New York.

A 'tough draw'

The younger Carro is known among defense lawyers at Manhattan Criminal Court as a "tough draw. "

If one lawyer tells another in a courthouse hallway, "I just learned my guy is going to be in front of Carro," another might commiserate, "Wow, that's a tough draw," veteran attorneys in the city told BI.

Prosecutors might say the opposite of Carro: "Good draw."

"Of course, in a case like this, there are no good judges," said longtime Manhattan defense attorney Ron Kuby. "You're not going to find any members of Antifa on the bench."

Kuby called Carro "harsh but not crazy," as Manhattan criminal judges go.

Five Manhattan defense lawyers interviewed by Business Insider said the judge leans pro-prosecution. None would say so on the record, because they may have cases before him in the future.

The most common descriptor among lawyers reached by BI? "No nonsense."

"He's a tough judge," said a former fellow jurist, Charles Solomon, a state Supreme Court Justice in Manhattan who retired in 2017.

"Very firm, very fair, and well-respected by his colleagues," Solomon said of Carro.

Judges are assigned at random

Solomon said that Carro would have been assigned as Mangione's judge through a strictly random process.

What likely happened was that on December 4, the day of Thompson's shooting, Mangione's lead prosecutor, Joel Seidemann, happened to be on call to "catch" new homicides.

Seidemann's team of prosecutors feeds all of its new cases into one of only two assigned courtrooms, and one of them was Carro's.

"This is the typical way a case gets assigned," agreed another retired state Supreme Court justice, Michael Obus, who served as a supervising judge in Manhattan Criminal Court from 2009 to 2017.

"He's a solid guy," Obus said. "He's a very good trial judge. In general, lawyers could do a lot worse than Judge Carro."

Law, order, and victims

At sentencings, Carro is an emphatic advocate for law, order, and victims, his many news clippings show.

"I can only imagine what memories are haunting the victim in this case and his significant other," he said last year at a recent high-profile sentencing, for the random, attempted slashing murder of a French tourist.

In 2011, Carro presided over the trial of an NYPD officer accused of raping a young fashion executive — a woman he'd been dispatched to help when she was too intoxicated to get out of her taxi.

A jury cleared the officer of rape and convicted him of official misconduct for the three caught-on-video visits he made to the woman's apartment during his shift that night.

Police misconduct offenses "rip at that fabric that holds us all together," Carro told the former officer, Kenneth Moreno, before sentencing him to a year at Rikers Island jail.

"You, sir, ripped a gaping hole in that fabric in committing those crimes."

It was Carro's biggest media case until now.

Moreno's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, was one of the lawyers to call Carro "no nonsense."

"Not easy on defendants or defense lawyers, for that matter," Tacopina said.

"Honestly, it doesn't matter what judge has this case," the former criminal attorney for President-elect Donald Trump, added. "There is such overwhelming evidence of guilt here. It is not a 'Who done it.' It is a 'Was he sane when he did it' case."

In his most high-profile murder — dubbed the "killer nanny" case by city tabloids — Carro allowed a jury to hear the insanity defense of Yoselyn Ortega, who in 2012 fatally stabbed two young children in her care.

Defense lawyers called two psychiatrists to the stand to testify that Ortega heard voices — including Satan's — urging her to kill the children. Jurors also heard that when the mother returned home to witness the carnage in her Upper West Side bathroom, Ortega was nearby, slashing into her own throat with the murder weapon.

The jury rejected the defense.

Carro called Ortega "pure evil" at her 2018 sentencing.

Then he sentenced Ortega to life without parole for first-degree murder, the same maximum penalty Mangione faces for the same top charge in his indictment.

Last month, the New York Times reported Carro sentenced a Long Island, New York man who admitted planning to "shoot up a synagogue" to ten years prison on a plea to possessing a weapon as a crime of terrorism.

• Luigi Mangione is on track for a late Thursday murder arraignment in Manhattan, BI has learned.
• Barring a last-minute change of heart, he plans to waive extradition in PA earlier Thursday.
• His fate will be in the hands of Justice Gregory Carro, a veteran of the NY criminal bench.

Luigi Mangione is expected to be brought before a Manhattan judge on Thursday for arraignment on a first-degree murder charge that could keep him imprisoned for life, Business Insider has learned.

The 26-year-old suspect has agreed to formally waive extradition at a hearing Thursday morning in Blair County, Pennsylvania, a law enforcement source told BI, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to their connection to the case.

Barring any last-minute change of heart by Mangione — who has previously been fighting extradition — he would be immediately transferred to the custody of NYPD officers. The officers would then transport him to New York from Pennsylvania, where he has been held since his arrest 9 days ago in the December 4 shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

"We have indications that the defendant may waive" extradition, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in announcing Mangione's indictment on Tuesday, without naming an arraignment date.

Once in Manhattan, Mangione would be brought directly to the Midtown North police precinct, home base for the Thompson murder investigation, said a second law enforcement source who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

After some preliminary processing, he will then be escorted out of the precinct.

"They want to do a perp walk for the media," in front of Midtown North, the second source said.

The precinct is in the same neighborhood where Thompson, a father of two sons from Minnesota, was ambushed outside a Hilton hotel, where he had been scheduled to speak at an investor meeting for the nation's largest healthcare insurer.

Police say Mangione is linked to the shooting by ballistic, DNA, and fingerprint evidence, in addition to writings recovered from him on his arrest.

Law enforcement is planning for an afternoon or early evening arraignment on Thursday, again barring any last-minute hitches that could push the timing into Friday.

Mangione's Pennsylvania hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday.

New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, a more than 20-year veteran of the Manhattan criminal bench, will preside over the arraignment and be Mangione's judge going forward, according to court and law-enforcement sources.

Carro's last high-profile case was the electric-scooter death of movie and television actor Lisa Banes, who appeared in "Cocktail," "Gone Girl," and "Masters of Sex."

Mangione's New York attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Bragg declined comment.

• Luigi Mangione has waived extradition in Pennsylvania, meaning he will come to New York voluntarily.
• Former Manhattan prosecutors say it's a good move for him to abandon his weeklong extradition fight.
• They said Mangione wouldn't benefit from a losing battle and needed to be close to his lawyer.

At a court hearing in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Luigi Mangione abandoned his fight against extradition and agreed to let New York police fly him to Manhattan.

Mangione will now face federal charges of stalking, murder through the use of a firearm, and a related gun charge, according to the federal complaint.

A representative for the federal court in Manhattan said a hearing was scheduled for 2 p.m. before US Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker.

Mangione is also expected to be arraigned on the state murder charges before Justice Gregory Carro of the New York Supreme Court — a tough judge described as pro-prosecution by some lawyers — at a later time.

Former Manhattan prosecutors told Business Insider his leaving Pennsylvania willingly — to face arraignment on first-degree-murder charges in the December 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — was a smart move.

Fighting extradition, a process that could take months, makes no sense in this case, they said, and could only hurt the 26-year-old former Ivy League student.

"I think Karen realizes fighting is a waste of time," Michael Bachner, a lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor, told BI earlier this week, referring to Mangione's new defense lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

Friedman Agnifilo, a former chief assistant attorney at the Manhattan district attorney's office, is married to Marc Agnifilo, the attorney for Sean "Diddy" Combs in the rapper's federal sex-trafficking case. Their Manhattan law firm, Agnifilo Intrater, is set to defend in both high-profile cases.

"She's probably thought to herself, the evidence against my client is more than sufficient to lose an extradition hearing," Bachner said. "So what is the benefit of having one?"

Attorneys want to be near their clients, not shuttling back and forth — as an extradition battle drags on — between New York and central Pennsylvania, where Mangione is being held without bail.

"You don't want to be doing this from outside the jurisdiction," without easy access to your colleagues and law office, Jeremy Saland, a former prosecutor now in private practice, said.

Friedman Agnifilo did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her client's charges or extradition.

For some defendants, there are good reasons to fight being dragged across state lines to face charges, former prosecutors told BI.

"The benefit could be that you make them show their hand," Ikiesha Al-Shabazz, a defense attorney, said. At an extradition hearing, prosecutors are asked to demonstrate probable cause that the person being extradited committed the crime.

"You get to see some of the evidence," the former prosecutor said. "But this is the type of case where we pretty much know, from media reports, what the evidence will be."

New York Police Department officials say that evidence includes a 9 mm 3D printed "ghost gun" that matches the shooting ballistics and a spiral notebook of his writings. Both the gun and the notebook were recovered from his backpack when he was arrested last week at an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald's following a five-day manhunt, police have said.

"What do you do? You wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention," the handwritten note from the spiral notebook says, law-enforcement officials told The New York Times.

Thompson was fatally shot on the sidewalk outside a Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan, where he was to speak at an investor meeting.

If Mangione had family in Pennsylvania, an extradition delay could have value, Al-Shabazz added — but that's not the case, either. Mangione's family is in Maryland, where they own a resort and country club.

"There's no humanitarian issue, either, where you don't want to be extradited to someplace where you won't get a fair trial," she said.

"These are the issues that you fight extradition over, but they're not prevalent in this case," she added. "So to fight extradition would only be to further delay the inevitable."

Fighting for the sake of fighting could work against his interests down the road, as Mangione seeks favorable treatment from his judge and prosecutors, Al-Shabazz said.

"You want to cooperate," Al-Shabazz, an adjunct law professor at St. John's University School of Law, said. "You don't want to make it harder for them to do their job for no reason if you're going to turn around and ask them for a plea deal, right?"

The allegations against Mangione are now playing out in three different courts.

In New York state court, if convicted of the top charge of first-degree murder, Mangione faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years to life in prison. The top sentence under New York law would be life in prison without parole.

December 19, 2024: This story was updated to include information about Mangione's federal charges and extradition.

• Trump's lawyers allege there was juror "misconduct" at his NY hush-money trial.
• Details of the allegations, which Trump hopes will void his conviction, are not being released.
• Manhattan prosecutors called the allegations "unsworn, unsupported, heresay."

One day after Donald Trump lost his 11th-hour bid to void his hush-money conviction, a juror "misconduct" battle is brewing, according to a newly-public series of court filings in the case.

The heavily-veiled dispute began with a December 3 letter in which the president-elect's lawyers told the trial judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, that "the jury in this case was not anywhere near fair and impartial."

Nearly two-thirds of the 15 page letter is redacted to protect juror confidentiality. In the unredacted sections, defense lawyer Todd Blanche — Trump's pick for deputy attorney general — complained to Merchan about "extensive and pervasive misconduct" that "violated President Trump's rights under the federal Constitution and New York law."

Details of the alleged misconduct, and even whether it concerns a single juror or more than one, are obscured by large black rectangles.

The letter demands that the supposed misconduct be considered by the judge as evidence in Trump's yet-resolved request that the historic conviction be voided in the interest of justice.

The defense followed up their December 3 letter to the judge with two more dated December 5 and 9. Both asked that the December 3 letter be made public in redacted form, a request opposed by prosecutors with New York Attorney General Alvin Bragg.

Prosecutors responded to the misconduct allegations on December 9, arguing that the claim "consists entirely of unsworn allegations," and is based on "hearsay and conjecture."

As part of Monday's 41-page denial of Trump's most recent dismissal effort — in which the judge rejected defense presidential immunity claims — Merchan told the parties he would only consider the new juror misconduct claims if they were formalized by the defense into a motion.

Merchan, like prosecutors, noted that the defense misconduct claim "consists entirely of unsworn allegations."

"Allegations of juror misconduct should be thoroughly investigated," he wrote, adding, "However, this court is prohibited from deciding such claims on the basis of mere hearsay and conjecture."

Merchan has not indicated when he might rule on Trump's interest-of-justice dismissal claim or broach the subject of sentencing. A lawyer for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

• Luigi Mangione has been indicted in New York on a first-degree murder charge.
• Prosecutors say Mangione killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson "in furtherance of terrorism."
• Mangione's mother said killing Thompson was "something that she could see him doing," police said.

A Manhattan grand jury indicted Luigi Mangione on charges of first-degree murder, with prosecutors alleging he killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson "in furtherance of terrorism."

Prosecutors have also accused Mangione of second-degree murder, as well as a slew of counts related to the possession of an illegal "ghost gun" made from 3D-printed parts.

Following a five-day manhunt, Mangione was arrested last week at a restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on gun and false ID charges.

Police say he killed Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4.

"This killing was intended to invoke terror," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, calling it a"brazen, targeted and premeditated shooting."

Prosecutors offered a detailed look at Mangione's movements Tuesday. They say he stayed at an Upper West Side hostel for more than a week, using a fake New Jersey ID, before carrying out the killing.

According to prosecutors, two of the shell casings for the bullets that killed Thompson had the words "DENY" and "DEPOSE" written on them. The word "DELAY" was written on a bullet found at the scene.

An arrest warrant previously obtained by Business Insider indicated that Mangione would be charged with second-degree murder along with four other charges related to illegal weapon possession. The first-degree murder charge reflects a more severe charge.

If Mangione, 26, is convicted of the first-degree murder charge, he could spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. The charge, with the intent to commit terrorism, refers to a killing that is "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population" or "influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion," according to the indictment.

Mangione has not yet entered a plea for any of the charges against him.

Even the minimum required sentence for first-degree murder, 25 to life, would mean Mangione would not see a parole officer until age 51.

The top charge could become a bargaining chip for Bragg, former Manhattan prosecutor Michael Bachner, who is now in private practice, told BI.

"Given the risk now of a maximum sentence of life without the possibility parole, that top terrorism count may induce the defendant to enter a plea, if one is offered," he said.

Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, lambasted the "ghoulish" online discourse valorizing Mangione for killing Thompson.

"Let me say this plainly — there is no heroism in what Luigi Mangione did," she said.

A Pennsylvania-based attorney for Mangione, an Ivy League graduate, has contested Mangione's extradition to Manhattan. At Tuesday's press conference, Bragg said he believed Mangione may change tack court proceedings Thursday and stop fighting extradition.

Over the weekend, Mangione hired Karen Friedman Agnifilo, an experienced New York-based criminal defense attorney who is married to and shares a law firm with Marc Agnifilo. Marc Agnifilo is representing Sean "Diddy" Combs in his criminal sex-trafficking case.

In an interview with CNN prior to taking on Mangione as a client, Friedman Agnifilio said the evidence was "overwhelming" that Mangione killed Thompson.

"It looks like to me there might be a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did," she said.

Mangione left a robust online trail that went cold about six months before Thompson's killing. His mother filed a missing persons report in San Francisco in November, saying he had disappeared.

At Tuesday's press conference, Joe Kenny, the New York Police Department's chief of detectives, said the FBI contacted Mangione's mother on December 7, following a tip.

"She didn't indicate that it was her son in the photograph, but she said it might be something that she could see him doing," Kenny said.

Last fall, stars assembled in London at the over-the-top clubstaurant Lavo to celebrate one of their own. Janet Jackson smiled in a velvet booth with Idris Elba. The supermodel Naomi Campbell, the evening's host, posed in a black dress.

At the center of it all was Sean "Diddy" Combs in a leather jacket and Cartier sunglasses cutting into a bright red cake featuring artwork from his latest release. It was the mogul's 54th birthday party, as well as a celebration of his "The Love Album." As far as partygoers and paparazzi could tell, he was on top of the world.

Since his rise to fame in the late 1990s as a rapper and producer, Combs had built a business empire and become one of the richest and most well-connected entertainers of all time.

Behind the scenes that November, though, Combs' life was about to start crumbling. Negotiations were failing between Combs and the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, his ex who was on the brink of going public with details of their relationship.

Exactly one week after his star-studded party, the tensions bubbling under the surface boiled over when Ventura sued Combs. The lawsuit alleged a cycle of physical abuse, as well as rape by Combs, who Ventura also said forced her to have sex with sex workers.

Combs' lawyers alleged that her lawyers tried to extort $30 million in exchange for stopping a tell-all book about their 10-year relationship last year.

He eventually apologized to Ventura after CNN released surveillance footage of him physically abusing her at a hotel in 2016. He settled the lawsuit and, at the time, denied any wrongdoing — a stance he has maintained amid a flurry of subsequent allegations — but it marked the beginning of a year that turned his world upside down.

Over the next 12 months, Combs went from being one of the richest music moguls in history, known for his wide network in the entertainment industry and business savvy, to being behind bars, facing a criminal indictment, dozens of civil lawsuits, and an empire in decline.

Combs' freedom, reputation, and finances are all in jeopardy. If he's found guilty of criminal charges, it would mean one of the most celebrated entertainers is also a heinous criminal.

"He looked like he was the king of the world — as flossy as possible, blinged out, with the family, and everything's good," Kenny Hull, a reality show director who worked on the second iteration of "Making the Band," which featured Combs, told Business Insider about the last time he saw Combs, a few years ago at a park in Los Angeles.

"From the top to the absolute bottom," he added. "Canceled and done."

Combs has vehemently and consistently denied all accusations of sexual assault and sex trafficking since Ventura's lawsuit was filed, and each time a new allegation has been made against him.

"Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man, woman, adult or minor," lawyers for Combs told BI.

A birthday behind bars

Combs celebrated his 55th birthday not at a luxe international club but at the notorious Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, where, a person previously told BI, he was sharing a dormitory with the crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

Instead of flowing Champagne or DeLeón, a jailhouse dinner was served on Combs' November birthday, consisting of Salisbury steak or black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes, and green beans. There was no partying with A-listers, though he did receive a phone call from his kids.

Combs has been in jail pretrial since he was arrested in September, following a monthslong investigation that led to a grand jury indictment on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution for allegedly causing victims and paid sex workers to cross state lines.

The Bad Boy Records founder faces anywhere from 15 years to life in prison on a federal indictment alleging that for decades, he used violence, threats, and drugs to coerce women into sexual performances, including at elaborately planned, dayslong parties called "freak offs."

Combs has pleaded not guilty, insisting through his lawyers that the sex was consensual and that his accusers have financial motives to implicate him. His next court date is Wednesday.

And more criminal charges may be coming, as prosecutors have said grand jurors are weighing a new indictment that could include allegations of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors allege that Combs has used phone accounts belonging to other people held at the jail to contact family members and associates and enlist them to plant negative stories about his accusers and funnel payments to a witness.

They also say agents recovered three AR-15 rifles with defaced serial numbers when search warrants were executed in March at Combs' homes in Miami and Los Angeles and at a Florida airport. And in September, when Combs was arrested at the Park Hyatt, a five-star hotel in midtown Manhattan, they recovered bags of pink powder that prosecutors said in September they believed contained ecstasy and other drugs. Prosecutors have not revealed the results of a drug test they said was conducted in September.

Since his arrest, Combs has made three unsuccessful attempts to be released on bail ahead of his criminal trial, which is scheduled for May 5.

"No condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community," including of witnesses and prospective jurors, US District Judge Arun Subramanian wrote in the most recent bail denial, issued the day before Thanksgiving.

An avalanche of lawsuits

Just two weeks after Combs was arrested and subsequently locked up at the Brooklyn jail, the Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee held a press conference to announce that his firm was representing 120 people accusing Combs of sexual misconduct.

"We are going to follow this evidence wherever it takes us. We will find the silent accomplices. We will expose the enablers who enabled this conduct behind closed doors," Buzbee said of his legal offensive.

Since Ventura's bombshell November 2023 lawsuit, more than 30 civil lawsuits have been filed accusing Combs of sexual abuse, including about 20 from Buzbee's clients, all listed as John Doe or Jane Doe.

"It feels really good to know he's behind bars," Adria English, who is not a Buzbee client, told BI. She worked as a dancer at Combs' famous white parties and filed a lawsuit in July accusing him of sex trafficking. "What we're having to speak of already sounds like we're lying — it already sounds like a movie because it's so horrible," she said. "It's so disgusting."

Attorneys for Combs pointed BI to a statement previously released in response to English's lawsuit, saying in part: "No matter how many lawsuits are filed it won't change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted, or sex trafficked anyone."

The "I'll Be Missing You" rapper has been accused by both men and women of rape, sexual assault, and lacing drinks with drugs. Over half a dozen of the lawsuits allege the abuse of boys and girls between 10 and 17 years old. Four lawsuits allege that sexual attacks happened at Combs' famed A-list white parties throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, and two of those four lawsuits allege teenagers were victimized.

Timeline of events

Earlier this month, a woman accused the rapper Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, of raping her with Combs when she was 13 years old at a party following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. An unnamed plaintiff originally filed the lawsuit in October, identifying Carter only as "Celebrity A."

Carter, in a statement through the X account of his entertainment company, Roc Nation, denied the allegations, calling them "heinous" and accusing Buzbee, the plaintiff's lawyer, of trying to "blackmail" him.

Attorneys for Combs continue to call all the lawsuits brought by Buzbee publicity grabs.

"Mr. Buzbee's lawsuit against Jay-Z and Mr. Combs and the recent extortion lawsuit Jay-Z brought against Mr. Buzbee exposes Mr. Buzbee's barrage of lawsuits against Mr. Combs for what they are: shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them, just as lies have been spread about Mr. Combs," attorneys for Combs told BI Thursday.

The accuser in the lawsuit filed against Combs and Carter said in a recent interview with NBC News that there were some inconsistencies in her story but that she stood by the allegations.

Combs' lawyers are challenging the claims in at least seven lawsuits, which are ongoing. He has not responded in court to the lawsuits brought by Buzbee, which were all filed after his arrest.

A Los Angeles entertainment attorney, Camron Dowlatshahi, who's not involved in the lawsuits against Combs, told BI that though the rapper is still considered wealthy, litigating each of these cases through trial and potentially being exposed to multimillion-dollar judgments "does not seem prudent."

"Each of the lawsuits piggy-back on the other, and witnesses will be plenty," Dowlatshahi, a partner at the law firm Mills Sadat Dowlat, said.

Dowlatshahi said that lawsuits typically settle before trial and that he anticipated the same in Combs' case.

"Diddy will have to be strategic, however, in which cases he settles first and for how much," Dowlatshahi said.

Down with Diddy's empire

As the allegations against Combs have piled up, so have his legal bills.

Combs was once estimated to be worth $820 million, according to Forbes. He'd created an assortment of lucrative revenue drivers that contributed to regular eight-figure annual paydays, including a deal with Diageo; his lifestyle brand, Sean John; a record label; and a music catalog.

One by one, those income streams have dried up.

When the civil lawsuits started, Combs was already engaged in a legal back-and-forth with Diageo, his most bankable partner.

Combs signed with the liquor giant in 2007, agreeing to be the face of Cîroc vodka in exchange for a cut of sales. The partnership became one of the most lucrative celebrity liquor deals in history, expanding further when Combs and Diageo launched DeLeón, a co-owned tequila line. Over 15 years, the company paid him nearly $1 billion, Forbes reported.

While Combs originally sued Diageo in May 2023, alleging the company did not support his ventures, the mounting sexual abuse lawsuits did him in, in the end.

"Mr. Combs is well-aware that these lawsuits make it impossible for him to continue to be the 'face' of anything," Diageo lawyers wrote in a letter to a judge in December 2023.

By January, the matter was resolved. Combs received $200 million for his stake in DeLeón tequila and not a penny for his longtime work with Cîroc.

It's a similar story for his other ventures.

Combs' lifestyle company, Sean John, had already slipped: In 2016, he sold a majority stake in the business, which at that point included fragrances and furnishings, to Global Brands Group for $70 million, Forbes reported. Just five years later, Global Brands Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Combs bought back the business for $7.55 million, just over 10% of what it was once worth.

The clothing line's website has gone defunct, its Instagram scrapped, and it is no longer sold at Macy's, once the exclusive home of the brand's sportswear line — and one of its last remaining retailers. The department store, which was accused by one of Buzbee's clients of covering up a 2008 sexual attack by Combs, did not comment on whether the removal of his Sean John line had to do with the compounding lawsuits. Macy's didn't respond to the allegations of covering up a sexual assault in court or to a request for comment about them from BI.

The disintegration of Combs' entertainment businesses, though, was a direct reaction to his mounting legal problems.

Soon after Ventura filed her lawsuit, Combs stepped down as chair of Revolt, the cable network and media company he cofounded. By June, he'd given up his stake. A Hulu reality show that was supposed to follow Combs and his family was scrapped. Any chance of his being able to cash out and sell his music catalog is slim.

"There are so many lost opportunities," Clayton Durant, a professor who teaches music business at Long Island University's Roc Nation School, told BI in October. "There is no way a brand is touching Diddy — probably forever."

With no moneymaking on the table, Combs has taken to trying to sell the assets he does have.

Earlier this year, he listed his Los Angeles mansion in the tony Holmby Hills for $61.5 million. His private jet, LoveAir, is also listed for sale, and while he awaits a buyer, he's been renting it out.

It's not clear how much use he will have for it anyway, at least in the near future.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, Combs lost his third application to be freed on $50 million bail.

Subramanian ordered that he remain held pending his May 5 trial, citing the rap mogul's history of violence and of contacting and threatening prospective witnesses.

"Diddy's been the ultimate puppet master for the last 30 years, and people wanted to say something … they've been too afraid," English, the dancer who accused Combs in a lawsuit of sex trafficking, told BI. "But now because of the raids, everybody's about to be exposed, regardless, so it's going to come out."

• A NY judge Monday denied Trump's demand that his hush-money case be dismissed on immunity grounds.
• Judge Juan Merchan said the SCOTUS immunity decision found a president is not above the law.
• Any use of official-act evidence in the case would be "harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt," he also wrote.

Donald Trump's 11th-hour bid to toss his hush-money case prior to Inauguration Day — on presidential immunity grounds — was rejected Monday by a Manhattan judge.

The decision now kicks the ball back to Trump. His lawyers have previously promised to quickly appeal, to the US Supreme Court if necessary, in hopes of voiding his sole criminal conviction.

An attorney for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Merchan's decision.

How the decision will impact Trump's sentencing — which has been delayed three times and currently remains without a scheduled date — remains unclear. Prosecutors have urged that the conviction stand, even if that means Trump is sentenced after his second term.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan made no mention of sentencing in Monday's strongly worded, 42-page rebuff, which was centered on presidential immunity.

Presidential immunity does not apply to the hush-money case because the case hinged on "decidedly personal acts," Merchan found, agreeing with arguments by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

"The Trump Court was careful to acknowledge that 'The President, charged with enforcing federal criminal laws, is not above them,'" Merchan wrote, quoting from the landmark June SCOTUS decision granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution.

Lawyers for Trump have repeatedly challenged the case on presidential immunity grounds, without success, since his April 2023 indictment on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The indictment alleged that Trump conspired throughout 2017, his first year in office, to alter 34 checks, invoices, and vouchers in order to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush-money payment that silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels less than two weeks before the 2016 election. A jury found him guilty on all counts in May.

"This case involves important federal questions," Trump's lawyers argued just one month after his indictment, because the charges related to conduct "committed while he was President of the United States" and acting within "the color of his office."

Last month, his lawyers argued that his new status as president-elect has strengthened their argument for dismissal. The orderly transition of power is at stake, they said in their most recent dismissal motion. They also argued that presidential immunity, as bestowed by SCOTUS in June, extends to presidents-elect.

But Merchan wrote Monday that even in granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution, SCOTUS set some limits.

He rejected Trump's argument that the hush-money indictment and conviction should be tossed because Manhattan prosecutors, in their presentations to both grand jurors and trial jurors, used the kind of official-act evidence now retroactively barred by SCOTUS.

That evidence included trial testimony by Trump's former White House communications director, Hope Hicks, who described to jurors a conversation she had with Trump in the Oval Office in 2018. Trump had told Hicks that he was relieved that news of the hush-money payment only leaked after the election.

Some of Trump's 2018 tweets about the hush-money scandal were also "official," his lawyers had argued.

But the judge found that no official-act evidence entered the case. And even if it had, he wrote, "such error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt."

Also Monday, Merchan left undecided a series of letters between the defense and prosecutors, not yet made public, that he said address defense claims of "juror misconduct."

Prosecutors want these communications sealed in their entirety, and the defense wants them released to the public in redacted form, Merchant wrote.

The judge said he is continuing to review the defense allegations and a related bid by Trump's lawyers to have the case dismissed in the interest of justice.

• Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has tapped Joel Seidemann to lead the Luigi Mangione prosecution.
• His 40-year career includes prosecuting the Etan Patz murder and Brooke Astor swindle cases.
• Colleagues say he's tenacious and detail-obsessed, with an expertise in fighting psych defenses.

Former colleagues say he's detail-obsessed and relentless. One calls him "a firecracker." And they're hard-pressed to name anyone in the district attorney's office more capable of crushing a psych defense in a murder case.

Joel Seidemann is the veteran assistant district attorney who will be helming the Manhattan prosecution of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, charged in last week's ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Seidemann has been prosecuting high-stakes, high-profile crimes, including homicides, for 42 years.

"I think a great deal of Joel," said Cyrus Vance, Manhattan District Attorney during Seidemann's two biggest trial wins, in the Etan Patz murder and Brook Astor swindle cases.

"He's probably tried more cases than anybody in the DA's office," said attorney Daniel Bibb, hired as a prosecutor six months after Seidemann and now in private practice.

"It's a sign, certainly, that the Manhattan DA's office is giving this their very highest priority," said veteran defense lawyer Ron Kuby.

An author and former adjunct law professor at Pace University, Seidemann does not wilt under the national spotlight that has found him and his cases over the decades.

In addressing judges and juries, he readily turns the dry language of police and medical reports into vivid sound bites.

"They didn't call for an ambulance. They didn't call for help. Rather, they stood on the street corner and laughed," he told a judge of the teen suspects in the fatal 2006 mugging of an NYU student.

"She had her hair done while her husband lay in surgery," he told another judge in 2008, arguing against bail for Barbara Kogan, dubbed the Black Widow for her pricey dark attire. (Kogan soon after pleaded guilty to her husband's 1990 contract killing.)

More than one former colleague said with affection that Seidemann lands his best lines with seeming self-awareness, sometimes peeking over his shoulder to check the courtroom audience's reaction.

Meanwhile, defense lawyers described him as a relentless adversary.

One of the few high-profile trials Seidemann has lost was the 2007 acquittal of David Lemus in a fatal 1990 shooting at the Palladium nightclub. The case was featured in a recent NBC documentary, The Sing Sing Chronicles.

Both of Lemus's lawyers called Seidemann tough but fair.

"Joel tried the best case he could, but David Lemus was innocent," attorney Jonathan P. Bach told Business Insider.

"He was a consummate professional, extraordinarily talented," agreed co-counsel Daniel J. Horwitz. "But we had the two actual killers taking the stand, and confessing to pulling the trigger."

A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA's office declined to comment on this story. Mangione's attorney in Pennsylvania, where he is fighting extradition, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Neither did his New York attorney, Karen Agnifilo.

Mangione has been denied bail and remains held in a central Pennsylvania jail as he awaits a yet-scheduled extradition hearing.

The Etan Patz case

"Joel is fabulous — he's as experienced in that office as they go, and I don't have a bad thing to say about him," said former prosecutor Joan Illuzzi, also now in private practice.

In 2017, Seidemann and Illuzzi won a kidnapping and murder conviction in a case that held national attention for decades, 1979 disappearance of six-year-old Etan Patz.

"He's especially skilled at psych cases," said Illuzzi, noting that the Patz conviction required jurors to believe former bodega worker Pedro Hernandez had confessed to killing Patz because he was guilty, not because he was mentally unsound.

The Mangione case, should it go to trial, may also hinge on a psych defense. Longtime Manhattan attorneys told BI this week that his best hope may be going to trial on what's called an extreme emotional disturbance defense.

The Brooke Astor swindle

In 2009, Seidemann tried what may be his most high-profile case until now — the $60 million swindling of wealthy philanthropist Brooke Astor by her own son — and he called former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the witness stand.

The case hinged on Astor's competency to sign repeated changes to her will. Under Seidemann's questioning, Kissinger recalled to jurors how Astor, on the brink of turning 100 years old, had been so impacted by Alzheimer's that she could no longer recognize her dear friend Kofi Annan.

The then-UN Secretary General was sitting beside Astor at a 2002 dinner party at her Park Avenue co-op.

"Who is the black fellow who is sitting on the other side of me?" Kissinger recounted Astor turning to him and asking.

Seventy prosecution witnesses testified at the seven-month trial, including journalist and editor Graydon Carter, socialite Annette de la Renta, and author Louis Auchincloss. Barbara Walters teared up on the stand as she recalled Brooke's mental decline.

"He's brilliant," said former Manhattan elder-abuse prosecutor Elizabeth Lowey, who teamed up with him to win the case. "He's a firecracker."

Seidemann synthesized stacks of financial documents and scores of witness accounts, remembered Lowey, now at the fraud prevention company EverSafe.

Then he'd pluck out the richest details to create a persuasive narrative for the jury, she said.

Among those details: the son, Anthony Marshall, sailed a teak-decked yacht. Meanwhile, he was ignoring requests by his mother's nurses for no-skid socks and a stairway safety gate.

"The yacht for $920,000? He wasn't too frugal for that," Seidemann told jurors at closing arguments. "But the safety gate for two grand? Not going to happen."

Astor's nurses called Marshall's wife, Charlene, "Miss Piggy" behind her back, Lowey remembered, and Seidemann made a point of letting jurors hear that.

"I would tell Joel we can't call her Miss Piggy, even if it's in the nurses' notes, and he would say, 'Oh yes we can," Lowey said, laughing.

"He's not afraid to call it what it is," she added. "If there's anyone who can make people understand that even if you have issues with the insurance industry, you can't be a vigilante, it's Joel."

Philip C. Marshall filed the 2006 guardianship petition that led to his father's prosecution. He told Business Insider that Seidemann kept a box of Kleenex on hand for him during interviews and trial prep.

"I just remember his ability to engage and listen — his calm and intentional nature throughout this ordeal," said Marshall, founder of the Beyond Brooke campaign against elder abuse.

More than one person interviewed by Business Insider mentioned Seidemann's height, one saying, "he still has a damn good courtroom presence." Marshall noted he is not a tall man.

"But any opponent will be dwarfed by the stack of documents and evidence that he'll bring to this case," Marshall quipped.

• Luigi Mangione remains held in Pennsylvania and charged with the murder of Brian Thompson.
• Former Manhattan prosecutors predict the extradition process could take months.
• Once in New York, he'll stay in the city's most notorious jail and could pursue a psych defense.

Since his arrest on Monday in the Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione has been held in Pennsylvania's oldest jail.

The State Correctional Institution at Huntington, a sprawling red brick structure on the edge of the Allegheny Mountains, opened in 1889 as a reformatory for delinquent boys, and still features its original Queen Anne-style architecture.

Mangione will remain at that maximum-security jail as he fights extradition — a process that Manhattan defense lawyers and former prosecutors predict will take months.

"Whatever it is, it's going to be better than Rikers, and he'll be in no hurry to leave," veteran New York defense lawyer Ron Kuby told Business Insider, referencing Mangione's likely next placement, the city's notorious Rikers Island. Two weeks ago, a federal judge complained that court-ordered safety and use-of-force reforms at Rikers have proceeded at a "glacial pace."

Here's what longtime Manhattan attorneys predict will happen behind the scenes as Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland real estate family, waits for his case to proceed from indictment to extradition and beyond.

First, a grand jury

Mangione is being held without bail on two felony complaints.

The first was drafted by police and prosecutors in Pennsylvania's Blair County. It alleges that on Monday, after being recognized by an employee at an Altoona McDonalds, he gave cops a fake ID and possessed in his backpack an unlicensed firearm — a part-metal, part 3-D-printed weapon described as a possible "ghost" gun.

The second complaint, drafted soon afterward by the NYPD and Manhattan prosecutors, also charges him with possession of a false ID and weapons possession but adds the top charge of second-degree murder.

Longtime Manhattan attorneys say a secret grand jury is likely already hearing evidence in Lower Manhattan on those charges.

Manhattan prosecutors will likely conclude their grand jury presentation against Mangione by the end of the week or by early next week at the latest, they said, estimating based on their own previous murder cases.

"They won't have full DNA and ballistic results yet," said one longtime defense attorney. The attorney asked to speak anonymously because they said they are under consideration to represent Mangione at his New York arraignment and in future proceedings.

At this early stage, prosecutors may not know for sure if the bullets fired at Thompson match the gun possessed by Mangione when he was arrested, the attorney said.

"But so far, they appear to have a ton of at least circumstantial evidence," they said. "But prosecutors only need to present a minimal amount of evidence" at this stage, to show that there is reasonable cause to believe Mangione committed the murder, they added.

Any indictment would remain sealed until Mangione faces a judge at his Manhattan arraignment.

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to confirm if a grand jury is hearing evidence or to comment on this story.

Next, an extradition battle

Meanwhile, Mangione is fighting extradition to New York, a process that will spool out over the course of many weeks, the legal experts predict.

On Tuesday, a Blair County judge got the ball rolling.

He gave local prosecutors 30 days to obtain what's called a governor's warrant, in which New York Gov. Kathy Hochul would request Mangione's return to New York.

"Once the indictment is voted, which could be very soon, they'll ship that paperwork up to the governor's office, where I"m sure it will be expeditiously processed and sent to Pennsylvania," said Daniel Bibb, a former Manhattan homicide prosecutor now in private practice.

"There has to be an indictment for there to be an extradition," Bibb said.

Hours after Mangione's arrest, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Monday that the Commonwealth will cooperate in Mangione's extradition, and Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks told reporters that he recognized New York's murder case takes precedence over his own forgery and gun-possession case.

Mangione's Pennsylvania attorney, Thomas Dickey, told Good Morning America on Wednesday that he will demand an extradition hearing so that Manhattan prosecutors will be required to begin divulging their evidence.

Dickey has repeatedly maintained his client's innocence in statements to reporters this week. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.

A formal extradition hearing, which has not yet been scheduled, will not focus on whether Mangione committed the murder, Bibb said.

"The issue in Pennsylvania will be whether the person named in the New York indictment is him. And that's pretty much the only inquiry," he said.

"I pretty much guarantee that you'll be seeing Mr. Mangione in New York within the next couple of months," Bibb predicted, depending on how much delay the Blair County judge is willing to tolerate.

An extradition battle could take months

Kuby, who has practiced criminal law in New York for more than 40 years, said that a creative defense lawyer could use appeals to drag an extradition battle on for many months.

"You hold the extradition hearing. You lose? You appeal to Pennsylvania's intermediate appellate court," he said. "You lose that, and you apply to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to hear the case."

In the early 1990s, Kuby and his partner, William Kunstler, were able to delay the New York-to-Florida extradition of Frank Strahan — a Harlem man arrested in the cold-case, 1946 shooting death of Miami's first black police officer — for nearly two years.

A defense lawyer can try to appeal an extradition all the way up to the US Supreme Court, Kuby said.

A potential psych defense

Once brought back to New York, Mangione would be quickly arraigned. The ensuing prosecution, however, could extend years if he decides to use a psychiatric defense and fights the charges at trial, experts said.

Given what investigators have described as the evidence implicating him in the shooting — including extensive surveillance video footage and what the NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch described as "anti-corporatist sentiment" in a hand-written document recovered at his arrest — Mangione's best chances at trial may be what's called an extreme emotional disturbance defense, they said.

Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two sons from Minnesota, was fatally shot on the sidewalk outside a UnitedHealthcare shareholders meeting, where he'd been set to speak.

In his online posts, Mangione, the scion of a wealthy and prominent Baltimore family, had complained about his chronic back pain and the healthcare system.

A so-called EED defense would ask jurors to find Mangione guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter, arguing he was so emotionally disturbed at the time that he believed he had to kill Thompson.

"It might be a long shot," said the attorney who requested anonymity due to their potential connection to the case.

"But by all accounts, he went off the grid six months ago, and that was uncharacteristic of him, as was any act of violence," they said.

"He may well have had a psychotic break."

• Trump is making an 11th-hour bid to toss his hush-money case before Inauguration Day.
• Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has now filed an 82-page motion opposing Trump's dismissal efforts.
• Trump's "history of malicious conduct" is too serious to toss the case, Bragg wrote.

In an 82-page court filing made public Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors say Donald Trump's "history of malicious conduct" is too serious for his hush-money case to be dismissed.

The filing, signed by DA Alvin Bragg, also fights Trump's claim that he enjoys something called presidential-elect immunity — above and beyond the presidential immunity bestowed on him by the US Supreme Court in June.

"There are no grounds for such relief now, prior to inauguration," Bragg wrote in opposing Trump's 11th-hour motion to dismiss, "because President-elect immunity does not exist."

With just six weeks left before his January 20 inauguration — and six months after a Manhattan jury convicted him — Trump is again demanding that New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan immediately dismiss his hush-money case.

It's his third time trying to void his indictment or his conviction. If successful, Trump would escape altogether his already thrice-delayed sentencing.

The president elect faces as little as no jail time and a potential maximum of four years prison for falsifying 34 business records throughout his first year of office to retroactively hide a hush-money payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels. (Legal experts have said that it's unlikely Trump would be sentenced to jail time as a 78-year-old first-time offender convicted of low-level felonies, and any jail sentence would be stayed as he appeals.)

Trump paid for Daniels' silence just eleven days before 2016 election, and jurors unanimously found that he thereby conspired to promote his own election by unlawful means, Bragg wrote.

The evidence presented against Trump was "overwhelming," reads the filing, which is also signed by a lead prosecutor on the case, Christopher Conroy.

"The crimes that the jury convicted defendant of committing are serious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New York's financial marketplace," which relies on honest record-keeping, Bragg wrote.

Trump's conduct during his hush-money prosecution also weighs heavily against dismissal, as does his "long history of threatening, abusing, and attacking participants in other legal proceedings in which he is involved," Bragg wrote.

Trump's "contemptuous" conduct began even before his hush-money indictment was voted, the prosecutor wrote.

"He threatened 'death and destruction' if he was indicted and posted a photo of himself wielding a baseball bat at the back of the District Attorney's head," Bragg wrote of Trump's actions while the grand jury was still hearing evidence in early 2023.

Later, Trump launched online attacks on Merchan and members of his family.

Trump was found guilty of criminal contempt ten times for his "extrajudicial speech" — including social media attacks on witnesses — during his trial this spring, Bragg wrote.

Trump also repeatedly attacked the law clerk and was accused of lying under oath by the judge during last year's civil fraud trial, in which he's been ordered to pay a $454 million judgment.

That judgment remains on hold pending appeal.

Trump's history of abusing the legal process extends to his other cases, Bragg wrote, including his continued defamations of writer E. Jean Carroll, who last year won more than $80 million in damages after the president-elect repeatedly mocked her and called her a liar.

Bragg's filling asked Merchan to either sentence Trump before the inauguration, or put the case on hold until after he serves out his second term.

• Police said they found a "ghost gun" on the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect.
• Ghost guns are untraceable firearms that can be assembled at home, raising safety concerns.
• Elected officials are cracking down on the sale of such weapons to curb their accessibility.

Police say a weapon they found on UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect Luigi Mangione could be a 3D printed ghost gun.

Ghost guns are firearms assembled at home using parts that were purchased individually. Sometimes, those components are made using a 3D printer. It's legal to buy the parts and use them to make your own gun, but laws prohibit the sale or transfer of ghost guns to another person.

Mangione "was in possession of a ghost gun that had the capability of firing a 9mm round," Joe Kenny, the New York Police Department's chief of detectives, told reporters on Monday.

He added that it "may have been made on a 3D printer"; there's no confirmation that it was the same gun used to kill Brian Thompson.

Mangione is being held without bail, and a lawyer for him has not yet been publicly identified.

Both authorities and gun safety groups have raised concerns about ghost guns, which are accessible online in kits. More than 25,000 privately made firearms were recovered by US law enforcement agencies in 2022, according to the DOJ.

In 2022, New York City officials filed a lawsuit against five ghost gun retailers over their sales to residents. Mayor Eric Adams eventually came to an agreement with at least four of the companies that would stop the sale of ghost guns in NYC.

It's unclear if the firearm Pennsylvania police say they recovered from Mangione is technically a ghost gun, said Kris Brown, the president of the gun safety group Brady.

They'll know for sure once investigators examine the weapon to see if any of its component parts have serial numbers. Only if there are no serial numbers is it a ghost gun, meaning entirely unregulated and untraceable, Brown told Business Insider.

Mangione may have printed the plastic portions of his gun, but he likely purchased the metal components, she said. Under current law, if you buy these components as part of a kit, you need a background check, Brown said.

These include the slide, the thread for the barrel, and the trigger mechanism; all are easily acquired through mail-order companies that advertise online.

Currently, some states require serial numbers for separately sold metal components, and some do not, Brown said.

Brady advocates for gun-control legislation, including the 2022 rule issued by the Biden-Harris administration regulating the sale of ghost gun kits."That bill has been very effective," she said. "Without it, it would have been lawful for a shooter to buy a kit and assemble an entire gun in minutes." In 2023, there was a drop in ghost gun recoveries by police nationwide, Mark Collins, Brady's director of federal policy, said.

Brady is pushing next for passage of the Ghost Guns and Untraceable Firearms Act, which would set a federal standard requiring background checks and the serialization of build-it-yourself gun parts.