On its last business day, the Biden administration issued a report that now has an unlikely fan.
Elon Musk is using the report as evidence in his antitrust suit against Sam Altman and OpenAI.
Biden's outgoing DOJ also weighed in on Musk's behalf.
Former President Joe Biden left Elon Musk what amounts to a parting gift: a pair of scholarly papers drafted by his Justice Department and his Federal Trade Commission.
Both describe the potential illegality of overly-cozy partnerships between giant cloud service providers like Microsoft and leading artificial intelligence developers like OpenAI.
Musk is now using these Biden administration filings as fuel for his ongoing 2024 lawsuit against colleague-turned-rival Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO. The two men helped co-found OpenAI in 2015, with Musk sinking $44 million into the venture before their falling out three years later.
Musk's lawsuit accuses Altman of betraying OpenAI's founding mission as a non-profit research lab dedicated to keeping AI technology safe and freely available for the good of mankind.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who in 2023 launched a competing AI effort, is seeking to break up the mutually beneficial β he says monopolistic β partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft.
Under the partnership, the software giant provides vital cloud server space and funding β a "$13 billion commitment," the lawsuit alleges. In return, Microsoft gets exclusive rights to the startup's technology, a suite of AI products that includes ChatGPT.
Musk's lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, accuses Altman of racketeering, calling the four-year-old Microsoft-OpenAI alliance an unregulated "de facto merger." He seeks to void the companies' licensing agreement and pocket cash damages.
Microsoft "stands to make hundreds of billions from its methodical infiltration of, and increasing leverage over, the non-profit, its technology, and employees," the suit alleges.
Concern over Big Tech monopolies goes beyond politics, the lawyer said.
"The DOJ and FTC took principled stands," Toberoff said of the back-to-back Biden administration filings. "Concern over OpenAI and Microsoft transcends party, because their coordinated conduct threatens the safe and effective development of by far the most transformative technology of our time."
The DOJ filing was the first to drop into the Musk v Altman docket.
Dated January 10, it supports Musk's claims that Microsoft and OpenAI violated federal antitrust laws by letting two people serve on the boards of directors of both companies β a practice called "interlocking directorates."
LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman served on the boards of OpenAI and Microsoft from March 2017 until March 2023, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also alleges that Deannah "Dee" Templeton, Microsoft's vice president of partnerships and operations, served on both boards from November 2023 until July 2024.
Altman's side has countered that neither Hoffman nor Templeton β both named as defendants in Musk's lawsuit β remain on OpenAI's board.
In late December, Musk asked the US District Court judge presiding over his lawsuit to bar the defendants from "benefiting from wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information or coordination via the Microsoft-OpenAI board interlocks."
The DOJ filing supported that request.
Having directors serve on the boards of intertwined companies lets them share sensitive information, potentially undermining fair competition, the DOJ told Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
The FTC's filing was next to drop into the Musk v Altman docket.
Dated January 17 β the last full business day of the Biden administration β it casts a critical eye on three multi-billion-dollar partnerships involving AI, listing them as "Microsoft-OpenAI, Amazon-Anthropic, and Google-Anthropic."
Microsoft's $13.75 billion investment in OpenAI dwarves those of the other two partnerships, the report says. The report pegs Amazon's investment in Anthropic at $8 billion and Google's investment in Anthropic at $2.55 billion.
"These partnerships involve relationships between the world's current largest Cloud Service Providers ("CSPs") and two of the most prominent AI model developers," the report reads.
"These partnerships therefore have potential for significant impact on AI technology, workers, and consumers," it warns.
By Inauguration Day, Musk's lawyers had attached the report as Exhibit 3 to to its latest court filing.
Musk and his co-plaintiffs "agree with the analytic frameworks" of the FTC and DOJ findings, Musk's side wrote.
Attorneys for Altman and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Once on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, Charlie Javice is nearing trial on a $175M JPMorgan Chase fraud.
The feds say she tricked the world's largest bank into buying her financial aid tech startup, Frank.
On Thursday, she lost her bid to be tried separately from an ex-colleague who plans to attack her.
Once on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, former tech entrepreneur Charlie Javice is awaiting trial next month on charges that she tricked JPMorgan Chase into paying $175 million for her college financial aid startup, Frank.
Jurors may be in for a wild ride.
Javice's former No. 2 at Frank, codefendant Olivier Amar, intends to base his defense on attacking her, it was revealed at a pretrial hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday.
"We learned this only on January 8, that the defense was going to be antagonistic," Javice's attorney Ronald Sullivan told the judge in asking that she and Amar be tried separately.
"The defense will be the derogation of Miss Javice," the lawyer said.
US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein quickly denied the request for separate trials. Javice and Amar are charged with "a common plan or scheme," the judge explained.
"This trial is a complicated trial. It will take weeks of the court's and the jury's time, and it would just be unnecessarily duplicative to have two trials when there can be one," the judge said.
"This is merely an antagonistic defense β certainly nothing that would rise to something that is unfair to either defendant."
A young entrepreneur, and the world's largest bank
According to the indictment against them, Javice and Amar together conned the nation's largest bank into paying a small fortune for Frank, a for-profit tech company she launched at age 24 that featured software to help students apply for college financial aid.
Javice began wooing JPMorgan Chase in the summer of 2021. Then 28, Javice was something of a media darling, giving interviews to major news publications and making not only the Forbes list, but the Crain's New York's 40 under 40 list as well.
"Don't wait for the time to move up the ranks in the traditional sense" during a negotiation, Javice told Business Insider in July 2021. That was the same month that prosecutors say she gave JPMorgan Chase with two Power Point presentations alleging Frank had more than 4 million users.
"If you see an opportunity, don't be afraid to jump," she told BI then.
It was these claims of a massive user base that lured JPMorgan Chase in. The bank acquired Frank, in large part, to gain access to these users, hoping that these up-and-coming college students would become new customers for Chase products, federal prosecutors say in court documents.
When the bank asked to verify Frank's user database before committing to the acquisition, Javice and Amar called up their director of software engineering. They asked the engineer to create synthetic data that would make it look like they had millions of users, prosecutors allege.
"Yes, it's legal," Amar allegedly told the engineer in a message cited by prosecutors. "We don't want to end up in orange jumpsuits."
Their engineer balked. So the pair paid $18,000 to an outside data scientist who generated what prosecutors say were 4 million rows of utterly fabricated names, emails, home addresses, and phone numbers.
"The defendants created a fake dataset," Assistant US Attorney Micah Festa Fergenson said at Amar's arraignment in July. "It was essentially a giant Excel spreadsheet that had over 4 million rows and lots of purported data. But it was all fake."
The sale went through in September 2021, with JPMorgan Chase keeping Javice and Amar on as Frank's No. 1 and No. 2. As JPMorgan Chase's new head of student solutions, Javice was paid a $300,000 annual salary and pocketed $21 million in stock proceeds plus a $20 million retention bonus, prosecutors allege.
Knowing the bank would soon try to use the data to pitch savings accounts, credit cards, and the like, the pair then purchased, for $100,000 on the open market, the data for more than four million college students, prosecutors allege.
"When Chase eventually went and asked them, "Okay, send your student data list," they sent this student list that they had bought on the open market," Fergenson alleged at Amar's arraignment.
Only a year after the sale did JPMorgan Chase realize that Frank had no more than 300,000 legitimate user contacts β and that the remainder of the 4 million contacts were essentially worthless.
"Chase did a test run of a marketing campaign," the prosecutor said at Amar's arraignment. "A lot of the emails were old and didn't work. Almost nobody clicked through to it. And it was completely unexpected."
The bank shut Frank down, firing and suing Javice. She was arrested in April 2023, he was arrested three months later. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit securities, wire, and bank fraud.
Javice is free on $2 million bail, which was secured by her home in Miami Beach. Amar is out on $1 million bail.
Javice's lawyers have argued that the materials sent to JPMorgan Chase during the 2021 sale negotiations were legally obtained and did not constitute fraud β and that the government's case simply piggybacks on the bank's December 2022 lawsuit.
Amar's lawyers have said that he was at arm's length from the sale itself and that he did not knowingly participate in any scheme.
A last-minute evidence dump
On Thursday, the original date for jury selection β the second Monday in February β was pushed forward a week to February 18. The judge moved the date to give the defendants more time to process an emergency, last-minute evidence dump from the government.
Describing the snafu to the judge, prosecutors said that 14 months ago, back in October 2023, they received two large caches of data in response to a subpoena to Google: all of Javice's Google Drive documents and all of Amar's Google Drive documents.
Prosecutors immediately shared Javice's drive documents to her defense team, and all of Amar's drive documents to his team β a total of 13,000 documents β as required under federal rules of evidence. But they neglected to give Javice's documents to Amar, and vice-versa.
"How would you like to get 13,000 documents two weeks before trial?" the judge demanded angrily. "How did that happen?"
Javice, meanwhile, remains in the dark on what Amar's "derogation" defense will involve once the case does go to trial, her lawyers complained on Thursday.
Will it be mere "finger-pointing?" Sullivan asked in court.
"Or will Miss Javice not only be prosecuted by the government but also by Mr. Amar?" he asked. "At least we know what the government is going to say. We have no idea what Mr. Amar is going to say."
A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's order to end birthright citizenship.
The order has been challenged by multiple lawsuits that say it violates the 14th Amendment.
In temporarily halting the order, the Seattle judge called it "blatantly unconstitutional."
A federal judge in Seattle temporarily halted President Donald Trump's controversial executive order to deny automatic citizenship for some people born on US soil, calling the move to end birthright citizenship "blatantly unconstitutional."
"I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that is a constitutional order," Judge John Coughenour of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington told the Trump administration's attorneys after hearing arguments Thursday morning, according to multiple news outlets in the courtroom. "It boggles my mind."
"I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is," the judge added.
The ruling was made in a case brought by four states β Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon. The case is among at least five lawsuits filed this week challenging Trump's birthright-citizenship order on the grounds that it violates the 14th Amendment.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department told Business Insider in a statement that the law enforcement agency "will vigorously defend President Trump's EO, which correctly interprets the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
"We look forward to presenting a full merits argument to the Court and to the American people, who are desperate to see our Nation's laws enforced," the spokesperson said.
In the judge's ruling granting a 14-day restraining order, Coughenour wrote: "There is a strong likelihood that Plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their claims that the Executive Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment and Immigration and Nationality Act."
On Tuesday, attorneys general from 22 states and two cities across the country filed two separate lawsuits to block the order. A hearing has not yet been held for the first suit, which 18 states and the top law-enforcement officers of Washington, DC, and San Francisco have joined.
The lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon says the president "has no authority to amend the Constitution or supersede the Citizenship Clause's grant of citizenship to individuals born in the United States." It adds: "Nor is he empowered by any other constitutional provision or law to determine who shall or shall not be granted United States citizenship at birth."
The lawsuit also says: "United States citizens are entitled to a broad array of rights and benefits as a result of their citizenship. Withholding citizenship or stripping individuals of their citizenship will result in an immediate and irreparable harm to those individuals and to the Plaintiff States."
Trump signed the order targeting birthright citizenship, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," shortly after he was sworn into office Monday for a second presidential term. It was scheduled to take effect 30 days after its signing.
Birthright citizenship is a policy that automatically gives citizenship to anyone born in the US or US territories. Under Trump's executive order, federal agencies would be banned from issuing any documents granting citizenship to US-born children whose parents live in the country illegally, or in cases in which the mother was lawfully in the country temporarily β such as a student or tourist β but the father is neither a US citizen nor a lawful permanent resident.
The American Civil Liberties Union also brought a lawsuit on Monday that says at least 150,000 children would be affected.
Other immigration executive orders Trump signed after he was sworn in involved declaring a national emergency, sending the military to the US-Mexico border, shutting down the CBP One app from which immigrants seeking asylum could submit information, and restricting federal funding to sanctuary cities β which have limited cooperation with agents working to deport immigrants in the US illegally.
White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told BI in a statement on Wednesday that the Trump administration is prepared to fight back against the lawsuits targeting his executive orders.
"Radical Leftists can either choose to swim against the tide and reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can get on board and work with President Trump to advance his wildly popular agenda," Fields said. "These lawsuits are nothing more than an extension of the Left's resistance β and the Trump Administration is ready to face them in court."
Ticketmaster and Live Nation want a judge to boot 27 states from the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit.
The event goliath argued Wednesday that the states can't prove a direct injury to their residents.
Opening their venues to multiple ticketers and promoters could raise ticket prices, they argued.
Lawyers for Ticketmaster's parent company asked a judge on Wednesday to stop 27 states from participating as plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department last May.
The 27 states can't prove direct injury to their residents as a result of Live Nation's actions, lawyers for the entertainment giant argued in federal court. More competition could actually result in higher β not lower β costs for concertgoers, the lawyers said, arguing that without proof of injury, the states have no standing to seek damages in the case.
"If Ticketmaster wasn't doing what it was doing, then multiple ticketers could sell for an event, and then the customers would be better off in that world? That is only a theory," Live Nation attorney Andrew Gass told the judge on Wednesday.
The 8-month-old lawsuit is still in its early stages, with no trial date set. It seeks to break up Live Nation, saying the company controls 60 of the country's 100 largest event amphitheaters.
Artists who use these venues are forced to hire Live Nation's own promoters and use its own ticket distributor β Ticketmaster β creating a monopolistic "ecosystem" that harms competitors and hikes costs for artists and fans, the lawsuit alleges.
The 27 states Live Nation is seeking to remove from the case are seeking triple monetary damages on the argument that their residents have been injured by the inflated ticket prices resulting from this lack of competition.
In his arguments before US District Court Judge Arun Subramanian on Wednesday, the Live Nation attorney said concertgoers are too far removed from the alleged monopolistic conduct for states to sue on their behalf.
"There is such an attenuated chain of causation" between the ticket consumer and any exclusivity deals involving artists, promoters, and venues, he argued.
It is inefficient for the states to be "piggybacking" on the federal goverment's claims over the exact same conduct, Live Nation also argued.
In downplaying the idea that competition would cut ticket prices as just "a theory," Gass offered the judge a hypothetical.
Let's say Live Nation allowed its rival promoters to bid for access to its amphitheaters, the lawyer told the judge. Rival promoter "A" would then offer Live Nation a sizable cut of its profits, only to be outbid by rival promoter "B" offering an even bigger cut. "And then the price of the event goes up," Gass argued.
The judge voiced some skepticism.
Subramanian said the idea that consumers would save money if Ticketmaster competed with other ticket sellers for the same event "seems like a very straightforward theory."
Other arguments Wednesday focused on Live Nation's request that the judge dismiss another major part of the lawsuit: the government's claim that artists who use Live Nation event venues are barred from using their own promoters, and instead must pay in-house promoters.
"The policy is that third-party artists may not rent their amphitheaters unless those artists purchase Live Nation promotion services as well," DOJ attorney Arianna Markel told the judge.
"The artist is essentially forced to use Live Nation for its promotion services if it wants to use those amphitheaters," she said. That's exactly the kind of "tying" arrangement that is barred under antitrust case law, she said.
Live Nation is asking the judge to dismiss this claim. On Wednesday their lawyer countered that this isn't "tying" at all β it's simply a company refusing to do business with its rivals, as is its right.
Here, the judge appeared to agree with Live Nation. "I can't force them to rent these amphitheaters to rival promoters," he said.
The judge gave the parties until Monday β and no more than five pages β to file final arguments for and against Live Nation's dismissal motions.
Donald Trump's day one executive orders are facing court challenges.
Several lawsuits target his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Other lawsuits challenge his orders on birthright citizenship and firing federal workers.
President Donald Trump's executive orders β launched in a day one signing flurry β are being challenged by a similarly speedy blitz of lawsuits.
The lawsuits started to roll in on Monday within minutes of Trump being sworn into office for a second term. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency came under swift legal attack shortly after Trump signed an executive order formally creating the group that aims to slash wasteful federal spending.
Advocacy organizations and public interest groups quickly filed a handful of lawsuits in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against DOGE.
The law, which was designed to boost public accountability, covers advisory committees that are either formed or utilized by the president.
"Operating without complying with FACA, DOGE has already begun developing recommendations and influencing decision-making in the new administration, even though its membership lacks the fair balance required by FACA and its meetings and records are not open to public inspection in real time," one of the lawsuits, filed by the groups Public Citizen, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and the American Federation of Government Employees, reads.
The January 20 executive order establishing DOGE, however, does so in a way that reorganizes and renames an existing government agency, the United States Digital Service.
As a government department β and not an outside advisory group β it's also subject to public records laws.
Another lawsuit, filed by several groups including the American Public Health Association and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, contends that DOGE is a "shadow operation led by unelected billionaires who stand to reap huge financial rewards from this influence and access."
"Despite these conflicts of interest, DOGE is slated to dictate federal policy in ways that will affect millions of Americans, including those communities that Plaintiffs represent," the lawsuit says. "It is doing so under a shroud of secrecy with none of the transparency, oversight, or opportunity for public participation the law requires."
A fourth lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity against the Office of Management and Budget, seeks to compel the government agency to hand over records related to DOGE under the Freedom of Information Act.
"These records are important for the public to understand the threats to numerous environmental protections embodied in rules and orders and how, when, and under what circumstances the new administration intends to act on these threats," the lawsuit says.
On Tuesday, Musk, who was tapped by Trump to lead DOGE, made light of the lawsuits that have already been filed.
"Can someone start a lawsuit counter? How long until we hit triple digits?" Musk posted on his social-media platform X along with crying-while-laughing emoji.
A ban on birthright citizenship
One of Trump's executive orders targets the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. The order bars federal agencies from issuing documents recognizing the citizenship of babies born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally.
Under the order, citizenship would also be denied to children of mothers who are visa holders or otherwise in the country temporarily and to those whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents of the US.
The order is set to take effect 30 days after its signing.
Hours after the signing ceremony, advocacy groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the order.
The lawsuit says the order conflicts with the 14th Amendment's provision that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
"This principle has enabled generations of children to pursue their dreams and build a stronger America," the lawsuit says.
The ACLU filed the suit in federal court in New Hampshire on behalf of New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Make the Road New York β groups with members whose children would be denied citizenship under the order.
The lawsuit names Trump and the departments of state, homeland security, and agriculture as defendants, along with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The heads of these agencies are also sued, though by title, not by name.
Another lawsuit was filed later on Monday in Boston on behalf of an unnamed expectant mother with temporary protective status whose child would be denied citizenship. Two Massachusetts support agencies, the Brazilian Worker Center and La Colaborativa, are fellow plaintiffs.
On Tuesday, 18 state attorneys general and the top law enforcement officers of Washington, DC, and San Francisco joined in suing Trump, the State Department, DHS, and the Social Security Administration to block the law from taking effect.
"The principle of birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the Constitution for more than 150 years," the lawsuit says.
Weakening job protections for federal workers
Another of Trump's executive orders would weaken job protections for some of the more than 2 million federal employees who are career civil servants and who β unlike political appointees β can only be fired for cause.
The order carves out an exemption to this protection, shifting some 50,000 of these career civil servants into a new category called "Schedule F" that allows them to be fired at will. It's similar to an order Trump signed late in his first administration, which was quickly challenged in a lawsuit before being withdrawn by the Biden administration.
A lawsuit filed late on Inauguration Day by the National Treasury Employees Union β the same group that sued in 2020 β seeks to block the order.
"When establishing hiring principles, Congress determined that most federal government jobs be in the merit-based, competitive service," the lawsuit says. "And it established that most federal employees have due process rights if their agency employer wants to remove them from employment."
Trump is named the lead defendant in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC. The other named defendants include the heads of six government agencies: the Office of Personnel Management, US Customs and Border Protection, the IRS, the Treasury Department, Health and Human Services, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a surprise development, Giuliani, Shaye Moss, and Ruby Freeman reached a settlement on Thursday.
The settlement ends the four-year defamation case "once certain conditions are met."
Giuliani's lawyer declined to say how a 2023 jury's $148M award to Moss and Freeman will be met.
Rudy Giuliani and the two Georgia election workers he defamed after the 2020 election said Thursday that they have reached a new monetary settlement that satisfies both sides β and which the former New York City mayor said lets him retain "all of my personal belongings."
The surprise settlement "will result in the satisfaction of the Plaintiffs' judgment," Giuliani tweeted minutes after the sides concluded a morning of back-room negotiations at a federal courthouse in Manhattan.
"I am satisfied with and have no grievances relating to the result we have reached," Giuliani's tweet continued. "I have been able to retain my New York coop and Florida Condominium and all of my personal belongings."
As part of the settlement, Giuliani, 80, promised to never again defame the election workers, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman. The two had testified that they feared for their lives when Giuliani's false 2020 election-fraud accusations led to a barrage of racist death threats.
The former mayor and personal attorney for President-elect Donald Trump had owed the pair $148 million since December of 2023. That's when a jury tallied up the damages from what a judge said were his "extreme and outrageous" fraud accusations.
Giuliani's defamatory accusations included lying that the two were changing votes via flash drives and carting around thousands of fake ballots in rolling suitcases.
Giuliani attorney Joseph Cammarata declined to give further details of the settlement to reporters, saying that the parties had agreed to keep its material terms private.
"I'm not going to answer that question," he said when asked if anyone else had paid the $148 million on Giuliani's behalf, or if a smaller sum had been agreed to.
Cammarata also declined to say if Giuliani would get back the few items that he has so far forfeited, namely a Mercedes convertible once owned by Lauren Bacall, and a handful of luxury watches.
The agreement struck Thursday will be finalized "once certain conditions are met," at which point it "would result in the conclusion of all litigation currently pending between and among the Parties," according to a letter signed by both sides and filed with the court.
That litigation included civil contempt allegations brought by the mother-daughter pair, who'd alleged Giuliani was continuing to defame them.
"The past four years have been a living nightmare," the mother-daughter pair said in a statement.
"We have fought to clear our names, restore our reputations, and prove that we did nothing wrong. Today is a major milestone in our journey. We have reached an agreement and we can now move forward with our lives. We have agreed to allow Mr. Giuliani to retain his property in exchange for compensation and his promise not to ever defame us."
Their attorney, Aaron Nathan declined to speak to reporters.
Under Thursday's agreement, Giuliani, who was not present for the negotiations, will keep his two most valuable possessions. His Palm Beach condo is worth $3.5 million and his Manhattan coop is worth $5.6 million, according to court papers.
Andrew Giuliani was at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Thursday and told reporters he will get to keep three World Series rings, originally his father's and valued at $50,000 each.
The question of who gets the rings and the Florida condo had been the subject of a mini-trial originally scheduled for Thursday before the parties instead turned to settlement negotiations.
Thursday's agreement capped three days of negotiations, Cammarata told reporters.
"I'm really proud of my father," the younger Giuliani told reporters outside the courthouse. "He's an American hero, an American icon."
Sean "Diddy" Combs' attorneys called the criminal sex trafficking case against him "sexist."
The attorneys also said prosecutors' video evidence show their client is innocent.
They said the videos depicting so-called "freak offs" show "sexual activity between fully consenting adults."
Attorneys for Sean "Diddy" Combs revealed in court filings this week that a key part of their defense strategy for the hip-hop mogul's sex trafficking case will be to attack the prosecution as "sexist" and argue that video evidence of his so-called "freak offs" will vindicate him at trial.
Combs' attorneys made the comments in a partially-redacted seven-page letter to the Manhattan federal judge overseeing the rapper's criminal case as part of a bid to obtain their own copies of the recordings in preparation for Combs' trial defense.
"Having reviewed these videos, it is now abundantly clear that they confirm Mr. Combs's innocence," Combs' attorneys wrote in the letter.
"Any fair-minded viewer of the videos will quickly conclude that the prosecution of Mr. Combs is both sexist and puritanical," the letter read. "It is sexist because the government's theory perpetuates stereotypes of female victimhood and lack of agency."
The prosecution, said Combs' attorneys, "reflects a paternalistic view that the government is here to protect women, who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about sex, and are not capable of consenting to sex that the prosecutors view as outside the 'norm.'"
At the center of the indictment against Combs are accusations he orchestrated "freak offs," which prosecutors describe in court papers as "elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded."
In these alleged drug-fueled sex sessions, prosecutors say Combs "used force, threats of force, and coercion" to get female victims to engage in sex acts with male commercial sex workers.
"Contrary to what the government has led this Court and the public to believe, the so-called 'Freak Offs' were private sexual activity between fully consenting adults in a long-term relationship," Combs' defense attorneys wrote in their letter to the judge.
"Like many Americans in the privacy of their own bedrooms, they sometimes filmed their sexual activity," the attorneys wrote, adding that the videos "do not depict sex parties."
"There are no secret cameras, no orgies, no other celebrities involved, no underground tunnels, no minors," the letter reads, adding, "At bottom, this case is about whether Victim-1 was or was not a willing participant in her private sex life with Mr. Combs."
The sex-trafficking indictment against Combs mentions one cooperating accuser referred to only as "Victim-1." "Victim-1" has been widely identified Combs' ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassandra "Cassie" Ventura. Previously published details of Ventura's relationship with Combs β including that it lasted some 10 years β match the prosecution descriptions of "Victim-1" in multiple court documents.
Attorneys for Ventura did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider for this story. A spokesman for the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Combs' lawyers wrote in their letter to the judge that after four weeks of attempting to schedule the viewing of the prosecutors' video evidence, the defense was able to view the footage under the supervision of law enforcement on November 20 and December 13.
"There is no evidence of any violence, coercion, threats, or manipulation whatsoever," Combs' attorneys wrote. "There is no evidence that anyone is incapacitated or under the influence of drugs or excessive alcohol consumption. There is certainly no evidence of sex trafficking."
Combs' attorneys initially filed a lesser-redacted version of their letter with the court on Tuesday, but that letter disappeared from the public docket after prosecutors successfully argued for its removal, saying a protective order in the case was violated.
In the initial letter filed by Combs' defense attorneys, they said that videos "unambiguously show that the person alleged in the indictment to be 'Victim-1' not only consented, but thoroughly enjoyed herself."
In a separate letter to the judge on Wednesday, Combs' attorneys wrote: "Faulting the defense for characterizing that same evidence as exculpatory and consensual is an unfair double standard and demonstrates the government's intent to mislead the public and the Court."
Combs has been locked up pretrial at a federal Brooklyn jail since his September 2024 arrest and indictment on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Combs has vehemently denied the federal charges against him as well as all accusations of sexual abuse. His attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A judge in Manhattan denied the Alexander brothers bail in their sex-trafficking case on Wednesday.
The denial followed a contentious hearing over whether the three brothers are dangerous or a flight risk.
The judge criticized a lawyer who argued a woman can't be incapacitated if she can still stand up.
A judge in Manhattan denied bail on Wednesday for the Alexander brothers in their federal sex trafficking case, meaning they will remain jailed in Miami pending trial.
Oren and Tal Alexander were luxury real-estate agents in Miami Beach and Manhattan before they and Oren's twin, Alon, were indicted in December. The three have denied wrongdoing and have pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking charges.
The bail denial by US District Judge Valerie E. Caproni followed a contentious three-hour hearing, during which one defense lawyer argued that the brothers were no longer "orgying" and another said a woman can't be incapacitated if she can still stand up.
That latter claim sparked a harsh retort from the judge.
"That is nonsense," Caproni told a lawyer for Oren Alexander, interrupting his attack on a key piece of evidence β a 2009 video showing either Oren or his twin, Alon, having sex with a woman that the government alleges was incapacitated.
"I'm just telling you, if that's your argument, you lose," the judge told the lawyer.
The testy exchange was begun by Deanna Paul, a defense lawyer for the twins' older brother, Tal, who told the judge that the sex-trafficking indictment is based on weak evidence.
The indictment alleges that for 10 years starting in 2010, the siblings conspired to use their wealth and prominence in the luxury real estate world to rape or assault more than 40 women, mostly in Manhattan and Miami and often through the use of the drug GHB.
Halfway through Wednesday's hearing, which the brothers did not attend, Paul mentioned that key prosecution evidence β the 2009 video. She criticized its probative value, telling the judge it "shows the lack of force" during a consensual sexual encounter.
"In my view, having sex with a woman who is physically incapacitated is basically rape," the judge responded, citing the prosecution's description of the video.
The judge asked prosecutor Andrew Jones to describe the video more fully, which he then did publicly for the first time. He called it a "trophy" tape that the government had seized as evidence, and said it depicts one of the twins having sex with a woman he said the government has not spoken to.
Jones said he wasn't sure if the video shows Oren or Alon, but that as it begins, "one of these very stone-cold sober defendants sets up a tripod."
"There's a woman on the bed. She's naked," Jones continued. "When she tries to speak, it's incoherent. She is mumbling," and she appears unable to move, he told the judge.
After the alleged rape, "she manages to stand on the floor, but then collapses back on the bed," the prosecutor said the video shows.
Later in the hearing, the video was mentioned again by a lawyer for Oren Alexander, Richard Klugh.
He referred to the woman in the video as "the sexual partner" of either of the twins and "the woman who stood up immediately after having sex."
He said prosecutors are misrepresenting evidence when they say the woman was unable to speak, given that "she was mumbling."
"You cannot call someone incapacitated who is able to stand up," he added β at which point the judge called his assessment "nonsense."
At the end of the hearing, Caproni rejected defense arguments that the siblings were neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk, and that, as Klugh put it, "there's been no more orgying. They're married."
She also turned down a $115 million bail package and a promise that the three would live together in Florida on home confinement. The home would have an in-house security team, window sensors, and an alarm system, the defense lawyers had said.
Caproni said her denial was based in large part on federal appellate case law from New York's Second Circuit that bars judges from accepting a two-tiered bail system where only wealthy defendants can spend money for 24-hour monitoring by an in-house security team.
"I have real problems with that," she said. "In the Second Circuit, if the only way I can mitigate danger to the community is to create a private jail, then I can't do that."
Caproni set the trio's next court date for January 29.
After months of delays, Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his hush-money case.
Now that his felony status is finalized, he can appeal the conviction and the prosecution itself.
In the meantime, the liquor licenses at two of his New Jersey golf clubs could be revoked.
Donald Trump received no punishment for the 34-count conviction handed down by a jury in his New York hush-money case.
The president-elect's sentencing, though, finalizes his status as a felon, heralding a new chapter of legal proceedings.
Trump, who is scheduled to be sworn in as president again on January 20, can now begin an appeal of his criminal conviction.
In the meantime, his business interests could face legal challenges, and the liquor licenses at his New Jersey golf resorts could be revoked.
Here's what comes next now that Trump is the first president in US history with a felony sentence on his record.
Trump's liquor licenses
The liquor licenses for two of Trump's New Jersey golf courses, the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, may be in jeopardy.
"With the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) will proceed in determining whether President-elect Trump is qualified to continue to hold an interest in the licenses," said a spokeswoman for the New Jersey attorney general's office, of which the ABC is a division.
This past summer, New Jersey's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control set and then postponed a liquor-license-revocation hearing for the two clubs, saying it was waiting for Trump's sentencing to be finalized.
Since then, both clubs have been operating with interim licenses that expire in February. Those licenses have remained in effect, "allowing the facilities to continue serving alcohol until a hearing on the renewals is held," the spokesperson said Wednesday.
Trump has a third New Jersey club in Pine Hill, the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia. Its liquor license is up for renewal by borough authorities in June. Borough officials did not respond to a request for comment on their plans for that license.
The liquor licenses for all three New Jersey clubs are in Donald Trump Jr.'s name β but that does not protect them from Trump's new status as an adjudicated felon, New Jersey officials said.
State law requires revocation if anyone who either holds or is the primary beneficiary of a liquor license has a finalized felony conviction.
The AG spokesperson said this week that the agency's previous review, which found Trump benefits from the licenses, has not changed.
"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 AG spokesperson said this week.
A criminal appeal
Trump can now appeal his indictment and conviction to New York's Appellate Division, which serves as a first-tier appellate court in the state.
If that fails, he could file with the New York State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
If the state courts uphold his conviction, Trump could ask the US Supreme Court to overturn it.
Two of the Republican-appointed justices, John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, sided with the Democratic appointees to allow the hearing to happen.
In post-trial legal arguments, Trump's lawyers have cited a July Supreme Court decision that found a president is immune from criminal prosecution. The ruling offers broad immunity, so evidence involving a president's "official acts" cannot be used in a prosecution, even for nonofficial actions.
The department could do the same for Trump as he appeals his criminal case, Michel Paradis, a professor of constitutional law at Columbia University, told Business Insider.
"They would basically file a motion in the Appellate Division to assert the interests of the United States, which would entitle them to file a brief and argue," Paradis told BI.
Trump has nominated Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, the lead lawyers in his Manhattan criminal case, to serve in top roles in the Justice Department for his second term.
Trump has also named John Sauer β who successfully argued the criminal immunity case on his behalf last year β as his pick for solicitor general, who presents arguments before the Supreme Court.
Other legal issues
The two federal criminal cases against Trump β over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and for taking government documents with him to Mar-a-Lago post-presidency β were dismissed after Trump won reelection in November.
He still faces an array of civil lawsuits stemming from his actions during the January 6, 2021, riot, but those will likely continue to move slowly through the courts.
A fourth criminal case, in Atlanta, over Trump's efforts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results, has been mired in delays. The case is effectively frozen as Fani Willis, the district attorney who brought the indictment against Trump and more than a dozen codefendants, appeals a decision to have her removed from the case over an inappropriate relationship with its special prosecutor.
The greatest consequences for Trump may be the judgments against him in civil cases brought by the New York Attorney General's office and by the writer E. Jean Carroll.
In February, a New York judge found Trump and his companies liable for fraud, ordering them to pay penalties that, with interest, have ballooned to nearly a half-billion dollars. An appeal of that case is pending.
Two juries have ordered Trump to pay a total of nearly $90 million after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. Those cases, too, are being appealed.
Trump's Friday morning sentencing was over in a breezy 30 minutes.
As expected, he received zero punishment and a scolding by prosecutors and the judge.
Trump addressed the court virtually for under 10 minutes, criticizing the "witch hunt" against him.
After months of delay, Donald Trump's criminal case is finally closed.
For a quickly paced half hour, the president-elect listened and watched via video from Mar-a-Lago as a Manhattan prosecutor decried his "dangerous rhetoric" and his defense lawyer promised to appeal the case.
Trump β slumped over a table and visible in the courtroom on overhead screens β then delivered a seven-minute statement of protest against the "witch hunt" against him. The judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, handed down a sentence of no punishment as expected.
Merchan, reading from a statement, briefly chastised Trump, saying no ordinary citizen would have received the legal breaks he enjoyed.
"At this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts," Merchan then said, referring to Trump's felony conviction and his sentence of no jail, no probation, no fines, and no community service.
"Sir," the judge then said in conclusion, "I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office."
At the start of the Friday sentencing hearing, Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass condemned the former and future president, saying he "engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine" the legitimacy of the trial that Trump faced seven months Emil Bove and "caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system."
"Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and the rule of law, and he's done this to serve his own ends," Steinglass told the court.
The assistant district attorney, speaking as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sat behind him, said the court had found Trump in contempt for 10 different violations of extrajudicial speech.
Friday's sentencing brings a delayed capstone to the criminal case just 10 days before Trump is scheduled to be sworn in again as the president of the United States.
Trump appeared by video from his Florida estate, sitting alongside his defense lawyer Todd Blanche with a pair of gold-fringed American flags draped behind them. Emil Bove, another of his attorneys, was the only person sitting at the defense table in Merchan's lower Manhattan courtroom.
"It's been a political witch hunt," Trump said when given the opportunity to speak. "It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election, and obviously that didn't work."
In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 felony counts prosecutors brought against him, finding he falsified business records in order to disguise hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who testified she had a brief affair with him ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Before Trump was sentenced, the case was thrown into turmoil after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that the president is entitled to sweeping criminal immunity protections.
Although Trump was no longer president, and much of the conduct in his case took place before his first term, the Supreme Court ruled the immunity protections were so vast that it even precluded evidence from being admitted in a criminal proceeding.
Trump's attorneys asked Merchan to delay the sentencing indefinitely and throw out the case. The judge ultimately set Friday's date, writing that only a sentencing hearing before Trump's second term would respect the jury verdict β as well as allow Trump to appeal his case like any other ordinary defendant.
The Supreme Court's immunity decision gave Trump protections that "ordinary citizens" do not receive, but they did not "reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way," Merchan said Friday.
"The protections are, however, a legal mandate, which pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow," Merchan said. "However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict."
The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trump's request to block his NY hush-money sentencing.
The decision means Trump must attend sentencing Friday morning, though he can do so by video.
Prosecutors said Thursday that they will not seek jail, fines, or probation at sentencing.
The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President-elect Donald Trump's last-ditch effort to block his New York hush-money sentencing, which now remains set for 9:30 a.m. on Friday.
The high court's decision means Trump must attend or face a potential bench warrant for his arrest just 10 days before Inauguration Day.
Four conservative justices β Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh β had sided with Trump.
Two conservatives on the panel β Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett β broke ranks and supported Manhattan prosecutors.
In their one-page order, the five-judge majority gave two reasons for rejecting Trump's attempt to halt the sentencing.
"First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump's state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal," meaning post-sentencing, they wrote.
"Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect's responsibilities is relatively insubstantial," they wrote, given that Trump faces a no-punishment sentence and can attend the hearing virtually.
Trump's lawyers last week asked that he be allowed to attend by video, a request approved by his trial judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did not oppose Trump attending virtually and said Thursday that his office would not seek jail, fines, or probation at what will likely be a very brief hearing.
Under New York sentencing guidelines, Trump had faced as little as zero jail time and as much as four years in prison for his May 30 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
A Manhattan jury found he altered Trump Organization invoices and other records throughout his first year in office to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush money payment that silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels eleven days before the 2016 election.
"Every legal scholar stated, unequivocally, that this is a case that should never have been brought," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday night.
"There was no case against me," he added. "This was nothing other than Weaponization of our Justice System against a Political Opponent. It's called Lawfare, and nothing like this has ever happened in the United States of America, and it should never be allowed to happen again."
Speaking minutes after the SCOTUS order from Mar-a-Lago, Trump promised to appeal his conviction and repeated that the prosecution is an "attack on a political opponent."
"That's much more important than tomorrow," he said of his planned appeal.
Over the past week, his lawyers had argued in four courthouses β in Manhattan, Albany, and Washington, DC β that any invocation of presidential immunity automatically entitles Trump to a stay pending appeal, even before he is sworn in.
In their opposition filings, Manhattan prosecutors scoffed at the idea that "president-elect immunity" exists. The US Supreme Court's landmark July 1 opinion granted presidents broad immunity from prosecution, but made no mention of immunity before swearing in, lawyers for Bragg said.
"Defendant's novel invocation of President-elect immunity does not warrant his Court's premature intervention" in an ongoing state criminal case, Bragg told the high court in papers filed Thursday morning.
Defense lawyers have promised to file a post-sentencing appeal of the conviction, with SCOTUS if necessary, given what they say were violations of Trump's constitutional rights before and during the trial.
In their primary example, they say grand jurors and trial jurors in the hush-money case improperly heard evidence that includes acts Trump took in his official role as president, which prosecutors are now barred from using.
That official-act evidence, all from 2018, includes tweets Trump sent, a federal form he signed, and a conversation he had in the Oval Office with Hope Hicks, then his communications director.
Prosecutors and the trial judge, Merchan, have argued that even if this was official-act evidence, it was a "harmless error" to share it with jurors, given the other overwhelming proof of guilt.
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 β 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 β 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.
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 β the scheduled sentencing time β 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 βand the conviction itself β 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 β either before or after Friday β 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 β most recently β 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.
But Merchan said last week that he is inclined to hand down a sentence of no punishment at all β no jail, no probation, no fines, no community service, instead granting what's called an unconditional discharge β 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 β 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 β and subjected them to a barrage of racist death threats β 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 β 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 β struggling up a step by the podium β 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 β 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 β 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 β what's called an "unconditional discharge" β 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 β Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a democrat β 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.
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 β a 78-year-old non-violent felon with no prior criminal record β would be sent to jail. Any sentence β including probation and community service β 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.
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 meansβ" 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 β founder of Bad Boy Records and the Sean John brand β 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 β who range from teenagers to early 30s β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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 β scheduled for April β the FTC will seek to force the company to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp.
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 β journalists, novelists, filmmakers, photographers β 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 β who was involved in OpenAI's early stages and who runs a competitor, xAI β 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 β 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 β where hardware, software, and services intersect."
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.
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 β plus $500,000 to cover interest β 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 β or even being considered β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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 β announced by Bragg just two days prior β 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.