• Kid Cudi is soon expected to testify in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial.
• The rapper may take the witness stand as soon as Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors say.
• Kid Cudi's 2011 affair with R&B singer Cassie Ventura provoked violent rages from Combs, prosecutors allege.

Rapper Kid Cudi is expected to testify as a government witness in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial this week.

Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, may take the witness stand as soon as Wednesday in the Manhattan federal courtroom where the trial is underway.

The "Pursuit of Happiness" rapper briefly dated R&B singer Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's star witness who testified for more than 20 hours last week in the hip-hop mogul's trial.

While on the stand, Ventura testified that the 2011 relationship sent Combs into a violent rage.

She told the eight-man, four-woman jury that Combs threatened to blow up Kid Cudi's car when they were out of the country.

Prosecutors allege that the threat was not an empty one.

The rival's convertible was allegedly firebombed by Combs' underlings using a Molotov cocktail — an arson that Kid Cudi will likely be asked about on the stand.

"Sean wanted Scott's friends to be there to see the car get blown up in the driveway," Ventura testified.

Ventura's 2023 now-settled lawsuit against Combs first suggested that Combs was responsible for the 2012 firebombing.

In addition to the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs, prosecutors have accused him and his associates of several other crimes, including arson.

Prosecutors have alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."

• Cassie Ventura's mother was called to the witness stand in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial.
• Regina Ventura described threats Combs allegedly made after her daughter's 2011 affair with Kid Cudi.
• "I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," she said of confronting the rapper in 2016.

Cassie Ventura's mother told a federal jury in Manhattan that she once screamed at and tried "to hit" her R&B singer daughter's ex, Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Regina Ventura sat wrapped in a large beige shawl as she described physically confronting the hip-hop tycoon during testimony at Combs' sex-trafficking and racketeering trial on Tuesday.

It was August 2016, and the mom of two from Connecticut had been visiting daughter Cassie Ventura in Los Angeles when she learned that Combs had stolen her daughter's cellphone, she told jurors.

Cassie Ventura was upstairs in her 17th-floor apartment, the mom testified, leaving her to call the police and take on Combs outside, in the building's driveway.

"We were arguing about the phone," the mom told jurors. "I wanted the phone back, and he was holding it."

As they argued, Combs' security guard, Damion "D-Roc" Butler, stood between the mom and Combs, she testified, confirming the guard's identity by a photo shown to her by a prosecutor.

"I was yelling. screaming and trying to hit him," to get Combs to give the phone back, the mom testified, her voice quiet and calm throughout her 15 minutes on the stand.

"He did give it back," she told the eight men and four women on Combs' jury.

The elder Ventura also described an incriminating Blackberry text from the couple's 2011 breakup, a message first shown to the jury last week.

In the message, Cassie Ventura tells her mother that Combs threatened her with revenge porn and physical harm out of jealousy over her relationship with rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi.

The message was cc'd to Capricorn Clark, one of Combs' assistants.

"I was physically sick," the mom said of seeing the message.

"The sex tapes threw me," she told jurors. "I knew that he was going to try to hurt my daughter," she said of Combs.

Combs' jealous threats around Cassie Ventura's 2011 Kid Cudi romance came with a demand for money, jurors heard Tuesday.

Regina Ventura testified that she borrowed against her home of 57 years — Cassie Ventura's childhood home in Connecticut — to pay $20,000 that Combs said he needed for her daughter's unpaid "expenses."

"He was going to need $20,000 to recoup money that he had spent on her because he was angry that she had a relationship with Scott Mescudi," Regina Ventura told jurors.

"I was scared for my daughter's safety," the mom said, when asked why she wired Combs the money.

Combs' bookkeeper emailed her the wiring information, the mom testified, and the money was sent "to the Bad Boy account" from her and her husband's checking account, the mom said.

Combs returned the Ventura family's cash "about four or five days later," she told jurors. Asked what explanation she received for this refund, the mom answered, "None."

Combs' lawyers had fought to keep jurors from hearing about the $20,000 payment.

But prosecutors argued that the testimony helps prove that when Combs felt Cassie Ventura "slipping from the defendant's control," he used physical and financial coercion to keep her from leaving.

"It's continuing to keep Ms. Ventura in his sphere even when she's attempting to leave," prosecutor Emily Johnson told the judge, according to a transcript released later Tuesday, detailing arguments made outside the public's hearing.

Regina Ventura's turn on the stand began with her introducing herself to jurors as "retired," and the mother of two, "Rodrick and Cassandra."

She met Combs in 2006, when her daughter signed with Bad Boy Records, she said. Their 10-record deal only ever resulted in one album.

After she began dating Combs in 2007, Cassie Ventura moved from New York to Los Angeles, and mother and daughter would see each other only twice a year, she told jurors.

"It was harder to get to her," she said.

Her testimony followed more than 20 hours of testimony delivered to the jury by her daughter.

Cassie Ventura took the stand last week while eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine. She detailed what she said were years of sexual abuse at the hands of Combs during their 11-year relationship.

The younger Ventura, who prosecutors allege was one of two women that Combs sex-trafficked, has played a key role in the hip-hop mogul's ongoing trial.

Over the course of her four days on the witness stand, Cassie Ventura at times gave tearfully described feeling "worthless" while joining in on the drug-fueled, often dayslong sex performances that Combs dubbed "freak offs."

These sex encounters, which prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often recorded, are at the core of the indictment against Combs.

Combs used "lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce" Ventura and later an anonymous Jane Doe into the freak offs, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the jury in her opening statements last week.

• Sean "Diddy" Combs' ex-assistant testified about a 2008 ordeal involving Suge Knight.
• An armed Combs went after Knight after he was spotted at an LA diner, the man testified.
• Combs faces federal charges, including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

With three guns on his lap, Sean "Diddy" Combs ordered his driver to "motherfucking go" as they lit out for a Los Angeles diner — itching to confront longtime rival Suge Knight, Combs' ex-personal assistant testified Tuesday.

David James, Combs' then-personal assistant, described the dramatic 2008 ordeal — in which an early morning cheeseburger run nearly escalated the notorious East Coast-West Coast rap feud— while on the stand at Combs' federal sex-trafficking trial.

"It was the first time I realized my life was in danger," James told the Manhattan jury during his second day of testimony.

Knight, the Death Row Records cofounder, had been spotted at Mel's Drive-In diner some 20 minutes prior, James testified. It was James who drove Combs and one of the hip-hop tycoon's trusted security guards back to the diner, guns at the ready.

"I remember complete silence" during the 10-minute drive from Combs' Hollywood Hills home to the diner, James testified, adding, "I remember thinking there are three guns and three people in this car" should anything happen.

James, who said he served as Combs' personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, told the jury that by the time Combs got to the diner, Knight had already left.

"We didn't see any black Escalades or black SUVs" in the lot by the time they returned, James said, referring to the four cars he said Knight had been traveling with.

In the end, Combs just went home.

"We eventually drove back to his house in Hollywood Hills," James told the jury.

James said that Combs' human resources director tried to talk him into continuing to work for the rapper's Bad Boy companies. She offered him a job with the Sean John fashion line, or in marketing, he said.

"I told her no," he testified. "I just wanted to get out."

Last week, Combs' ex-girlfriend — star prosecution witness Cassie Ventura — described the Combs-Knight incident from her vantage point, back at the rapper's home.

On Tuesday, James described it from his own perspective, telling jurors what he heard and saw from behind the wheel.

It was 4 a.m., and Combs wanted cheeseburgers after a late-night recording session at his rented Hollywood Hills mansion.

James and one of Combs' security guards, Damian "D-Roc" Butler, were sent to Mel's, a popular all-night diner.

"I drove the staff truck, a silver Lincoln Navigator," James testified.

James had just pulled the Navigator into a parking spot at Mel's when Butler saw Knight at the wheel of an Escalade parked a few spots over.

"That's motherfucking Suge Knight!" Butler said, according to James.

James testified that the security guard walked up to Knight's car and said, "What's up? It's me D-Roc, Biggie's boy," referring to rapper Notorious B.I.G.

"Oh, what are you doing in my city?" Knight asked Butler, who replied, "I'm just here getting money, you know how it is," James testified.

"I know what it is," Knight responded.

The two men shook hands, and parted ways.

But as James and Butler were placing their order inside Mel's, they saw someone pass a gun to Knight — and saw four SUVs drive into position at different corners of the parking lot, James testified.

"We gotta' fucking go," Butler said, and they sped back to Combs' home, James testified.

Knight, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence in connection to a fatal 2015 hit-and-run, has recently commented on Combs' criminal case in interviews. An attorney for Knight did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Outside of Combs' home that early morning, James told jurors he saw Combs arguing with Ventura.

"She was telling him not to go. She was very upset," James said of Ventura.

Ventura said there was a 'freak-off' right before the incident

In her testimony last week about the situation, Ventura said that she had been involved in one of Combs' "freak off" sex performances at the time.

"I just remember we were kind of, like, just chilling at this point and D-Roc came in and he said that Suge was down at Mel's diner, which was just right down the hill," Ventura had testified. "And they quickly packed up and drove down there."

Ventura said she got upset.

"I was crying. I was screaming, like, please don't do anything stupid. I just was really nervous for them," Ventura testified. "I didn't know what it meant, what they were going to do."

Ventura testified that Combs and the other men put on black clothes, covered up their heads, went into a safe, and grabbed guns.

"And next thing I knew, they were in the SUV," she said.

They returned to the house in about half an hour, Ventura testified.

Prosecutors say that for two decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of Ventura and another woman. Combs is accused of coercing those women, plus two additional women, into sex through a pattern of threats, manipulation, and violence.

Combs and his associates also committed other crimes, including forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, drug offenses, and obstruction of justice, prosecutors allege.

If convicted on the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him, Combs could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

• Sean "Diddy" Combs listed his Los Angeles mansion for sale a week before he was arrested.
• As his trial proceeds, the house is still on the market with the same asking price: $61.5 million.
• Cassie Ventura said "freak offs" weren't held there, but its link to Combs might still deter buyers.

Sean "Diddy" Combs is sitting in a Manhattan courtroom, facing off with his sexual abuse accusers at trial.

His mansion in Los Angeles, however, is sitting empty.

Combs listed the 10-bedroom, 13-bathroom mansion in LA's ritzy Holmby Hills neighborhood for $61.5 million a week before his arrest in September 2024 — and it's unlikely to sell anytime soon.

His ex-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, testified last week that Combs' South Mapleton Drive home was not used for any "freak offs," the dayslong sex performances that the trial centers on. In general, homes priced in the eight-figure range don't fly off the shelves that quickly. Still, most homebuyers are put off by its association with an accused sex trafficker, according to a consultant who specializes in selling homes tainted by murder or other disasters.

"When they buy a home at that price point, they like to brag about it," Michael Tachovsky, a partner at Landmark Research Group, told BI. "P. Diddy's reputation, at the current time, really isn't a positive bragging point for a potential buyer. It can play into perceptions, and when there's a negative perception with a property, it just makes it harder to sell."

Two Los Angeles-area real estate agents reached by Business Insider declined to go on record about Combs' property to avoid any association.

Combs has denied all wrongdoing. The music tycoon has consistently argued that all sexual encounters were consensual. The defense also argues that any violence fell far short of sex trafficking and that his accusers have a financial motive to implicate him.

The listing agent, Kurt Rappaport, didn't return multiple requests for comment by email and phone. A rep for Combs and his lawyer also didn't return requests for comment by email.

The history of Combs' LA mansion

Combs purchased the property on Mapleton Drive in 2014 for just over $39 million, according to Los Angeles County property records.

The main house's architecture excludes European vibes and contains a formal dining room, a wine cellar, a theater that fits 35 people, a kitchen, and a separate catering kitchen. A two-story guest house has bedrooms, a gym, and a recording studio.

The grounds, over 1.3 acres, have an oversize statue of a woman seemingly made from similar material to a disco ball, plus a swimming pool with a waterfall and grotto, a basketball court, a spa house, and an outdoor loggia with a barbecue, bar, and pizza oven.

Other homes for sale on the same street are asking similar prices.

Jack Harris, a real estate agent with The Beverly Hills Estate, has an eight-bedroom listing on Mapleton Drive just a few doors down from Combs' house, priced at $62.5 million.

"You normally can't buy into Holmby Hills for less than $20 million — Mapleton being one of the most prestigious streets in Holmby Hills," Harris told BI.

"It's a little pocket that's right between Beverly Hills and Bel Air — there's only a handful of streets," he added.

Combs hosted parties at his house, including a 2017 Grammys afterparty.

Combs also owns a seven-bedroom, 14,800-square-foot home on Star Island in Miami, where Ventura said in court last week that "freak offs" did take place. He bought the home in 2023 for $14.5 million and satisfied the $18.8 million left on his mortgage in August of 2024 to sure up his proposed bond package.

In March 2024, law enforcement officials seized "narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant" from his Los Angeles and Miami residences.

A buyer could be drawn to the renovation potential

Real estate investor Steven "Bo" Belmon made a lowball offer of $30 million in November of 2024.

Belmont said in a press release that he planned to renovate.

"I want to remove the stigma and focus on the charming elegance of this remarkable property," Belmont said in the release.

Belmont is no stranger to controversial properties purchased at a hefty discount. In 2024, he bought Kanye West's abandoned Malibu mansion for $21 million, less than half of its original asking price of $53 million.

Tachovsky pointed to other properties where negative events have taken place that sold years after they hit the market for well below the asking price.

The ongoing legal battles will inevitably limit the pool of buyers, he added.

"At the moment, it doesn't sound like anything nefarious happened at the property, but I don't think there's any certainty yet," he said. "When you've got notorious issues, like the Diddy case, that's not a no-name person. That can linger for some time."

• Cassie Ventura finished her fourth and last day of testimony in Sean Combs' sex-trafficking trial.
• "I think it was $10M," she said, revealing a pending settlement with the InterContinental Hotel.
• The hotel was the location of a caught-on-video 2016 beating she suffered at the hands of Combs.

Cassie Ventura ended her testimony against Sean "Diddy" Combs on Friday, capping four days of detailing what she alleged to be coercive, humiliating sex by dropping a new revelation.

The R&B singer — the prosecution's star witness — revealed on the stand during Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial that she is set to receive a multimillion-dollar settlement from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.

"I think it was $10 million," Ventura told a federal jury in Manhattan of the money she says she's receiving from the hotel.

The InterContinental is where security camera footage captured Combs beating Ventura in a hallway in 2016, after what Ventura and federal prosecutors said was one of Combs' drug-fueled sex marathons, which he called "freak offs."

Under questioning by defense attorney Anna Estevao, Ventura told the eight-man, four-woman jury that she did not know the exact monetary figure, but described the settlement as a done deal.

"And have you reached the end of settlement discussions with the InterContinental?" Estevao asked Ventura to which she replied, "I have."

Representatives for the hotel declined to comment.

Outside of court, Ventura's attorney, Douglas Wigdor, would not confirm the settlement amount, only saying, "The record is the record."

At Combs' trial, which kicked off earlier this week, the jury was shown the 2016 footage of Combs attacking Ventura in the hotel hallway.

Prosecutor Emily Johnson said in her opening statements that at the time, the hip-hop mogul paid a security guard at the hotel $100,000 in a brown paper envelope in exchange for the footage.

Combs apologized for his actions in the video after CNN published the footage last year.

The hotel settlement is the second settlement Ventura revealed during her testimony. She also told jurors that Combs paid her $20 million to settle her civil lawsuit against him in 2023.

In the lawsuit, Ventura accused Combs of of rape, physical abuse, and controlling her during their more than decadelong relationship. She also detailed Combs' InterContinental Hotel attack in the suit and said in the court papers that Combs paid the hotel $50,000 for the footage of it.

While under questioning by Johnson on Friday, Ventura said she would give the $20 million back if it meant never having joined Combs' freak offs.

"If I hadn't done freak offs, I would have had agency and autonomy," she said. "I wouldn't have had to work so hard to get it back."

• It's the second week of testimony in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking and racketeering trial.
• Cassie Ventura's mom described physically confronting Combs when he became enraged over Kid Cudi.
• Here are 10 of the biggest revelations from the trial so far.

It's week two of the Sean "Diddy" Combs sex-trafficking and racketeering trial.

A federal jury in Manhattan has heard R&B singer Cassie Ventura — Combs' ex-girlfriend and the catalyst for his public downfall — tearfully testify about the humiliating sexual violence she says she endured throughout their 11-year relationship.

Ventura's mother has described physically confronting Combs during a 2011 argument over her daughter's missing cellphone, and two male strippers have regaled the jury with sometimes X-rated testimony about "freak offs."

Along the way, there have been numerous celebrity mentions, including pop icon Britney Spears, actor Michael B. Jordan, and rapper Kid Cudi, Combs' one-time romantic rival.

Kid Cudi — given name Scott Mescudi — is set to testify against Combs, prosecutors have promised.

Combs was arrested in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution — the culmination of months of lawsuits and public accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct.

It was Ventura's November 2023 lawsuit that began this avalanche of accusations. Filed about 10 months before the criminal charges, it accused Combs of rape, physical abuse, and controlling her during their relationship. The lawsuit was settled a day later for what Ventura testified was $20 million.

Combs has denied the charges. The music tycoon is arguing through his defense team that all sexual encounters were consensual, including the alleged drug-fueled freak offs. The defense also argues that any violence fell far short of sex trafficking and that his accusers have a financial motive to implicate him.

Here are some of the most striking moments from the trial so far.

Cassie's mom describes 'trying to hit' Combs in a fight over her daughter's stolen phone

Regina Ventura corroborated her daughter's testimony, where she alleged two of Combs' violent, jealous rages over romantic rivals.

The first was from 2011. The mom said Cassie Ventura came home to Connecticut for the Christmas holidays that year with a large bruise on her back.

Cassie Ventura previously testified that the bruise was from being kicked to the ground by Combs after a fight over alleged romantic rival Kid Cudi.

The mom showed jurors a Blackberry text Cassie Ventura had sent while en route to Connecticut, memorializing what the daughter testified were Combs' threats to release sexually explicit videos, including on Christmas Day.

Combs also demanded that the family pay him $20,000 for "expenses," the mom testified. The family complied, taking out a second mortgage because "I was scared for my daughter's safety," she testified. Combs returned the money days later, the mom told jurors, giving no explanation for the refund.

Regina Ventura also told jurors about a 2016 incident that her daughter also testified about.

It was shortly before the younger Ventura's 30th birthday. Combs had swiped her cellphone, Cassie Ventura testified, after learning about her affair with an unnamed professional NFL player.

When she returned to her Los Angeles apartment without her phone, her mother, who was visiting, called the police and confronted Combs outside the building as her daughter remained upstairs, the elder Ventura testified.

"I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," the mom told jurors. "He did give it back," she told jurors of the missing phone.

A former personal assistant testifies about the night he said Diddy went looking for Suge Knight

Combs' former personal assistant spent two days on the witness stand, and in his most dramatic testimony, described how a 2008 run for cheeseburgers at an all-night diner nearly escalated the East Coast-West Coast rap wars.

It started at 4 a.m. in the parking lot at Mel's Drive-In in Los Angeles, the ex-assistant, David James, testified.

Combs' trusted security guard, Damian "D-Roc" Butler, noticed that Suge Knight, cofounder of rival recording studio Death Row Records, was sitting in an Escalade just a few parking spots away.

James, Combs' personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, testified that he was at the wheel of Combs' silver Lincoln Navigator when Knight and D-Roc faced off.

"What are you doing in my city?" James, according to his testimony, remembered hearing Knight asking Combs' security guard, who had introduced himself as "D-Roc, Biggie's boy," a reference to the rapper Notorious B.I.G.

Within moments, James and the bodyguard saw someone pass a gun to Knight and watched as four SUVs pulled up into different corners of the parking lot, he told jurors.

James testified that he was ordered by D-Roc to speed back to Combs' Hollywood Hills estate. There was no mention of whether they drove back with or without the cheeseburgers.

Once back home, and as Ventura protested in tears, Combs grabbed three guns for the ten-minute drive with D-Roc back to Mel's, testified James, who said he was still the driver.

Knight was nowhere to be found upon their return, James said.

"It was the first time I realized my life was in danger," the former PA testified, telling jurors that he sent in his resignation soon after.

Dawn Richard testified about a brutal beating, an alleged death threat, and flowers

Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard was the fifth prosecution witness, and her testimony on May 16 alleged that in 2009, Combs brutally beat Ventura after she took too long to cook him dinner.

"Where's my fucking egg?" Richard recounted to the jury Combs shouting in 2009, as he stormed into the kitchen of his rented Los Angeles mansion.

"He took the skillet with the eggs in it and tried to hit her in the head, and she fell to the ground," Richard testified.

Ventura cowered on the floor "in a fetal position" as Combs punched her and kicked her, she testified. Then he dragged her upstairs by her hair, she said, adding that she then heard the sound of screaming and breaking glass from the third floor.

The next day, Combs called Ventura and Richard into the mansion's first-floor recording studio, she said.

"He said that what we saw was passion, and it was what lovers in a relationship do," Richard said.

She said Combs told the two women that "he was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk. And then he gave us flowers."

While back on the stand on May 19, Richard re-emphasized that she felt this was a threat to her life.

The details in the testimony came as a surprise to Combs' lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, who called it prejudicial and "just a drop dead lie."

"It didn't happen," the lawyer complained to the judge. "And the reason we know it didn't happen is that Ms. Ventura didn't talk about it" during her four days on the witness stand.

On cross-examination on May 19, Richard agreed that she only recalled the alleged death threat in speaking with prosecutors earlier this month. It had gone unmentioned, she agreed, during a half-dozen prior interviews with prosecutors.

Combs attacked Ventura over bathroom use, prosecutor and ex-bestie say

Ventura was beaten by Combs for the most minor of perceived infractions, including taking too long in the bathroom, prosecutor Emily Johnson said in her opening statement.

"He beat her when she didn't answer the phone when he called. He beat her when she left a freak off without his permission," Johnson said.

Ventura's ex-best friend, Kerry Morgan, was called to the witness stand on May 19 and told jurors about two attacks on Ventura she witnessed, including one while on vacation in Jamaica in 2013.

Morgan said Ventura at one point went to the bathroom at the residence where they were staying, and Combs said, "She's taking too long."

"A few minutes later, I heard her screaming — like guttural. Terrifying," Morgan said. "He was dragging her by her hair on the floor."

Morgan told jurors that she saw Combs push Ventura to the ground, causing her to hit her head on the paving bricks.

"She didn't move. She fell on her side," Morgan said, adding, "I thought she was knocked out."

Ventura, too, had testified that arguments with Combs would regularly result in physical abuse.

Ventura —who dated Combs on and off from 2007 to 2018 — described six separate times when Combs' attacks left her with injuries, with the most severe beating occurring in Los Angeles in 2009 following a party Combs had hosted at a club called Ace of Diamonds.

Ventura said she punched Combs in the face after he called her a "slut or a bitch" for talking to a record producer. Combs retaliated in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury vehicle by punching and kicking Ventura throughout a ten-minute ride to the rapper's rented mansion, she said.

She said she hid under the back seat to escape the attack. Combs demanded she stay hidden in a hotel for a week so her bruises could heal, she said.

The surprising things Combs kept in his luxury NYC hotel room while waiting to be arrested

The prosecution's fourth witness took the witness stand briefly on May 16 to detail what she and other Homeland Security investigators say they found inside Combs' suite at Manhattan's Park Hyatt New York after his September arrest.

Combs had checked into the luxury Midtown hotel, his lawyers have said, in case federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked him to surrender voluntarily.

Special Agent Yasin Binda told the Combs jury she photographed what her colleagues found inside the room.

Those items included a clear plastic bag of baby oil bottles found inside a duffle bag. There were three more bottles of baby oil in his bathtub, alongside two bottles of personal lubricant.

Two more bottles of lubricant were recovered from a nightstand drawer, next to a prescription pill bottle she said held two small baggies containing a pink powder.

On the living room floor was a large blue party light of the kind Ventura testified were used to illuminate freak offs.

Similar bags of pink powder have previously been seized from Combs and tested positive for ecstasy and other drugs, a prosecutor had said in court the day after Combs was arrested.

Ventura's big settlements after her lawsuit and that infamous hallway-beatdown video

In some of her final moments on the witness stand, Ventura was asked by the defense about a legal settlement that she said she is on the verge of receiving from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.

"I think it was $10 million," Ventura said of the settlement, hesitating when asked for the total amount agreed to.

The InterContinental is where security cameras captured Combs beating Ventura in a hallway in 2016, as she tried to flee what prosecutors say was one of Combs' freak offs.

The jury was shown the infamous footage at the beginning of the trial.

Johnson, the prosecutor, said in her opening statements that at the time of the attack, Combs paid a security guard at the hotel $100,000 in a brown paper envelope in exchange for the footage.

Combs apologized for his actions in the video after CNN published the footage last year.

It was the second big-money settlement revealed in Ventura's testimony.

Earlier in her testimony, Ventura told jurors that Combs paid her $20 million to settle her civil suit against him in 2023.

Britney Spears and Michael B. Jordan became the biggest celebrity mentions of the trial

Pop icon Britney Spears and actor Michael B. Jordan were both name-dropped on May 15, on Ventura's third day of testimony.

During a cross-examination, Ventura was asked to tell the jury about the 21st birthday party Combs threw for her in 2007, at a club in Las Vegas.

The party was a significant moment in the Combs-Ventura story. Ventura testified that Combs, who recently signed her to his record label, gave her an uninvited kiss in a bathroom, sparking their relationship.

"I believe there were other celebrities there in attendance?" defense attorney Anna Estevao asked Ventura, who answered yes, there were.

"Sean was there, and he brought Dallas Austin, he brought Britney Spears," Ventura said, referring to the "Oops!… I Did It Again" singer and the record producer. "I think those were the two people that stand out to me," Ventura added.

Asked how a 21-year-old of limited fame was able to attract such big names to her party, Ventura credited Combs, saying, "That was all him."

Jordan's name came up as the cross-examination focused on 2015, when Combs became suspicious that she was having an affair with the actor.

"Is Michael B. Jordan a celebrity?" Estevao asked.

"I would say so," Ventura answered, sounding surprised.

Combs overdosed on opioids at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura said

Both Combs and Ventura were heavy opioid users, the R&B singer testified — and on one late night in February 2012, the pills he took made the rapper seriously ill, she said.

"Was that around the time that Whitney Houston died?" Estevao, Combs' defense attorney, asked about the timing.

"Yes," Ventura said.

That evening, the pair went to a sex club in San Bernardino, California, and then she went home, and Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura told jurors.

"Well, from what he told me, he took a very strong opiate that night, but we didn't know what was happening, so we took him to the hospital," Ventura testified.

There, she said, she learned that he had overdosed on whatever painkillers he had taken, she said.

Combs was said to be enraged over Ventura's romance with Kid Cudi

Ventura told jurors that she briefly dated rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, in 2011 and that it sent Combs into a violent rage.

Combs discovered the relationship during a freak off in Los Angeles when he went through Ventura's phone, she testified.

"I just remember him putting like a wine bottle opener between his fingers and, like, lunging at me," Ventura said, adding that Combs' "eyes blacked out, super angry."

"And I just had to get out of there," she said. "It was actually another time I was able to get out of a freak off."

When Ventura saw Combs at his home later that day she said he was "irate" and threatened to release freak off videos of her and "hurt Scott and I."

On her way out, Ventura said Combs kicked her in the back so hard that she fell to the floor.

Ventura, whose lawsuit first suggested that Combs was responsible for blowing up a car that belonged to Kid Cudi in 2012, told jurors that Combs said Kid Cudi's car "would be blown up" when they were out of the country.

"Sean wanted Scott's friends to be there to see the car get blown up in the driveway," she testified.

Prosecutors alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."

Ventura said she first joined Diddy's freak offs out of love

Ventura testified on May 13 that she was initially nervous, but felt a sense of responsibility to participate in Combs' freak offs.

"I was just in love and wanted to make him happy," Ventura told the jury.

Ventura testified that in 2007, Combs first proposed "this sexual encounter that he called voyeurism, where he would watch me have a sexual encounter with a third man, specifically another man."

"I didn't want to upset him if I said it scared me or if I said anything aside from, 'OK, let's try it,'" she said.

Johnson said in her opening statements that Combs eventually made it Ventura's job to find and book escorts to participate in the sex encounters.

While on the stand, Ventura described in detail what went on during freak offs. Prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded the sex performances.

Ventura testified that Combs would urinate and ask escorts to urinate on her during the freak offs.

"It was disgusting. It was too much. It was overwhelming," she said. "I choked."

• Cassie Ventura signed a 10-album deal with Diddy's record label at the start of her career.
• He released only one album the whole time and vetoed other job opportunities.
• Prosecutors allege Combs used the resources of his businesses for sex trafficking.

While R&B singer Cassie Ventura was in a decadelong relationship with Sean "Diddy" Combs, her music career was floundering.

Ventura testified in Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial on Tuesday that the hip-hop mogul "stifled" her career over the years.

Instead of working on her music, Ventura told the Manhattan jury, she spent days participating in and recovering from "freak offs" — which she described as drug-fueled, sexual performances with escorts designed to satisfy Combs.

For a time, Combs had the freak offs "weekly," Ventura said.

"The freak offs became my job," Ventura testified.

In early 2006, Ventura signed a 10-album deal with Combs' label, Bad Boy Records.

She recorded "hundreds of songs" in the subsequent years, but many "didn't see the light of day," she testified on the witness stand.

Only a handful of Ventura's songs were officially released following her eponymous first album, the well-reviewed "Cassie," which was released in the summer of 2006 and included the popular single "Me & U."

Aside from the sole album, Ventura released one mixtape and a handful of singles with Bad Boy Records over the years. She said she wasn't paid for the uncompleted nine albums that were part of the deal.

Ventura said most of her time was spent preparing for and physically recuperating from "freak offs," which she also called "partying." She said the sex sessions led to dehydration and exhaustion, and that she took drugs to stay awake for several days in a row in order to have sex with other men at Combs' direction.

"When I wasn't working on my music, I was recovering from partying," Ventura said. "That was a big chunk of my life."

Diddy released just one Cassie album despite a 10-album deal

Ventura took the stand as the third witness to testify in Combs' sex-trafficking trial on Tuesday morning. Eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, she wore a stretchy brown dress and camel overcoat in the lower Manhattan courtroom.

After Ventura first signed onto Bad Boy Records, her relationship with Combs was platonic, she said.

But things changed on her 21st birthday, in August 2007, when they partied in Las Vegas, she said. There, Combs kissed Ventura in his hotel bathroom, she testified.

Ventura wasn't sure what to do, she said. She was new to the music industry and couldn't grasp the power dynamics between herself and Combs, she testified.

"I think I was just confused at the time," she said on the witness stand. "I'm a young, new artist who did not really know the lay of the land."

But her career was moving fast, and she said she recognized that Combs, as the head of her record label, controlled her career.

"He chose what was next for me, basically," she said.

Fine, Ventura's husband, appeared to hold back tears while Ventura testified. His face was ruddy, and he often appeared to swallow and rapidly blink back tears.

Fine sat in the courtroom in the same row as Ventura's attorney, Douglas Wigdor, who represented Ventura in a civil lawsuit she filed against Combs in November 2023. Combs quickly settled the lawsuit, but the US Attorney's office in Manhattan initiated a criminal investigation into Combs.

Combs' attorneys have cast the indictment against him as a distortion of the true events, which they describe as a mutually toxic relationship between Combs and Ventura. Both consented to sex, abused each other, and were unfaithful, Combs' legal team says.

Ventura testified Tuesday in a quiet, deflated voice as she talked about being in love with Combs.

Combs decided on nicknames for the two of them, she said. He told Ventura to call him "Pop Pop" because that's also what she called her grandfather, while he called her "CC" for "Cassie Combs," she testified.

When Combs first suggested "setting up performances" in their relationship, Ventura felt shaken, but agreed to it because she loved him, she testified.

"At that point, Sean controlled a lot of my life," she said. "Whether it was my career, the way I dressed — everything."

Meanwhile, her career was stalling. Ventura said Combs gave her instructions to develop her music, but few songs were released. Ventura testified she came to believe she was doing only "busy work" so Combs could "control" her.

And though Combs was in charge of Ventura's album releases, he blamed her for the lack of output, she said.

"If you're not releasing music, you're not doing your job," Ventura said, characterizing Combs' attitude.

Ventura made money by hosting events in nightclubs, which could net between $7,500 to $20,000 for each appearance, she testified. She also had the occasional modeling job.

Combs still had veto power over those gigs and often instructed her not to take them, Ventura said.

Prosecutors have alleged that Combs used his companies' resources to exploit women and facilitate a sex-trafficking enterprise.

Ventura said Combs instructed his assistants and bodyguards to set up rooms for "freak offs." They were required to bring baby oil, Astroglide lubricant, condoms, colorful lights, and scented candles, Ventura said.

"It was just super pungent and strong," she said.

Combs and Ventura never lived in the same home during their on-and-off relationship, Ventura said. At first, the two were in New York City, and then moved to Los Angeles when Combs decided he wanted to be closer to his children, whom he had with his late ex-wife Kim Porter.

In Los Angeles, Combs paid the rent for Ventura's homes, she said. He had his own set of keys and occasionally dropped by unannounced, she said. Ventura also paid for her own house in Studio City, she said.

Combs eventually assigned James Cruz, a Bad Boys Records employee, to manage Ventura's career, she testified.

Cruz disclosed to her that he "was managing me with one hand tied behind his back," she testified.

"He couldn't work as a normal manager," Ventura said Cruz told her. "He had to make decisions through other parties. It was just a different way of doing things."

Combs' trial is expected to run about eight weeks. If convicted on the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him, he could face up to life in prison.

• A jury has been seated for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial in New York City.
• The jurors are eight men and four women.
• Four of them have said they listen to R&B or hip-hop.

A scientist. A massage therapist. A deli clerk.

These New Yorkers are among the eight-man, four-woman panel of jurors who are set to determine Sean "Diddy" Combs' fate in his criminal sex-trafficking case.

Combs, a hip-hop mogul and businessman who was once on the cusp of becoming a billionaire, faces up to life in prison if convicted at trial of all the charges against him.

The 12 jurors, plus six alternates, were seated on Monday following a jury selection process that unfolded over a week in a Manhattan federal courtroom.

Four of the jurors selected for the trial — which is expected to run about two months — said during the process, known as voir dire, that they liked hip-hop or R&B music.

One of them, a 30-year-old woman from the Bronx who works the deli counter at the grocery chain Gristedes, said that her mother was arrested and convicted over 20 years ago for stealing money from a bank.

"She worked in the bank, and they caught her and she got arrested," the woman previously told the court.

Another juror, a retired 68-year-old man from Westchester, wrote in his jury questionnaire that he had viewed the infamous security-camera footage in which Combs appears to beat Cassie Ventura, an R&B singer who was his girlfriend at the time.

Ventura is the prosecution's key witness, and jurors are expected to be shown that footage at trial, among other graphic videos.

That juror also said he had a problem viewing graphic videos showing violence but would force himself to watch if needed.

"I wouldn't be biased. And, to be honest, I'd have to make myself look at it," said the man, who worked for Verizon for 40 years.

At the end of the jury selection, Combs' defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said prosecutors had used their preemptory strikes to unfairly keep Black members out of the jury.

He's previously argued that the Justice Department has targeted Combs because of his race.

"By our count, the government struck seven Black people, which we believe amounts to a pattern," Agnifilo told the judge.

The prosecutor Maurene Comey detailed the reasons she struck each juror, making the case for each one. One attended the same high school as Combs, making him susceptible to unconscious bias, she said. Another talked about how some accusers would jump on a "bandwagon" to accuse famous people of abuse, making it possible she'd be biased against victims, Comey said.

The judge ultimately ruled that Combs' legal team couldn't prove prosecutors tried to exclude jurors based on race.

Meanwhile, Combs' family members, including his children and mother, filled two rows of benches in the courtroom on Monday. They were seated behind the defense table where Combs sat wearing a light-colored sweater and eyeglasses.

At times, he blew kisses to his family.

Combs was arrested and indicted in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has strongly denied all charges and all allegations of sexual abuse.

Prosecutors allege that for decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of two women, Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe.

Combs, 55, is also accused of coercing those women, plus another two, into sex through a pattern of threats and violence.

At the core of the Combs' indictment are allegations that the "I'll Be Missing You" rapper organized elaborate sex encounters that he called "freak offs." In court papers, prosecutors described the events as dayslong, drug-fueled sex performances that Combs directed and often recorded.

Over the course of the trial, jurors are set to be shown hours of graphic sex videos that prosecutors say Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent.

Some of the footage depicts Combs' freak offs.

• Jury selection began Monday for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan.
• Prospective jurors were shown a list of 200 names that could be mentioned during the trial.
• Combs has denied the charges and other allegations of sexual abuse.

Jury selection for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking case is underway this week, and it has offered a glimpse of which celebrities may be name-dropped at the trial.

During day one of jury selection in Manhattan federal court on Monday, prospective jurors were shown a list of some 200 names of people who the judge said would at least be mentioned during the trial, which is expected to last eight weeks. No jurors were selected by the end of the day on Monday.

Like Combs' "white party" extravaganzas of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the trial too is expected to feature celebrities — at least by name, if not in person.

Combs was indicted in September 2024 on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied the charges against him and all other allegations of sexual abuse. If convicted on all charges, Combs could face up to life in prison.

Each prospective juror is being asked if they personally know anyone on the list. The list has not been made public, but some famous names were revealed during jury selection on Monday.

Notable figures included on the list were:

• Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West
• Rapper Kid Cudi
• Music producer Dallas Austin
• Choreographer Laurieann Gibson
• Music producer Harve Pierre
• Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard
• Former Danity Kane member Aubrey O'Day
• Actress Lauren London
• Destiny's Child alum Michelle Williams
• Actor Michael B. Jordan

Also on the list were members of the Combs family and several of Combs' exes and accusers, including:

• Late longtime girlfriend Kim Porter
• Rapper Yung Miami
• R&B singer and key witness Cassie Ventura

Reps for Ye, Kid Cudi, Austin, Gibson, Pierre, O'Day, London, Williams, Yung Miami, and the Combs family did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Business Insider.

Ventura's attorneys declined to comment.

Richard's lawyer Lisa Bloom, who was in the courtroom during jury selection, also declined to comment. Richard sued Combs last year, accusing him of sexual assault.

At the time, an attorney for Combs said in a statement that Combs was "shocked and disappointed" by the lawsuit.

"In an attempt to rewrite history, Dawn Richard has now manufactured a series of false claims all in the hopes of trying to get a payday — conveniently timed to coincide with her album release and press tour," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Business Insider has learned that Jordan, the "Black Panther" actor, was referenced in the November 2023 lawsuit Ventura filed against Combs, accusing Combs of rape. The case quickly resulted in a settlement.

At one point during Ventura and Combs' on-again, off-again relationship, Ventura's lawsuit said in 2015 that she "began a flirtatious relationship with an actor." BI has confirmed that the actor is Jordan.

"She spent New Years Eve with this actor, but Combs soon found out," the lawsuit said, alleging that Combs then "called the actor and threatened him."

Jordan is not expected to appear as a witness during Combs' trial.

Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, was also mentioned in Ventura's lawsuit. The suit suggested that Combs was responsible for blowing up a car that belonged to the rapper in 2012 after Combs learned of a "brief relationship" that Kid Cudi and Ventura had.

Ventura is expected to be the star witness in Combs' trial. She is referred to as "Victim-1" in the indictment against Combs.

Being on the list of names shown to potential jurors does not mean that these people will be called to testify, but that their names may be mentioned during the trial.

Not one of the more than 30 prospects questioned on Monday said they knew anyone on the list personally.

Many told the judge they had never heard of any of the people, while several said the only one they had heard of was Ye or Kanye West.

The witness lists for both sides have not been made public.

Jury selection in the high-profile trial is projected to take several days.

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.

• Jury selection began in New York on Monday for the Diddy trial.
• Three prospective jurors told the court about their own experiences with sexual assault.
• None of them has been excluded from the jury pool. One accuser's lawyer said that's the right call.

Three prospective jurors in the sex-trafficking trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs shared their own experiences of sexual assault.

Their stories were revealed Monday during the first day of jury selection in Manhattan federal court.

None of the three women, so far, have been removed from the pool of people who may eventually decide Combs' fate. They all told US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, that they could be impartial in weighing the evidence in the trial.

Combs has vehemently denied the charges against him, as well as all other allegations of sex abuse. If Combs — who was once estimated to be worth $820 million — is convicted at trial on all charges, he faces up to life in prison.

The hip-hop mogul has been locked up 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.

The first jurors may be seated as early as Tuesday morning.

Experiences of sexual assault

As part of the jury selection process, prospective jurors were given a written questionnaire that asked if they had been victims of sexual assault.

Three women among those who responded "yes" to the question discussed their experiences in court on Monday. They answered questions from US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is deciding whether they can be impartial in deciding the case.

The first, who is in her 40s, told the judge that a family member molested her and her sister when they were young. She said she would "feel empathy toward the victims" but that she was "also a very rational person" who could keep a fair and objective view.

"I'm sorry that happened," Subramanian told the woman.

The woman said she works as a photo producer at HBO, which was subpoenaed by Combs' defense lawyers, who wanted to obtain raw interview footage of victims for "The Fall of Diddy" docuseries.

A second woman said she was sexually assaulted around 1996 by a neighbor. They had begun to date, and "he took it too far and sexually assaulted me in the stairwell of my house," she said.

The woman, who said she studied the relationship between sexual assault and women's self-esteem in college, said it was possible to hold nuanced views about perpetrators of sexual assault.

"I don't think it's a good thing, but I don't think it makes the person who did it horrible in all respects," she said.

The third survivor, a white woman in her 60s, said she was sexually assaulted as a teenager when she worked for a dentist for around two years. The dentist was "grossly inappropriate" and kissed and fondled her, she said.

But in more recent years, she has opened her mind to "both sides" of the relationship between perpetrators and victims, she said.

"I work very hard to remain impartial to people every day," she said.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys are trying to find a fair jury

Jury selection in the high-profile trial is expected to take several days, with the trial anticipated to run for about eight weeks.

Combs donned black framed glasses, black slacks, and a sweater with a crisp, white collar peeking through at the neck.

Linda Moreno, a jury selection consultant whom Combs has hired, was the first on the rapper's team to arrive at the courtroom on Monday. As a criminal defense lawyer, Moreno has represented actor Wesley Snipes and Noor Salman, and has done jury consultant work for Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.

The "I'll Be Missing You" singer appeared in good spirits, smiling as he hugged or shook hands with his team of about a dozen defense attorneys and staff before taking his seat.

Among those seated in the courtroom gallery on Monday was Douglas Wigdor, the attorney for Combs' ex-girlfriend R&B singer Cassie Ventura, who is expected to testify at the trial. Ventura is referred to as "Victim-1" in the indictment against Combs.

Also in court were Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali, who represent another of Combs's accusers who expected to testify. Fudali told Business Insider that being the victim of sexual assault should not be disqualifying for jurors.

"What I heard there today is that all three of those jurors, who expressed having experienced sexual or harass sexual assault, also expressed that they could be impartial and they can separate their own experiences from the trial," Fudali said. "And that's what you want in a juror, and that's why I believe none of them were excluded."

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.

Combs and his associates "wielded the power and prestige" of the rapper's success to "intimidate, threaten, and lure female victims" into his orbit "often under the pretense of a romantic relationship," prosecutors said in the indictment.

During the jury selection process, known as voir dire, prospective jurors will be asked if they can objectively deliberate in a case involving graphic sex.

Those who are selected for the jury will be asked during the trial to watch hours of graphic sex videos that Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent. Some of the videos are from Combs' so-called freak offs.

For Combs to win an acquittal, jurors would need to believe these videos depict a consensual good time, as the defense has insisted was the case.

Jury selection will continue Tuesday morning with the sides selecting the first jurors from among 19 prospects — 11 women and 8 men — who were questioned in detail about what they already know about the case from the media. Only three in the group said they listen to hip hop.

This story was updated to include developments from later Monday.

• In a new lawsuit, Jay-Z unloads on a woman who said he raped her at age 13 at a Diddy party.
• She has since admitted to Jay-Z's camp that her rape accusation was false, the new lawsuit alleges.
• Jay-Z is the latest celebrity to hit back against their accusers with allegations of defamation.

Rap superstar Jay-Z on Monday filed a hotly-worded defamation lawsuit against a woman who last year accused him of raping her at age 13 at a party hosted by Sean "Diddy" Combs.

In his lawsuit, Jay-Z alleges that the Alabama-based accuser, identified only as Jane Doe, has admitted to the rapper's own reps that her rape accusation, made in her own now-abandoned lawsuit, had been false.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is the latest in a line of celebrities that includes Johnny Depp, Justin Baldoni, Bill Cosby, and Marylin Mason to fight back against their accusers with their own allegations of defamation over the years.

Lawyers told Business Insider these kinds of lawsuits are becoming more common — even though they're especially hard to win.

High-profile defendants may bring a defamation lawsuit in an attempt to clear their names and deter other potential accusers from coming forward, said Neama Rahmani, the president and cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers.

"It's a different world right now. People are getting canceled left and right, so the way to fight back, whether you're Johnny Depp, Baldoni, or Jay-Z, is to file these defamation lawsuits to give the accusers pause," said Rahmani.

Jay-Z's endgame, the former federal prosecutor speculated, may be to leverage some kind of public retraction out of the accuser.

"Jay-Z obviously doesn't need the money, so he's not trying to get millions of dollars from Jane Doe," said Rahmani.

In order to win the lawsuit, Rahmani said Jay-Z would need to prove actual malice.

"Malice means that Jane Doe knew the statements were untruthful, or acted in reckless disregard for the truth, so it's a higher standard," said Rahmani, adding, "It's not easy to prove malice."

Celebrities can fight sexual assault accusations through their publicists and the court of public opinion, but a lawsuit takes that effort to a level beyond "just bluster," defamation attorney Dustin Pusch, a cofounder of Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch LLP, told BI.

Defamation plaintiffs must prove not only malice but falsity, said Pusch, who in 2023 helped win a $787.5 million defamation settlement for Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.

"By filing a lawsuit, defamation plaintiffs are telling the world that not only are the claims about them false, but they can prove it — and they are willing to put themselves under a microscope to do it," he said. "That is a powerful message."

Courtney Caprio, a partner at Florida-based firm Caldera Law, told BI that the dueling lawsuits between Baldoni and Blake Lively — who accused him of sexual harassment — highlight how "celebrities will file suit to protect their reputations, as their fame and marketability can be destroyed when facts are deemed optional."

"Celebrity defamation lawsuits are on the upswing for a reason: they provide a celebrity with the benefit of our American judicial system to be the final arbiter of the truth to vindicate their hard-earned reputations," Caprio said in an email.

Jay-Z's lawsuit alleges that his accuser 'voluntarily admitted' that her accusations were 'false'

Jay-Z's lawsuit says that his Jane Doe accuser "has now voluntarily admitted directly to representatives of Mr. Carter that the story brought before the world in court and on global television was just that: a false, malicious story."

The woman is described in the lawsuit as financially bankrupt, suffering from mental health and drug issues, and "desperate to obtain a payday."

She has "made three other sexual assault allegations which were either dropped or dismissed by courts," Jay-Z's lawsuit alleges.

The woman's lawyers, Texas-based civil attorneys Tony Buzbee and David Fortney, also come under heavy fire in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Alabama.

Jay-Z alleges that the lawyers and their client "were soullessly motivated by greed, in abject disregard of the truth and the most fundamental precepts of human decency."

Buzbee had filed the Jane Doe's lawsuit last year knowing that the accusations against Jay-Z were false, the lawsuit alleges.

"That assertion is absolute hogwash," Buzbee told Business Insider of the claim on Tuesday morning.

"Jane Doe has never wavered and certainly has never recanted. Jay Z's team made that up. We intend to address these lies in due course," Buzbee added.

The woman had first told her story in an explosive October lawsuit that was amended in December to also name Jay-Z.

She described being a 13-year-old girl who'd hoped to see celebrities as she waited outside Radio City Music Hall in New York City during the 2000 Video Music Awards show.

Her lawsuit described being invited and then driven by a limo driver to a party hosted by Combs in "a large white house." There, she alleged, she signed an NDA, was given a drink by "waitstaff," and was then raped by Combs and Jay-Z while "Celebrity B," a female unnamed in the lawsuit, watched.

Her lawsuit was dropped last month, with Buzbee declining to comment at the time. Representatives for Jay-Z and Combs had steadfastly denied any sexual assault took place.

The woman's description of events was an "impossibility" and an "absurdity," Jay-Z's lawsuit said Monday.

Her legal efforts amounted to extortion by "malevolent, soulless lawyers," the lawsuit also alleged, and started with a "menacing" November 5 private demand letter.

Only after Jay-Z's reps refused this demand for an "extortionate payoff," was the rapper then publicly named, it says.

"Buzbee then went forward with naming Mr. Carter, with full knowledge by him, as imparted to him by Doe, that Mr. Carter had never assaulted Doe, and Doe's entire story as it related to Mr. Carter was completely fabricated," Monday's lawsuit said.

Compounding matters, on Friday the Buzbee firm "threatened Mr. Carter's counsel to double-down with yet another false public statement by Doe" if her admissions of lying were revealed, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.

Buzbee, meanwhile, is unbowed.

"We intend to seek a restraining order for Jay Z's team to leave this poor woman alone," he told BI. "She has been harassed and threatened and we intend to make them stop."

• Sean "Diddy" Combs has sued NBCUniversal for $100 million.
• The lawsuit accuses NBCUniversal of defamation by airing falsehoods in a documentary about him.
• The "Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy" documentary is streaming on Peacock.

Sean "Diddy" Combs has filed a defamation lawsuit against NBCUniversal over the media company's recent documentary "Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy."

The lawsuit, filed in New York state court on Wednesday, accuses NBC of "shamelessly" airing "falsehoods," including that Combs sexually assaulted minors — an allegation in the documentary that Combs says was "based entirely on a false claim by an anonymous interviewee."

Combs also says in the lawsuit that the documentary "maliciously" accuses him of murdering a series of rivals and close friends, including longtime partner Kimberly Porter, rappers Christopher "Biggie" Wallace, and Heavy D, given name Dwight Arrington Myers.

"In the Documentary, Defendants accuse Mr. Combs of horrible crimes, including serial murder and sexual assault of minors — knowing that there is not a shred of evidence to support them," the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also names Peacock TV and Ample Entertainment as defendants. Peacock, an NBC subsidiary, streamed the documentary, and Ample was the production company responsible for producing it.

Representatives for NBCUniversal didn't immediately return a request for comment by Business Insider. Ample couldn't immediately be reached.

The defendants worked together to "line their own pockets at the expense of truth, decency, and basic standards of professional journalism," the lawsuit says of the documentary, which first aired in January.

"As described in today's lawsuit, NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Peacock TV, LLC, and Ample LLC made a conscious decision to line their own pockets at the expense of truth, decency, and basic standards of professional journalism," Combs' attorney, Erica Wolff, said in a statement. "Grossly exploiting the trust of their audience and racing to outdo their competition for the most salacious Diddy exposé."

Combs is awaiting trial in Manhattan on federal charges including racketeering and sex trafficking. He has pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly denied allegations of sexual abuse in his criminal case and in multiple lawsuits accusing him of drugging and assaulting men and women over the past two decades.

The lawsuit Combs filed on Wednesday takes aim at portions of the documentary he says make false allegations against him, addressing each in strong language and lengthy detail.

Combs accuses the documentary of implying he had sex with minors — an allegation he says is based on a single interviewee who falsely claimed he saw two girls follow him into a room. The documentary includes the interviewee's "groundless speculation that 'for sure they were underage.'," the lawsuit says.

The allegation was likely "rehashed from a baseless lawsuit seeking $30 million," Combs' lawsuit says, in a reference to a February, 2024, lawsuit filed against the rapper by music producer Rodney Jones, Jr.

That lawsuit "has already been discredited by those adult women in their 30s referenced in that lawsuit who have come forward to say that they were adults at the time," Combs argues.

The rap entrepreneur takes special issue in his lawsuit with a suggestion in the documentary that Combs was responsible for Porter's death.

He calls Porter the mother to four of his children, his romantic partner for more than a decade, and "the love of his life." Porter died in 2018 at the age of 47 from lobar pneumonia.

"The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office has confirmed that her death was from natural causes and that there has never been any evidence of foul play," Combs' lawsuit says.

"The Documentary advances the false narrative that it cannot be a 'coincidence' that Ms. Porter and others in Mr. Combs's orbit have died, in a malicious attempt to insinuate that Mr. Combs murdered them."

Of Biggie — who died in a drive-by shooting in 1997 — Combs says in his lawsuit, "There has never been a hint of evidence to suggest that Mr. Combs was involved in the tragic murder of his friend."

Two other friends' deaths were addressed in the documentary — those of music executive Andre Harrell, who suffered heart failure in 2020, and Dwight Arrington Myers, a rapper and producer who had a fatal pulmonary embolism in 2011, Combs' lawsuit says.

People interviewed in the documentary, including Porter's ex Al B. Sure, speculate without evidence that Combs must have been involved with the deaths of Porter, Biggie, Harrell, and Myers, the lawsuit says.

"Defendants Ample and NBCU knew those statements were false or published them in reckless disregard for the truth," the suit says.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

• A judge on Monday found Trump was flouting his order from last week that paused a spending freeze.
• The judge ordered the administration to restore and resume the funding immediately.
• The order was by the federal judge in Rhode Island overseeing a lawsuit brought by 22 states and DC.

The Trump administration is violating a federal court order by continuing to freeze funding for federal programs, a judge in Rhode Island found Monday.

In a sharply worded response, US District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who's overseeing a lawsuit brought by 22 states and the District of Columbia, ordered the administration to immediately restore and resume the funding.

The order is the first major challenge after recent suggestions that if President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the Department of Government Efficiency's leader, Elon Musk, don't like what a judge orders, one option is to ignore it, Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School, said.

Over the past few days, Vance wrote on X, "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," and Musk posted his support of an X user's suggestion that Trump openly defy the courts. Trump, meanwhile, said over the weekend that judges shouldn't be allowed to challenge recent DOGE actions.

"That's some tough language. The judge is not messing around," Paradis told Business Insider of Monday's order.

"It's return fire, to the extent that the Trump administration has declared that neither Congress nor the courts are allowed to question his authority," he added.

McConnell said his order was a response to evidence from the plaintiff states indicating that the pause on the freeze — which he said was causing "irreparable harm" and was "likely unconstitutional" — was being flouted.

"The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds," the judge wrote.

That evidence included descriptions of funding to the plaintiff states still being disrupted, including money from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services, including funds for the Head Start program.

"The Defendants must immediately restore frozen funding" while the court weighs the states' claims and the government's arguments on behalf of the freeze, the judge wrote.

Trump's side quickly filed a notice with the court that it is appealing both the judge's original January 31 order and Monday's order.

Asked whether the Trump administration would comply with the latest order, a White House spokesperson responded by criticizing the legal challenges to the president's recent executive orders.

"Each executive order will hold up in court because every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful," Harrison Fields, the principal White House deputy press secretary, said.

"Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people," who elected Trump to "restore common-sense policies," he said.

Paradis said McConnell could find the defendants — who include Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — in contempt if his court order continues to be ignored.

Trump is also a defendant in the lawsuit. But holding a sitting president in contempt is a "constitutionally complex issue" and a "totally open question," Paradis said.

"There are plenty of people who say that just as you can't prosecute the president, you can't hold them in contempt because it creates a separation of powers problem," he said.

"But there's no question whatsoever that you can hold his subordinates, including Cabinet secretaries, very much in contempt of court and that he could do nothing about that," Paradis said of Trump. Contempt can be punishable by fines or jail as the judge sees fit, Paradis added.

February 10, 2025: This story was updated to include more details from the order and Trump's notice of appeal.

• President Donald Trump's executive orders have faced a slew of legal roadblocks.
• Judges have blocked orders on birthright citizenship, transgender inmate rehousing, and spending.
• Trump's tariff plans for Canada and Mexico were paused after negotiations.

Some of President Donald Trump's boldest moves during his new administration's seismic first three weeks have been grounded before ever taking flight.

The administration and its Department of Governmental Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, the world's richest man, promised a list of swift-moving changes to the US government's operations. While some of those plans have progressed, others were put on hold, either in the courts or by the administration itself.

The White House says this is all part of a long game that Trump, ultimately, will win.

"Each executive order will hold up in court because every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful," Harrison Fields, the principal White House deputy press secretary, told BI on Friday.

And as for Trump's walked-back plans to hit our closest neighbors with tariffs — that was an all-out victory, said another White House spokesman, Kush Desai, who said Trump changed course on Mexico and Canada after "critical concessions" from both countries.

Still, much of Trump 2.0 remains on ice for now.

For those who haven't been able to keep up with the firehouse of actions announced by the White House and DOGE, here are the key ones that have been held up — for now.

A 'fork in the road' resignation offer

A federal judge in Massachusetts delayed Trump's plan to root out federal employees with buyout offers.

On January 28, the Trump administration gave just over two million government workers the chance to resign and maintain full pay and benefits until September 30. The so-called "fork in the road" resignation offer was a strategy straight out of Musk's playbook.

US District Judge George O'Toole Jr. on Thursday extended the buyout deadline until at least Monday, just hours before the actual deadline. The order came in response to a lawsuit brought by labor union groups. A Trump administration official told BI that over 40,000 federal workers had taken the buyout as of Wednesday.

Musk's DOGE and the Treasury

The White House launched another fiscal bombshell on February 3 when Trump told reporters he had given Treasury data access to Musk, whose DOGE is tasked with cutting government spending.

The idea that DOGE would have access to the personal information of millions of Americans — including anyone who had ever paid taxes, taken a federal loan, or collected Social Security — resulted in another legal challenge.

On Thursday, a federal judge in California set strict interim limits on the Treasury data, banning DOGE from accessing it directly.

Then, Saturday morning, another federal judge temporarily blocked a slew of people — including special government employees (like Musk), political appointees, and government employees not assigned by the Treasury — from accessing the Treasury's payment systems. The judge also ordered those who had gained new access to the systems to destroy all copies they may have made of materials and records they downloaded.

In the order, US District Judge Paul Engelmayer cited the risk of "disclosure of sensitive and confidential information" and the "heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking."

A freeze on federal spending

On January 27 — the first full Monday of Trump 2.0 — Trump budget officials dropped a bombshell memo ordering the temporary freezing of "all federal financial assistance" beginning 5 p.m. the following day, so that the spending could be reviewed. In an instant, the future of billions of dollars in federal funding was thrown into question.

The shockwaves were just as swift, even in the hours before the freeze was to take place. Medicaid portals used by states to access federal reimbursement quickly shut down across the country. Head Start funds were frozen in some states. Officials in California wondered if FEMA wildfire assistance was at risk.

Judges presiding over two hastily-drafted lawsuits issued separate injunctions blocking the freeze, including a federal judge in DC whose order came down minutes before the 5 p.m deadline.

The next day, Matthew Vaeth, director of the Office of Management and Budget, sent out a second memo. It said that the first memo is no longer in effect.

Backing off from tariff threats

Trump touted his plans to impose new 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, and they were set to go into effect on Tuesday.

The announcements were met with retaliatory plans from both countries, where leaders said they'd enforce their own tariffs on American products.

The expected trade war rattled the markets. On Monday, stocks and crypto tumbled, while the US dollar and oil climbed.

In the end, though, these tariffs that left American investors scrambling were put on hold.

Trump and Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, struck a deal on border policy, delaying the expected tariff on Mexican imports for 30 days. Similarly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau negotiated a pause until March for that set of tariffs.

A similar threat of 25% tariffs on goods from Colombia was put on hold after the country agreed to accept all deportation flights from the US.

An additional 10% tariff on imports from China did go into effect Tuesday, and was quickly matched by retaliatory tariffs on US exports to that country.

Bid to end birthright citizenship

Trump's executive order seeking to abolish the constitutional right of birthright citizenship has been indefinitely blocked by two separate federal judges.

A judge in Washington state issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the order on Thursday, just a day after a Maryland judge did the same. The order — one of the first signed by Trump after he was sworn into office — has been challenged in the courts by more than 20 Democratic-run states and immigrant rights advocates who have argued it violates the 14th Amendment.

Judge John Coughenour of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington temporarily halted the order on January 23, calling the move to end automatic citizenship to US-born children of parents who are in the country illegally "blatantly unconstitutional."

Coughenour issued his Thursday ruling following the decision by Maryland US District Judge Deborah Boardman. Boardman wrote that Trump's order "conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent, and runs counter to our nation's 250-year history of citizenship by birth."

Dropping USAID into the 'wood chipper'

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID employees on paid leave.

The workers, some of whom are overseas, were set to go on leave just before midnight Friday.

Musk said in an X post on Monday that he had "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper."

The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, however, filed a lawsuit against the administration's USAID cuts on Thursday, arguing that the moves to dismantle it were made without congressional authorization.

Constitutional law experts told Business Insider that dismantling the agency without congressional approval is indisputably illegal.

Forcing transgender women inmates into men's prisons

Trump's Day One order to house transgender women into men's men's facilities at federal prisons has also been blocked in the courts.

The order says the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary shall "ensure that males are not detained in women's prisons" and calls to end gender-affirming care for transgender inmates. It was challenged in two lawsuits brought by a handful of transgender women in prison.

US District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, DC, granted the plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order on Tuesday. In his order, Lamberth wrote that the plaintiffs "have straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow" if the restraining order request was denied.

Lamberth's order followed a separate ruling by US District Judge George O'Toole in Massachusetts, who also issued a temporary restraining order on January 26.

• Sam Altman has denied Elon Musk's claim that OpenAI bars investors from investing in competitors.
• "That is false," Altman said Thursday in a sworn statement to a California judge.
• He said investors were told only that they'd lose OpenAI data access if they invested in a rival.

Sam Altman has personally disputed an accusation now at the center of Elon Musk's federal racketeering lawsuit against him: Musk's claim that OpenAI investors must agree to a fund-no-competitor "edict."

"That claim is false," Altman said late Wednesday in a sworn declaration to the judge presiding over Musk's lawsuit, originally filed in February 2024.

The Tesla CEO and DOGE head is accusing Altman of colluding with Microsoft to unlawfully crush competition — including by barring OpenAI's outside investors from also investing in rival AI companies during a funding round that closed in the fall.

Altman's declaration was filed in opposition to Musk's demand for an immediate injunction against OpenAI.

If approved by the judge, the injunction would ban OpenAI from forcing investors to agree not to invest in other AI companies and would freeze the tech giant's transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity.

"I did not tell any investor in the October 2024 funding round that
their ability to invest in OpenAI was subject to that condition, nor to my knowledge did anyone else at OpenAI," Altman said in the page-long declaration.

There were indeed some restrictions, but those were limited and nothing like what Musk described, Altman told US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who hears cases in Oakland.

Investors who had ongoing access to confidential OpenAI information were told that access would be terminated "if they made non-passive investments in OpenAI's competitors," Altman told the judge.

"That restriction is necessary to protect against the misuse of OpenAI's competitively-sensitive information, and I understand it is industry standard for that reason," Altman's statement said.

Altman added that in explaining that limited restriction, he did not tell investors that they would lose the ability to invest in OpenAI if they chose to fund Musk's xAI or any other competitor.

Musk's claim that Altman, his colleague turned rival, was forcing OpenAI investors to agree to the investment ban was raised in detail during a hearing on the lawsuit held before Gonzalez Rogers on Tuesday.

The two men helped cofound OpenAI in 2015. Musk invested $44 million in the venture before their falling out three years later.

Alleging a violation of federal antitrust laws, Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff told the judge on Tuesday that OpenAI's high-value investors were required to agree to the investment ban as a condition of investing, and "not just in the latest funding round."

The Biden administration's Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission also said that such a ban would violate federal antitrust law, Toberoff said.

Altman's company is weighing a new funding round that could hike its value to $340 billion, all the while claiming to be a charitable enterprise, Musk's lawyer told the judge.

"OpenAI — already with 70% of the market, in conjunction with Microsoft — is seeking to strangle their competitors in the crib," he said.

Responding to Musk's claim at Tuesday's hearing, attorneys for Altman and Microsoft said OpenAI's investors were never told to boycott competitors.

In fact, Altman's attorney Sarah Eddy told the judge that there were investors who put money in both xAI and OpenAI.

"Some investors in OpenAI agreed that in the event they became non-passive investors or with governance rights in other competitors, they would cease getting certain confidential information from OpenAI. That is the agreement that's established by the evidence," Eddy told the judge.

The judge did not say when she expected to rule on the proposed injunction.

Altman and his codefendants — who include OpenAI, Microsoft, OpenAI's cofounder Gregory Brockman, and the billionaire LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman — are seeking a dismissal of the lawsuit. A hearing on those dismissal motions is set for May 28.

Attorneys for Musk and Altman said Tuesday that they'd be ready for trial by the end of 2026 at the earliest.

Correction: February 6, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated when Elon Musk's lawsuit was originally filed. It was in February 2024, not March.

• The feds say Javice tricked JPMorgan Chase into paying $175M for her financial aid startup, Frank.
• On Tuesday, a Manhattan judge set parameters for a February 18 criminal trial.
• No one can mention Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, he ruled — unless Javice opens the door.

Charlie Javice — the young tech entrepreneur accused of tricking the nation's largest bank into paying $175 million for her college financial-aid startup — once had a lot to say about Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.

Javice called Holmes' defrauded investors "sophisticated assholes," and complained that "investors should be blamed," according to a pair of WhatsApp messages that were discussed at a pretrial hearing in Manhattan on Tuesday.

When Javice and her ex-number two at their startup, Frank, go on trial for allegedly defrauding JPMorgan Chase later this month, federal prosecutors will be barred from making any mention of Theranos or Holmes, a judge ruled during the hearing.

And those WhatsApp messages between Javice and codefendant Olivier Amar, in particular, are definitely not coming into evidence, he said, unless either defendant opens the door by mentioning them on the witness stand.

"The potential for prejudice outweighs anything probative," US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said in precluding the use of the two messages that prosecutors had optimistically labeled "Government Exhibit 802."

The two WhatsApp messages are from 2022, "in the midst of their own efforts to defraud JPMC," the government alleged in court papers last week, in asking the judge to allow the "highly probative" texts into evidence at a trial scheduled to begin February 18.

Federal prosecutors allege that over months of negotiations, Javice and Amar repeatedly lied to Chase about the success of Frank, a for-profit tech company that Javice launched at age 24 and which featured software to help students apply for college financial aid.

Javice fraudulently claimed that Fank had 4.5 million customers, prosecutors allege, and created fake spreadsheets to trick the bank into believing they existed. She personally stood to gain $45 million in stock and salary from the deal, according to prosecutors.

"The government seeks only to offer the defendants' own statements about the defendants' own contemporaneous views about Holmes' criminal conduct, while in the midst of concealing the defendants' own criminal conspiracy," federal prosecutors wrote in asking last week for the judge's permission to use the WhatsApp messages as trial evidence.

In the messages, Javice and Amar are "calling the conviction 'dangerous,' and repeating many of the defenses they intend in their own case," prosecutors wrote.

That includes what prosecutors call a blame-the-victim defense.

"Investors should be blamed on letting a 19-year-old go rogue," Javice commiserated with Amar in the messages, referring to Holmes, who founded Theranos at age 19.

Perhaps most damagingly, the texts appear to show Javice drawing a distinction between a health-based fraud, like the one Holmes was convicted of, and a fraud based on financial aid.

"I think health is different," Javice tells her number two in the first of the two contested, and now stricken, WhatsApp messages.

"They talk about how she was unfairly treated," Assistant US Attorney Georgia V. Kostopoulos told the judge Tuesday, in her failed argument for admitting the messages.

"They say health is different" the prosecutor told the judge. "They're saying that it's different to lie about patients' health data than it is to lie about student data."

In their own court filings, defense lawyers for Javice and Amar had asked the judge to bar any mention at trial of "well-known, unrelated third parties convicted of fraud, specifically Elizabeth Holmes, Bernie Madoff, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Martim Skreli, which the government has signaled it intends to introduce in its case-in-chief."

Federal prosecutors say they have no intention of mentioning any of these infamous fradusters at trial.

Javice, who was once on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, recently lost a bid to be tried separately from Amar. It was revealed at a court hearing last month that Amar plans to go on the offensive against Javice during the trial.

Both Javice and Amar have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit securities, wire, and bank fraud.

• OpenAI and the White House have accused DeepSeek of using ChatGPT to cheaply train its new chatbot.
• Experts in tech law say OpenAI has little recourse under intellectual property and contract law.
• OpenAI's terms of use may apply, but are largely unenforcible, experts say.

This week, OpenAI and the White House accused DeepSeek of something akin to theft.

In a flurry of press statements, they said the China-based upstart had bombarded OpenAI's chatbots with queries, hoovering up the resulting data trove to quickly and cheaply train a model that's now almost as good.

The Trump administration's top AI "czar" said this training process, called "distilling," amounts to intellectual property theft. OpenAI, meanwhile, told Business Insider and other outlets that it is investigating whether "DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models."

OpenAI is not saying if the company plans to pursue legal action, instead promising what a spokesperson termed "aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology."

But could they? Could they sue DeepSeek on "you stole our content" grounds, much like the grounds OpenAI was itself sued on in an ongoing 2023 copyright claim filed by The New York Times and other news outlets?

Business Insider posed this question to experts in technology law, who said challenging DeepSeek in the courts would be an uphill battle for OpenAI, now that the content-appropriation shoe is on the other foot.

OpenAI would have a hard time proving an intellectual property or copyright claim, these lawyers said.

"The question is whether ChatGPT outputs" — meaning the answers it generates in response to queries — "are copyrightable at all," said Mason Kortz of Harvard Law School.

That's because it's unclear that the answers ChatGPT spits out qualify as "creativity," he said.

"There's a doctrine that says creative expression is copyrightable, but facts and ideas are not," explained Kortz, who teaches at Harvard's Cyberlaw Clinic.

"There's a huge question in intellectual property law right now about whether the outputs of a generative AI can ever constitute creative expression or if they are necessarily unprotected facts."

Could OpenAI roll those dice anyway, and claim that its outputs actually are protected?

That would be unlikely, the lawyers said.

OpenAI is already on the record in the New York Times copyright case arguing that training AI is an allowable "fair use" exception to copyright protection.

If they do a 180 and tell DeepSeek that training is not a fair use, "that might come back to kind of bite them," said Kortz. "DeepSeek could say, 'Hey, weren't you just saying that training is fair use?'"

There's arguably a distinction between the Times and DeepSeek cases, Kortz adds.

"Maybe it's more transformative to turn news articles into a model" — as the Times accuses OpenAI of doing — "than it is to turn outputs of a model into another model" as DeepSeek may have done, Kortz said.

"But this still puts OpenAI in a pretty tricky situation with regard to the line it's been towing regarding fair use."

A breach of contract lawsuit is more likely

A breach-of-contract lawsuit is much likelier than an IP-based lawsuit, though it comes with its own set of problems, said Anupam Chander, who teaches technology law at Georgetown University.

The terms of service for Big Tech chatbots like those developed by OpenAI and Anthopic forbid using their content as training fodder for a competing AI model.

"So perhaps that's the lawsuit you might possibly bring — a contract-based claim, not an IP-based claim," Chander said.

"Not 'you copied something from me,' but that you benefited from my model to do something that you were not allowed to do under our contract."

There's a possible hitch, Chander and Kortz say. OpenAI's terms of service require that most claims be resolved through arbitration, not lawsuits. There's an exception for lawsuits "to stop unauthorized use or abuse of the Service or intellectual property infringement or misappropriation.

There's a larger hitch, though, experts say.

"You should know that the brilliant scholar Mark Lemley and a coauthor argue that AI terms of use are likely unenforceable," Chander said. He was referring to a January 10 paper, The Mirage of Artificial Intelligence Terms of Use Restrictions, by Stanford Law's Mark A. Lemley and Peter Henderson of Princeton University's Center for Information Technology.

To date, "no model creator has actually tried to enforce these terms with monetary penalties or injunctive relief," the paper says.

"This is likely for good reason: we think that the legal enforceability of these licenses is questionable," it says. That's in part because model outputs "are largely not copyrightable" and because laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act "offer limited recourse," it argues.

"I think they are likely unenforceable," Lemley told BI of OpenAI's terms of service, "because DeepSeek didn't take anything copyrighted by OpenAI, and because courts generally won't enforce agreements not to compete in the absence of an IP right that would prevent that competition."

Lawsuits between parties in different nations, each with its own legal and enforcement systems, are always tricky, Kortz said.

Even if OpenAI cleared all the above hurdles and won a judgment from a US court or arbitrator, "in order to get DeepSeek to turn over money or stop doing what it's doing, the enforcement would come down to the Chinese legal system," he said.

Here, OpenAI would be at the mercy of another extremely complicated area of law — the enforcement of foreign judgments and the balancing of individual and corporate rights and national sovereignty — that stretches back to before the founding of the United States.

"So this is, a long, complicated, fraught process," Kortz added.

Could OpenAI have protected itself better from a distilling incursion?

"They could have used technical measures to block repeated access to their site," Lemley said. "But doing so would also interfere with normal customers."

He added, "I don't think they could, or should, have a valid legal claim against the searching of uncopyrightable information from a public site."

Representatives for DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We know that groups in the PRC are actively working to use methods, including what's known as distillation, to try to replicate advanced U.S. AI models," OpenAI spokesperson Rhianna Donaldson told BI in an emailed statement.

"We are aware of and reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more," the statement said. "We take aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology and will continue working closely with the US government to protect the most capable models being built here."

• 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 — launched in a day one signing flurry — 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.

Here are the Trump initiatives that have been targeted so far:

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.

Three of four lawsuits filed argue that DOGE violates the transparency requirements of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. DOGE, the lawsuits say, is not a federal department and should be considered a federal advisory committee subject to the FACA law.

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 — and not an outside advisory group — 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 — 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 — unlike political appointees — 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 — the same group that sued in 2020 — 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A birthday behind bars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An avalanche of lawsuits

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

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

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

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

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

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

Timeline of events

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Down with Diddy's empire

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

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

One by one, those income streams have dried up.

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

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

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

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

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

It's a similar story for his other ventures.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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