New York
Diddy juror axed for lack of candor about residency
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge dismissed a juror in the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday after concluding that his conflicting answers about where he lives might indicate he had an agenda or wanted to stay on the jury for a purpose.
Judge Arun Subramanian made the ruling after rejecting arguments by Combs’ attorneys that it would disrupt the diversity of the jury to replace the Black man with a white juror.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges after his September arrest at a New York hotel. He was denied bail multiple times and has remained incarcerated at a federal lockup in Brooklyn ever since.
Subramanian had first announced late Friday that he was dismissing the juror after questions arose over whether he resided in New York or New Jersey most of the time, but multiple defense lawyers protested and the judge waited until Monday to announce his final decision.
The judge said a review of the juror’s answers to questions about his residency during jury selection, along with his subsequent responses to similar questions in the robing room, revealed “clear inconsistencies.”
“Taking these all together, the record raised serious concerns as to the juror’s candor and whether he shaded answers to get on and stay on the jury,” he said.
Subramanian said to leave the juror on the panel could threaten the integrity of the judicial process, and he rejected a defense request that he question him further, saying it could lead to “another set of shifting answers. … In other words, there’s nothing that the juror can say at this point that would put the genie back in the bottle and restore his credibility.”
The judge expressed disappointment that the defense asked him again in a weekend letter to consider the racial makeup of the jury in his ruling as it accused prosecutors of misconduct.
“The court should not, indeed cannot, let race factor into the decision of what happens. Here, the answer is clear. Juror No. 6 is excused,” Subramanian said before the jury, minus Juror No. 6, was brought into the courtroom for the resumption of testimony.
Defense lawyers in the letter also accused prosecutors of misconduct in a “coordinated effort to try to destroy one of the most successful Black men in American history.”
“The government’s case is all about his personal life, and what he and his romantic partners have done in the privacy of the bedroom,” the lawyers wrote.
“There has been no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct brought to the court’s attention. Zero,” the judge said, rejecting the defense’s third request for a mistrial.
Prosecutors have said they expect to rest sometime this week. The trial is in its sixth week.
On Monday, prosecutors called what’s known as a summary witness to read aloud numerous text messages that jurors hadn’t previously heard.
They included exchanges in which the woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” complained to Combs about their “hotel night” and “wild king night” sex marathon lifestyle and to his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, about his threats to release explicit videos of her having sex with other men.
Jane, who dated Combs from 2021 until his arrest last year, excoriated the hip-hop star in a series of text messages after his former longtime girlfriend Cassie, the R&B singer whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit against him alleging years of sexual abuse, control and violence.
On Nov. 28, 2023, about two weeks after Combs settled the lawsuit, Jane told him that she felt he exploited her with their “dark and humiliating lifestyle.” She wrote that for the three years they were together, she felt confused by their relationship and that being with Combs had deprived her of work opportunities.
A month later, Jane texted Khorram that Combs “just threatened me about my sex tapes that he has on two phones. He said he would send them to my baby daddy.”
Jane noted that she didn’t typically involve Khorram in such matters, but said she needed help because Combs was having one of his “evil-ass psychotic bipolar” episodes and, along with threatening her, was saying he’d call the police on her.
Jane told Khorram that she was heavily drugged in the tapes.
Nevada
State to pay $753K for delays in providing mental health care to criminal defendants
The State of Nevada will pay more than $753,000 in court-ordered fines for delays in providing criminal defendants with mental health care at a psychiatric facility in Sparks.
The Nevada Board of Examiners — composed of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state — signed off on the payment Tuesday after a Washoe County district court judge in April held the state in contempt for failing to provide timely treatment to criminal defendants deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.
The penalty relates to delays in treatment for nine defendants who were considered mentally incompetent and set for health treatment at the Lakes Crossing Center in Sparks. The state, under the judge’s order, has to pay $500 for every day that a defendant did not receive timely treatment.
These sanctions amounted to $216,000 as of mid-April (when the request to approve the funding was submitted) but the total cost for the ongoing fiscal year was expected to be $753,500, according to a memo from the Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH), the agency responsible for providing the mental health care. The money will go to the Washoe County general fund.
An agency spokesperson did not provide comment on Tuesday.
It’s the latest development in the yearslong issue of timely mental health care aimed at restoring the competence of criminal defendants so that they can stand trial. Wait times are decreasing — the average time for treatment after a court order has decreased from 122 days in 2022 to 74 days as of February, according to information presented to lawmakers earlier this year — but state officials have
acknowledged that the issue is far from over.
In its April memo requesting approval of the latest sanction payout, the agency said it expected to pay $3.6 million in fines throughout the next two-year budget cycle. It paid about $181,000 from September 2022 to October 2024, according to information presented at a legislative hearing this year.
The agency touted its efforts across the past two years to provide timely mental health care to defendants, but acknowledged that “the wait time remains significantly higher than” the agency’s stated goal to provide care within 20 days.
Its initiatives include increasing the capacity for treatment for Southern Nevada defendants and constructing a new Southern Nevada facility for defendants with mental illness set to open in 2029.
Other projects include American Rescue Plan-funded programs that are set to expire in the upcoming budget cycle, including ones to provide support to defendants awaiting mental health treatment and place long-term patients into skilled nursing facilities. However, the agency’s upcoming two-year budget included funding to continue the latter program.
The agency’s budget also allocates $17.6 million for 21 additional beds for Southern Nevada patients and 53 new positions related to care for criminal defendants.
The payout comes about 18 months after the Nevada Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that the agency must continue paying the $500 daily fines. The decision followed a Clark County judge’s contempt ruling against the agency for delays in care, but the state argued that the sanctions would be “impossible” to meet.
The agency has also faced multiple lawsuits about timely mental health treatment dating back to 2005. One suit prompted a consent decree — a legally binding agreement — that mandated the department move incompetent defendants to treatment facilities within one week of receiving a competency order. That agreement expired in 2020.
Nevada has continued to lag behind almost every other state in mental health care and ranks worst in the nation for its youth mental health services.
Wisconsin
Dairy farmer sues Trump administration claiming discrimination
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.
The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.
Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.
The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.
“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”
Trump administration spokesperson Anna Kelly did not immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment.
The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.
The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.
Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.
Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.
Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.
A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program and Congress repealed it in 2022.
The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”
Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.
Diddy juror axed for lack of candor about residency
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge dismissed a juror in the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday after concluding that his conflicting answers about where he lives might indicate he had an agenda or wanted to stay on the jury for a purpose.
Judge Arun Subramanian made the ruling after rejecting arguments by Combs’ attorneys that it would disrupt the diversity of the jury to replace the Black man with a white juror.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges after his September arrest at a New York hotel. He was denied bail multiple times and has remained incarcerated at a federal lockup in Brooklyn ever since.
Subramanian had first announced late Friday that he was dismissing the juror after questions arose over whether he resided in New York or New Jersey most of the time, but multiple defense lawyers protested and the judge waited until Monday to announce his final decision.
The judge said a review of the juror’s answers to questions about his residency during jury selection, along with his subsequent responses to similar questions in the robing room, revealed “clear inconsistencies.”
“Taking these all together, the record raised serious concerns as to the juror’s candor and whether he shaded answers to get on and stay on the jury,” he said.
Subramanian said to leave the juror on the panel could threaten the integrity of the judicial process, and he rejected a defense request that he question him further, saying it could lead to “another set of shifting answers. … In other words, there’s nothing that the juror can say at this point that would put the genie back in the bottle and restore his credibility.”
The judge expressed disappointment that the defense asked him again in a weekend letter to consider the racial makeup of the jury in his ruling as it accused prosecutors of misconduct.
“The court should not, indeed cannot, let race factor into the decision of what happens. Here, the answer is clear. Juror No. 6 is excused,” Subramanian said before the jury, minus Juror No. 6, was brought into the courtroom for the resumption of testimony.
Defense lawyers in the letter also accused prosecutors of misconduct in a “coordinated effort to try to destroy one of the most successful Black men in American history.”
“The government’s case is all about his personal life, and what he and his romantic partners have done in the privacy of the bedroom,” the lawyers wrote.
“There has been no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct brought to the court’s attention. Zero,” the judge said, rejecting the defense’s third request for a mistrial.
Prosecutors have said they expect to rest sometime this week. The trial is in its sixth week.
On Monday, prosecutors called what’s known as a summary witness to read aloud numerous text messages that jurors hadn’t previously heard.
They included exchanges in which the woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” complained to Combs about their “hotel night” and “wild king night” sex marathon lifestyle and to his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, about his threats to release explicit videos of her having sex with other men.
Jane, who dated Combs from 2021 until his arrest last year, excoriated the hip-hop star in a series of text messages after his former longtime girlfriend Cassie, the R&B singer whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit against him alleging years of sexual abuse, control and violence.
On Nov. 28, 2023, about two weeks after Combs settled the lawsuit, Jane told him that she felt he exploited her with their “dark and humiliating lifestyle.” She wrote that for the three years they were together, she felt confused by their relationship and that being with Combs had deprived her of work opportunities.
A month later, Jane texted Khorram that Combs “just threatened me about my sex tapes that he has on two phones. He said he would send them to my baby daddy.”
Jane noted that she didn’t typically involve Khorram in such matters, but said she needed help because Combs was having one of his “evil-ass psychotic bipolar” episodes and, along with threatening her, was saying he’d call the police on her.
Jane told Khorram that she was heavily drugged in the tapes.
Nevada
State to pay $753K for delays in providing mental health care to criminal defendants
The State of Nevada will pay more than $753,000 in court-ordered fines for delays in providing criminal defendants with mental health care at a psychiatric facility in Sparks.
The Nevada Board of Examiners — composed of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state — signed off on the payment Tuesday after a Washoe County district court judge in April held the state in contempt for failing to provide timely treatment to criminal defendants deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.
The penalty relates to delays in treatment for nine defendants who were considered mentally incompetent and set for health treatment at the Lakes Crossing Center in Sparks. The state, under the judge’s order, has to pay $500 for every day that a defendant did not receive timely treatment.
These sanctions amounted to $216,000 as of mid-April (when the request to approve the funding was submitted) but the total cost for the ongoing fiscal year was expected to be $753,500, according to a memo from the Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH), the agency responsible for providing the mental health care. The money will go to the Washoe County general fund.
An agency spokesperson did not provide comment on Tuesday.
It’s the latest development in the yearslong issue of timely mental health care aimed at restoring the competence of criminal defendants so that they can stand trial. Wait times are decreasing — the average time for treatment after a court order has decreased from 122 days in 2022 to 74 days as of February, according to information presented to lawmakers earlier this year — but state officials have
acknowledged that the issue is far from over.
In its April memo requesting approval of the latest sanction payout, the agency said it expected to pay $3.6 million in fines throughout the next two-year budget cycle. It paid about $181,000 from September 2022 to October 2024, according to information presented at a legislative hearing this year.
The agency touted its efforts across the past two years to provide timely mental health care to defendants, but acknowledged that “the wait time remains significantly higher than” the agency’s stated goal to provide care within 20 days.
Its initiatives include increasing the capacity for treatment for Southern Nevada defendants and constructing a new Southern Nevada facility for defendants with mental illness set to open in 2029.
Other projects include American Rescue Plan-funded programs that are set to expire in the upcoming budget cycle, including ones to provide support to defendants awaiting mental health treatment and place long-term patients into skilled nursing facilities. However, the agency’s upcoming two-year budget included funding to continue the latter program.
The agency’s budget also allocates $17.6 million for 21 additional beds for Southern Nevada patients and 53 new positions related to care for criminal defendants.
The payout comes about 18 months after the Nevada Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that the agency must continue paying the $500 daily fines. The decision followed a Clark County judge’s contempt ruling against the agency for delays in care, but the state argued that the sanctions would be “impossible” to meet.
The agency has also faced multiple lawsuits about timely mental health treatment dating back to 2005. One suit prompted a consent decree — a legally binding agreement — that mandated the department move incompetent defendants to treatment facilities within one week of receiving a competency order. That agreement expired in 2020.
Nevada has continued to lag behind almost every other state in mental health care and ranks worst in the nation for its youth mental health services.
Wisconsin
Dairy farmer sues Trump administration claiming discrimination
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.
The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.
Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.
The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.
“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”
Trump administration spokesperson Anna Kelly did not immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment.
The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.
The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.
Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.
Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.
Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.
A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program and Congress repealed it in 2022.
The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”
Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.
