Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs denied bail while awaiting sentencing
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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York declined on Monday to grant Sean “Diddy” Combs bail, finding no “exceptional reasons” to release him prior to his October sentencing.
Combs was convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution, which the judge said mandates incarceration. His sentencing is set for Oct. 3.
Judge Arun Subramanian said Combs remains a risk of flight and a danger to the community, pointing to the violence exhibited on 2016 hotel surveillance footage that shows him kicking and dragging Cassie Ventura.
Defense attorneys said Combs transported male escorts not for profit or under duress but to join his “swingers lifestyle,” arguing those unique circumstances warranted release. The judge said that argument “might have traction” in a different case but not one that included evidence of violence, coercion or subjugation in connection with the prostitution.
“The record here contains evidence of all three,” Subramanian said.
“While Combs may contend at sentencing that this evidence should be discounted and that what happened was nothing more than a case of willing ‘swingers’ utilizing the voluntary services of escorts for their mutual pleasure, the Government takes the opposite view: that Cassie Ventura and Jane were beaten, coerced, threatened, lied to, and victimized by Combs as part of their participation in these events,” the opinion said. Combs also argued for release on bail because of the squalor and danger at the Metropolitan Detention Center. But the judge said jail staff “has been able to keep him safe,” even during an incident of threatened violence from an inmate, according to the opinion. The judge’s order did not elaborate on the nature of the threat or what jail staff did to mitigate it.
Combs has been incarcerated at the federal jail in Brooklyn for 11 months.
Following an eight-week federal trial, a jury convicted Combs last month of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Subramanian denied him bail following the verdict, citing then as well the violence that was “starkly depicted” in the 2016 hotel security footage.
(SPOTSWOOD, NJ) — At least seven geese are dead after a car struck the flock while they were trying to cross a street in New Jersey, police said.
The Spotswood Police Department in New Jersey is currently investigating an incident that took place on Monday evening at approximately 6:45 p.m. that involved a car striking a flock of geese trying to cross Devoe Avenue and then leaving the scene prior to authorities arriving, according to a statement from the Spotswood Police Department.
“At this time, it is unclear whether the collision was accidental or intentional,” police said. “The department is reviewing available surveillance footage from both nearby businesses and residences. We are requesting assistance from any witnesses who may have observed the incident.”
Geese are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and any intentional harm caused to the animals could constitute a violation of both state and federal law, authorities said.
“We take all incidents involving wildlife seriously, especially those that may involve intentional harm to the animals,” said Captain Edward Schapley from the Spotswood Police Department. “We ask anyone with information to please come forward and assist us in our ongoing investigation.”
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has relevant video footage is urged to contact the Spotswood Police Department.
The investigation is currently ongoing and no further information is available at this time.
The entrance to the state-managed immigration detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades on August 03, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida. oe Raedle/Getty Images
(OCHOPEE, Fla.) — For a month, Rafael Collado couldn’t tell the night from the day.
Detained in the temporary detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” he spent his time confined in a chain-link cage with another man, stuck in what his fiancee Sonia Bichara described as a legal purgatory — unaware of why he was detained, where he might be sent, and how long he would be stuck in the controversial Florida facility.
“They don’t see the daylight. They don’t know what time it is. He’ll call me and say, ‘What time is it? What day is it?'” said Bichara, who said she speaks with Collado daily. “You don’t know if it rains, you don’t know if it’s sunny out there, you don’t know if it’s dark — it’s like you’re dead alive.”
Collado’s experience is far from unique, according to immigration attorneys and advocates who have raised concerns about what they say are inhumane conditions at the migrant detention center. While a federal judge last week blocked further construction at the facility, the state of Florida is still permitted to house thousands of detainees at the site, which is located on a sparsely used airstrip in the Everglades.
“I have never, ever heard of any conditions coming close to those that are presently in existence and Alligator Alcatraz,” said Eric Lee, an attorney who represents a former detainee at the facility. “It’s bordering on torture, based on what I’m hearing from people.”
According to Bichara, Collado told her he spends nearly every moment of his day locked in a chain-link cage inside a large white tent, which frequently floods when it rains. Mosquitoes and other insects swarm around, temperatures fluctuate from sweltering Florida heat to bone-shaking cold from industrial air conditioners, and access to medical attention is limited, according to Bichara.
Neither the Florida Division of Emergency Management nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to a request for comment regarding the allegations.
The facility, which is funded by the federal government and run by the state of Florida, was dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by federal officials because it’s surrounded by alligator-infested swampland.
During a visit of the facility last month, President Donald Trump said the center could be a new standard for migrant detention facilities in the U.S.
“I mean, you don’t always have land so beautiful and so secure,” Trump said. “They have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators. You don’t have to pay them so much but I wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they’re supposed to be. This is a very important thing.”
In a legal filing Wednesday, as part of a lawsuit filed last month against the Trump administration over detainees’ access to legal counsel, several attorneys with clients being held at the facility said they haven’t been able to have full access to their clients.
They claim the facility does not allow private calls between attorneys and clients, or have publicly available information about visitation hours, email contacts, and procedures for exchanging legal documents. Attorneys and family members told ABC News detainees are able to make some calls to family members from the detention center.
“These open and non-confidential visitation tents are very much unlike any other facility I have ever seen,” said attorney Vilerka Solange Bilbao, who submitted a declaration Wednesday as part of the lawsuit. “Typically, detention facilities provide enclosed confidential rooms for attorney-client visitation.”
In her declaration, Solange Bilbao said that her client claims that “several people were running fevers and showing COVID symptoms without being separated from the general population; that bathrooms were often out of order or overflowing; that rainwater regularly flooded the tents; and that medical requests were ignored.”
“He and others cannot tell whether it is day or night unless they ask because there is no natural light or clock,” Solange Bilbao said.
“These conditions are not only inhumane — the lack of basic care and communication access directly obstruct my ability to provide effective representation,” she said.
Several attorneys also claimed on Wednesday that people who were moved to “Alligator Alcatraz” were removed from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee locator system, which typically provides online information about detainees’ current location.
“I’ve never seen treatment so deliberately cruel and explicit, more or less explicitly aimed at disincentivizing people from immigrating to the United States based on how they’re treated,” Lee said.
“He says it is worse than prison,” said Bichara of her fiance.
Collado would know, she says. He served a 17-year prison sentence after being convicted of drug charges in the U.S. in the 1990s, and of assaulting a fellow inmate. He’s paid the price for his crimes, Bichara said, and they planned to spend the rest of their lives together in a retirement community in Miami Gardens, Florida.
“He said, ‘I’ve been good for eight years. I don’t even have a speeding ticket. I’ve been paying my debt. You know, I’ve been doing well,'” she said.
Those plans were thrown into uncertainty last month when Collado, who came to the U.S. from Cuba, reported to a federal facility in Miramar, Florida, to complete an annual check-in due to his I-94 status, which gives legal authorization to be in the U.S. to those who entered the country with a temporary visa.
Federal officials detained him during the check-in and sent him to the recently constructed detention facility in the Everglades, according to his fiancee.
Bichara alleges that officials failed to provide Collado with his antidepressant medication during the first two weeks of his detention. He only got his medication, she said, after he unsuccessfully tried to take his own life.
Lee raised similar concerns about the medical conditions at the facility. He said his client Luis Manuel Rivas Velasquez fell sick last week and collapsed, but detention center officials allegedly ignored his pleas for medical attention.
“His cellmates had to drag him down a hallway where guards didn’t even know how to take his pulse to check whether he was still alive,” Lee said.
Both Collado and Rivas Velasquez have since been transferred out of “Alligator Alcatraz” to facilities in Texas, where their families have struggled to contact them, advocates said.
Bichara says she doesn’t know how to help her fiance at this point. Three different lawyers have advised her that challenging Collado’s detention would be costly and unlikely to succeed.
For now, she’s getting legal assistance from a nonprofit, but she worries that she might not see her partner again.
“Emotionally, I don’t know how to explain myself, because I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.”
At a press conference on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that since the opening of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state has seen an increase in the number of migrants voluntarily leaving the country. DeSantis said the state will be opening a new immigration detention facility, dubbed “‘Deportation Depot,” that “will have the same services that you have at Alligator Alcatraz.”
“We’ve been securing the border, enforcing immigration laws and removing illegal aliens who are in our society now, sending them back to their home country,” DeSantis said. “We have done more on this than any other state by a country mile.”
(NEW YORK) — The body of an unidentified person has been found floating near the Isles of Shoals off of the coast of New Hampshire in the Atlantic Ocean, police said.
The grisly discovery was made on Sunday morning at approximately 9:15 a.m. when a person on a fishing vessel reported seeing a body floating near the Isles of Shoals to the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a statement from the New Hampshire State Police on Thursday.
“The Coast Guard relayed the information to members of the New Hampshire State Police – Marine Patrol, who responded and recovered the body,” officials said.
Authorities did not immediately provide details on the condition the body was in, whether the person was male or female or give an estimate on the age of the person that they are trying to identify.
“The investigation is ongoing to determine the person’s identity, as well as their cause and manner of death,” officials said.
Authorities said that there are no known threats to the public in connection with this incident but did not say if they suspected foul play or not.
The investigation into the death is currently ongoing.
