Porter isn’t named in the court complaint, but its specifics about “Player 1” match the details of the former Toronto Raptors player’s downfall this spring. It’s unclear whether Porter himself is under investigation in the criminal case, and Brooklyn federal prosecutors declined to comment on whether he is.

The court complaint against Long Phi Pham says the player communicated directly with defendant Pham and other conspirators.

Current contact information for Porter couldn’t immediately be found.

According to the complaint, the player told Pham and others, via encrypted messages, that he planned to take himself out of Jan. 26 and March 20 games early, claiming injury or illness. Porter played 4 minutes, 24 seconds against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first of those games, then 2 minutes, 43 seconds against the Sacramento Kings in the second game, both times falling short of wagering lines based on his expected performance.

Pham and other conspirators — whose names are redacted in the court complaint — used that advance knowledge to place bets on Porter underperforming, prosecutors allege. The bets paid off to the tune of more than $1 million for the group, according to prosecutors.

A message seeking comment was left for Pham’s lawyer. Pham, 38, of Brooklyn, was being detained after an initial court appearance Tuesday. Accused of conspiring to defraud a sports betting company, he’s due back in court Wednesday for a bail hearing.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the alleged conspirators “participated in a brazen, illegal betting scheme that had a corrupting influence on two games and numerous bets.”

“Whether on the court or in the casino, every point matters,” Peace said in a statement.

The NBA banned Porter in April after a league probe found that he disclosed confidential information about his health to a sports bettor and that Porter himself wagered on games using someone else’s account — even betting on the Raptors to lose.

“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams and everyone associated with our sport, which is why Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our gaming rules are being met with the most severe punishment,” Commissioner Adam Silver said at the time in a press release. Portions of that release are quoted in the court complaint against Pham.

Messages seeking comment were left for the NBA and the Raptors.

Porter was on a two-way contract, meaning he could play for both the Raptors and their affiliate in the G League. His salary for this year was around $410,000; had the Raptors signed him to a standard NBA contract next season, as seemed possible, his salary would have exceeded $2 million.

The 24-year-old Porter averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 26 games, including five starts. He also played in 11 games for the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2020-21 season.

AP’s Brian Mahoney contributed.

The judge responded to a jury request by rereading 30 pages of jury instructions. The 12-person jury, which deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours Wednesday without reaching a verdict, also reheard testimony Thursday morning from a tabloid publisher and Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer.

It’s unclear how long the deliberations will last. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to reclaim the White House while an acquittal would represent a major win for him and embolden him on the campaign trail. Since verdicts must be unanimous, it’s also possible the case ends in a mistrial if the jury can’t reach a consensus.

In a memo Wednesday evening, Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles blasted the proceedings as a “kangaroo court” and argued the case would not matter in November.

“The bottom line is this case doesn’t have an impact on voters,” they wrote.

Trump, who on Wednesday appeared to be priming supporters for the possibility of a guilty verdict by saying “Mother Teresa couldn’t bear these charges,” struck a pessimistic tone again Thursday.

“It’s all rigged. The whole thing, the whole system is rigged,” he said. It’s the same language he used to try to inoculate himself against losses in the 2020 presidential election and Iowa’s 2016 GOP primary.

He continued to rail against the case on his social media network from a room in the courthouse, writing in capital letters, “I did nothing wrong! In fact, I did everything right!” Trump did not testify in his own defense, something the judge told jurors they could not take into account.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 presidential election campaign.

The charge, a felony, arises from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006. Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and contends the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services. He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.

To convict Trump, the jury would have to find unanimously that he created a fraudulent entry in his company’s records or caused someone else to do so and that he acted with the intent of committing or concealing another crime.

The crime prosecutors say Trump committed or hid is a violation of a New York election law making it illegal for two or more conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

While the jurors must unanimously agree that something unlawful was done to promote Trump’s election campaign, they don’t have to be unanimous on what that unlawful thing was.

The jurors, a diverse cross section of Manhattan residents and professional backgrounds, often appeared riveted by testimony, including from Cohen and Daniels. Many took notes and watched intently as witnesses answered questions.

In their first burst of communication with the court, jurors asked to rehear excerpts of the judge’s legal instructions, including a portion related to how inferences may be drawn from evidence.

They also reheard testimony Thursday from Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about an August 2015 meeting with Trump at Trump Tower, where the tabloid boss agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of his fledgling presidential campaign.

Pecker testified that the plan included identifying potentially damaging stories about Trump so they could be squashed before being published. That, prosecutors say, was the beginning of the catch-and-kill scheme at the heart of the case.

Jurors also reheard Pecker’s account of a phone call he said he received from Trump in which they discussed a rumor that another outlet had offered to buy former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that she had a yearlong affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. Trump denies the affair.

Pecker testified that Trump told him, “Karen is a nice girl,” and asked, “What do you think I should do?” Pecker said he replied: “I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.” He added that Trump told him that he doesn’t buy stories because they always get out and that Cohen would be in touch.

The publisher said he came away from the conversation thinking Trump was aware of the specifics of McDougal’s claims. Pecker said he believed the story was true and would have been embarrassing to Trump and his campaign if it were made public.

The National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., eventually paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story in an agreement that also included writing and other opportunities with its fitness magazine and other publications.

The fourth bit of testimony jurors requested was Pecker’s account about his decision in October 2016 to back out of an agreement to sell the rights to McDougal’s story to Trump through a company Cohen had established for the transaction, known as an “assignment of rights.”

“I called Michael Cohen, and I said to him that the agreement, the assignment deal, is off. I am not going forward. It is a bad idea, and I want you to rip up the agreement,” Pecker testified. “He was very, very, angry. Very upset. Screaming, basically, at me.”

Pecker testified that he reiterated to Cohen that he wasn’t going forward with the agreement.

He said Cohen told him: “The boss is going to be very angry at you.”

The 12-person jury was sent home around 4 p.m. after about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations. The process is to resume Thursday.

Jurors also asked to rehear at least part of the judge’s instructions meant to guide them on the law. The notes sent to the judge with the requests were the first burst of communication with the court after the panel of seven men and five women was sent to a private room just before 11:30 a.m. to begin weighing a verdict.

“It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours,” Judge Juan M. Merchan told jurors earlier in the day before dispatching them to begin deliberations, reminding them of their vow during the selection process to judge the case fairly and impartially.

It’s unclear how long the deliberations will last. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to reclaim the White House while an an acquittal would represent a major win for Trump and embolden him on the campaign trail. Since verdicts must be unanimous, it’s also possible that the case ends in a mistrial if the jury can’t reach a consensus after days of deliberations.

Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following the reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a “very unfair trial” and saying: “Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do.”

He remained inside the courthouse during deliberations, where he made a series of posts on his social media network complaining about the trial and quoting legal and political commentators who view the case in his favor. In one all-capital-letters post, he proclaimed that he didn’t even “know what the charges are in this rigged case,” even though he was present in the courtroom as the judge detailed them to jurors.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.

The charge, a felony, arises from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006. Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and contends the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services. He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.

To convict Trump, the jury would have to find unanimously that he created a fraudulent entry in his company’s records, or caused someone else to do so, and that he did so with the intent of committing or concealing another crime.

The crime prosecutors say Trump committed or hid is a violation of a New York election law making it illegal for two or more conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

While the jury must unanimously agree that something unlawful was done to promote Trump’s election campaign, they don’t have to be unanimous on what that unlawful thing was.

The jurors — a diverse cross-section of Manhattan residents and professional backgrounds — often appeared riveted by testimony in the trial, including from Cohen and Daniels. Many took notes and watched intently as witnesses answered questions from Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers.

Jurors started deliberating after a marathon day of closing arguments in which a prosecutor spoke for more than five hours, underscoring the burden the district attorney’s office faces in needing to establish Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Trump team need not establish his innocence to avoid a conviction but must instead bank on at least one juror finding that prosecutors have not sufficiently proved their case.

Earlier Wednesday, the jury received instructions in the law from Merchan, who offered some guidance on factors the panel can use to assess witness testimony, including its plausibility, its consistency with other testimony, the witness’ manner on the stand and whether the person has a motive to lie.

But, the judge said, “there is no particular formula for evaluating the truthfulness and accuracy of another person’s statement.”

The principles he outlined are standard but perhaps all the more relevant after Trump’s defense leaned heavily on questioning the credibility of key prosecution witnesses, including Cohen.

Jurors asked to rehear testimony from Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about an August 2015 meeting with Trump at Trump Tower where the tabloid boss agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of his fledgling presidential campaign.

Pecker testified that the plan included identifying potentially damaging stories about Trump so they could be squashed before being published. That, prosecutors say, was the beginning of the catch-and-kill scheme at the heart of the case.

Jurors also want to hear Pecker’s account of a phone call he said he received from Trump in which they discussed a rumor that another outlet had offered to buy former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleging that she had a yearlong affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. Trump has denied the affair.

Pecker testified that Trump told him, “Karen is a nice girl” and asked, “What do you think I should do?” Pecker said he replied: “I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.” He added that Trump told him he doesn’t buy stories because it always gets out and that Cohen would be in touch.

The publisher said he came away from the conversation thinking Trump was aware of the specifics of McDougal’s claims. Pecker said he believed the story was true and would have been embarrassing to Trump and his campaign if it were made public.

The National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., eventually paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story in an agreement that also included writing and other opportunities with its fitness magazine and other publications.

The fourth item jurors requested is Pecker’s testimony about his decision in October 2016 to back out of an agreement to sell the rights to McDougal’s story to Trump through a company Cohen had established for the transaction, known as an “assignment of rights.”

“I called Michael Cohen, and I said to him that the agreement, the assignment deal is off. I am not going forward. It is a bad idea, and I want you to rip up the agreement,” Pecker testified. “He was very, very, angry. Very upset. Screaming, basically, at me.”

Pecker testified that he reiterated to Cohen that he wasn’t going forward with the agreement.

He said that Cohen told him: “The boss is going to be very angry at you.”

The lawyers’ dueling accounts, wildly divergent in their assessments of witness credibility and the strength of evidence, offered both sides one final chance to score points with the jury before it starts deliberating the first felony case against a former American president.

“This case, at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors.

The trial featured allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to stifle potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign through hush money payments , including to a porn actor who alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier. Trump has denied having sex with both women. His lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that neither the actor, Stormy Daniels, nor the Trump attorney who paid her can be trusted in their testimony.

“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” Blanche said.

Following more than four weeks of testimony, the daylong summations teed up a momentous and historically unprecedented task for the jury as it decides whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ahead of the November election. The political implications of the proceedings were unmistakable as President Joe Biden’s campaign staged an event outside the courthouse with actor Robert De Niro while Blanche reminded jurors that the case was not a referendum on their views about Trump.

Steinglass sought to defray potential juror concerns about witness credibility. He acknowledged that Daniels’ account about the alleged 2006 encounter in Lake Tahoe hotel suite was at times “cringeworthy” but said the details she offered — including about the decor and what she said she saw when she snooped in Trump’s toiletry kit — were full of touchstones “that kind of ring true.”

The story matters, he said, because it “reinforces (Trump’s) incentive to buy her silence.”

“Her story is messy. It makes people uncomfortable to hear. It probably makes some of you uncomfortable to hear. But that’s kind of the point,” Steinglass said. He told jurors: “In the simplest terms, Stormy Daniels is the motive.”

He also tried to reassure jurors that the prosecution’s case did not rest solely on Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in the hush money payments, as well as to lying to Congress. He went to prison and was disbarred, but his direct involvement in the transactions made him a key witness at trial.

“It’s not about whether you like Michael Cohen. It’s not about whether you want to go into business with Michael Cohen. It’s whether he has useful, reliable information to give you about what went down in this case, and the truth is that he was in the best position to know,” Steinglass said.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. It’s unclear whether prosecutors would seek imprisonment in the event of a conviction, or if the judge would impose that punishment.

Though the case featured seamy details about sex and tabloid industry practices, the actual charges turn on something more mundane: reimbursements Trump signed for Cohen for the hush money payments.

The reimbursements were recorded as being for legal expenses, which prosecutors say was a fraudulent label designed to conceal the purpose of the hush money transaction and to illicitly interfere in the 2016 election. Defense lawyers say Cohen actually did substantive legal work for Trump and his family.

In his own hourslong address to the jury, with sweeping denials echoing Trump’s “deny everything” approach, Blanche attacked the entire foundation of the case.

He said Cohen, not Trump, created the invoices that were submitted to the Trump Organization for reimbursement and that there was no proof that Trump knew what staffers were doing with the payments. He disputed the contention that Trump and Daniels had sex, and he rejected the idea that the alleged hush money scheme amounted to election interference.

“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people who are working together to help somebody win,” Blanche said.

But as expected, he reserved his most animated attack for Cohen, with whom he tangled during a lengthy cross-examination.

Mimicking the term “GOAT,” used primarily in sports as an acronym for “greatest of all time,” Blanche labeled Cohen the “GLOAT” — greatest liar of all time. The lawyer also called Cohen “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.” That language was intentional because, to convict Trump, jurors must believe that prosecutors proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“He lied to you repeatedly. He lied many, many times before you even met him. His financial and personal well-being depend on this case. He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true,” Blanche said.

The attorney’s voice became even more impassioned as he revisited one of the more memorable moments of the trial: when Blanche sought to unravel Cohen’s claim that he had spoken to Trump by phone about the Daniels arrangement on Oct. 24, 2016.

Cohen said he had contacted Trump’s bodyguard as a way of getting a hold of Trump, but Blanche asserted that at the time Cohen was actually dealing with a spate of harassing phone calls and was preoccupied with that problem.

“It was a lie,” Blanche said. “That was a lie, and he got caught red-handed.”

In his testimony, Cohen acknowledged a litany of past lies, many of which he said were intended to protect Trump. But he said he had subsequently told the truth, at great cost: “My entire life has been turned upside-down as a direct result,” he said.

Steinglass used a bit of stagecraft to challenge the defense’s assertion that Cohen was lying about the subject of that phone conversation, demonstrating a hypothetical version of the call to show jurors how Cohen and the bodyguard, Keith Schiller, could have covered multiple subjects in less than a minute.

Cohen’s actual call to Schiller’s phone number lasted 96 seconds, according to phone records. Steinglass showed, with his hypothetical, that Cohen could’ve spoken to Schiller about the prank calls, asked him to pass the phone to Trump and then discussed the Daniels deal with Trump, all in 49 seconds.

The New York prosecution is one of four criminal cases pending against Trump as he seeks to reclaim the White House from Biden. It’s unclear if any of the others will reach trial before November’s election.

___

Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

“Your honor, the defense rests,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Trump’s team ended with a former federal prosecutor who was called to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, one of two people summoned to the stand by the defense. The Manhattan district attorney’s office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before resting its case Monday.

The jury was sent home for a week, until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but the attorneys returned to the courtroom to debate how the judge will instruct jurors on deliberations, a sort of road map meant to help them apply the law to the evidence and testimony. The two sides haggled over word choices, legal phrases and how to describe various campaign-related issues.

Trump, the first former American president to be tried criminally, did not answer questions about why he did not testify.

Trump had previously said he wanted to take the witness stand in his own defense, but there was no requirement or even expectation that he do so. Defendants routinely decline to testify. His attorneys, instead of mounting an effort to demonstrate Trump’s innocence to jurors, focused on attacking the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. That’s a routine defense strategy; the burden of proof in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove a thing.

Yet even as Trump denounces the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s capitalized on the trial as a fundraising pitch, used his time in front of the cameras to criticize President Joe Biden and showcased a parade of his own political supporters.

Prosecutors have accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of a scheme to scoop up and bury negative stories in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records to conceal the alleged scheme and denied any wrongdoing. It’s the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial, and quite possibly the only one before the 2024 presidential election.

“They have no case,” Trump said outside court. “There’s no crime.”

He also again attacked the prosecutor, despite repeated warnings from Judge Juan M. Merchan not to violate a gag order that bars him from publicly commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff or the judge’s family.

Jurors have been given a lesson on the underbelly of the tabloid business world, where Trump allies at the National Enquirer launched a plan to keep seamy, sometimes outrageous stories about Trump out of the public eye by paying tens of thousands of dollars to “catch and kill” them. They watched as a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, recounted in discomfiting detail an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in a hotel room. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.

And they sat intently in the jury box as Trump’s former-lawyer-turned-foe Michel Cohen placed Trump in the middle of the scheme to buy Daniels’ story to keep it from going public in the waning weeks before the 2016 presidential election. During that time, Republicans were wringing their hands in distress over the potential political fallout from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, where Trump bragged about grabbing women sexually without asking permission.

But the crux of the prosecution’s case centers not on the spectacle but on business transactions, including internal Trump Organization records in which payments to Cohen were labeled legal expenses. Prosecutors argued that those payments were really reimbursements to Cohen, doled out in chunks, for a $130,000 payment he made on Trump’s behalf to keep Daniels quiet.

Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. The offense is in the lowest tier of felony charges in New York state, and it is punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in prison time.

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to testify.

“There’d be absolutely no reason, no justification to do that whatsoever. Everyone sees it for the sham that it is,” the younger Trump said as he left a news conference with supporters of the former president outside the courthouse.

The judge has yet to rule on a defense request to throw out the charges, before jurors even begin deliberating, based on the argument that prosecutors have failed to prove their case. Such long-shot requests are often made in criminal cases but are rarely granted.

The final witness was Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor, who was first called Monday afternoon and who angered the judge by rolling his eyes and talking under his breath. The judge cleared the courtroom and threatened to remove Costello if he didn’t show more respect.

Tuesday’s testimony was absent the same kind of drama as Trump’s lawyers sought to use Costello to undermine Cohen’s credibility. The two had a professional relationship that splintered in spectacular fashion. Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.

Costello bristled as he insisted to prosecutors that he did not feel animosity toward Cohen and did not try to intimidate him. “Ridiculous. No,” he said to the latter.

But Costello has repeatedly maligned Cohen’s credibility and was even a witness before last year’s grand jury that indicted Trump, offering testimony designed to undermine Cohen’s account. In a Fox News Channel interview last week, Costello accused Cohen of lying to the jury and using the case to “monetize” himself.

Prosecutors sought to show that Costello was part of a pressure campaign to manipulate and arm-twist Cohen in order to keep him in Trump’s corner once he came under federal investigation. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Costello about a 2018 email in which he assured Cohen that he was “loved” by Trump’s camp, “they are in our corner” and “you have friends in high places.”

Asked who those “friends in high places” were, Costello said he was talking about Trump, then the president.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove tried to undo that portrayal.

“Did you ever pressure Michael Cohen to do anything?” Bove asked.

“No,” Costello replied.

After the defense rested, the judge dismissed the jurors and looked ahead to closing arguments — the last time the jury will hear from either side. Deliberations could begin as early as next Wednesday, giving the panel their first chance to talk about the case. Until then, they’re barred from discussing it.

“I’ll see you in a week,” Merchan told the jury.

Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; and Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

Judge Juan M. Merchan did not immediately rule on the defense request, which came at the end of a busy day that included the judge briefly kicking reporters out of the courtroom after admonishing a defense witness for his behavior on the stand.

The trial will resume Tuesday with more testimony from Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor who Trump’s lawyers called to the stand to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, Trump attorney-turned-adversary Michael Cohen.

Cohen was the last witness — at least for now — for prosecutors, who are trying to prove that Trump sought to bury unflattering stories about himself and then falsified internal business records to cover it up as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election.

Over several hours of cross-examination, Trump’s attorneys seized on Cohen’s past lies and criminal history, underscoring the risk of prosecutors’ reliance on the now-disbarred attorney. Cohen testified earlier Monday that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company, an admission defense lawyers hope to use to sow doubt in Cohen’s crucial testimony implicating the former president in the hush money scheme.

After jurors left for the day, defense attorney Todd Blanche told the judge that prosecutors failed to prove their case and that it should be thrown out immediately. Blanche beseeched the judge to “not let this case go to the jury relying on Mr. Cohen’s testimony.”

The judge appeared unmoved by the argument, asking the defense attorney whether he believed that “as a matter of law, this person’s so not worthy of belief that it shouldn’t even be considered by the jury?”

“You said his lies are irrefutable,” the judge replied. “But you think he’s going to fool 12 New Yorkers into believing this lie?”

The defense request came after a chaotic scene unfolded when the judge — angered by Costello’s behavior on the stand — briefly forced reporters out of the courtroom and into the hallway.

Costello aggravated Merchan repeatedly in his testimony by making comments under his breath and continuing to speak after objections were sustained — a signal to witnesses to stop talking. At one point, Costello remarked “jeez” when he was cut off by an objection. He also called the whole exercise “ridiculous.”

After excusing the jury, Merchan told Costello: “If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say ‘jeez’ … You don’t give me side eye, and you don’t roll your eyes.”

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Costello is relevant to the case because of his role as a Cohen antagonist and critic in the years since their professional relationship splintered in spectacular fashion.

Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.

Costello testified that Cohen told him Trump “knew nothing” about the $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels that’s at the center of the case.

“Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own, and he repeated that numerous times,” Costello told jurors.

Back on the witness stand for a fourth day, Cohen told jurors that he stole from the Trump Organization after his 2016 holiday bonus was slashed to $50,000 from the $150,000 he usually received.

Cohen claimed to have paid $50,000 to a technology firm for its work artificially boosting Trump’s standing in a CNBC online poll about famous businessmen. Cohen said he gave the firm only $20,000 in cash in a brown paper bag, but he sought reimbursement from Trump for the full amount, pocketing the difference.

“So you stole from the Trump Organization?” defense attorney Todd Blanche asked.

“Yes, sir,” Cohen replied. Cohen said he never paid the Trump Organization back. Cohen has never been charged with stealing from Trump’s company.

Cohen is a key witness but also a complicated one. He admitted on the witness stand to a number of past lies, many of which he claims were meant to protect Trump. Cohen also served prison time after pleading guilty to various federal charges, including lying to Congress and a bank and engaging in campaign-finance violations related to the hush money scheme. And he has made millions of dollars off critical books about the former president, whom he regularly slams on social media in often profane terms.

But when pushed by Blanche, Cohen stood by his recollection of conversations with Trump about the hush money payment to Daniels that’s at the center of the case.

“No doubt in your mind?” Blanche asked about whether Cohen specifically recalled having conversations with Trump about the Daniels matter. No doubt, Cohen said.

After more than four weeks of testimony about sex, money, tabloid machinations and the details of Trump’s company record-keeping, jurors could begin deliberating as soon as next week to decide whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

The charges stem from internal Trump Organization records where payments to Cohen were marked as legal expenses. Prosecutors say they were really reimbursements for the payment to Daniels to keep her from going public before the 2016 election with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.

Trump has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say there was nothing criminal about the Daniels deal or the way Cohen was paid.

“There’s no crime,” Trump told reporters after arriving at the courthouse Monday. “We paid a legal expense. You know what it’s marked down as? A legal expense.”

Prosecutors will have have an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses once Trump’s witnesses are done. The judge, citing scheduling issues, said he expects closing arguments to happen May 28, the Tuesday after Memorial Day.

Defense lawyers said they have not decided whether Trump will testify. And Trump did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about whether his lawyers have advised him not to take the stand. Defense attorneys generally are reluctant to put their clients on the witness stand and open them up to intense questioning by prosecutors, as it often does more harm than good.

Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Cohen was back in the hot seat for a third day of testimony as defense lawyers painted Trump’s fixer-turned-foe as a spurned former employee who will say whatever it takes to put the presumptive Republican presidential nominee behind bars.

Cohen is prosecutors’ final witness — at least for now — as they try to prove Trump schemed to suppress a damaging story he feared would torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign and then falsified business records to cover it up. Cohen’s cross-examination is a crucial moment for Trump’s team to try to chip away at Cohen’s credibility, which could determine the former president’s fate in the case.

Under questioning from defense attorney Todd Blanche, Cohen admitted to lying under oath when he pleaded guilty to federal charges, including tax fraud, in 2018 as well as lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate deal in Russia.

“It was a lie? Correct?” Blanche asked Cohen about whether he lied to the late U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III at a court hearing about not being pressured into pleading guilty.

“Correct,” Cohen said.

Over several days on the witness stand, Cohen placed Trump directly at the center of the alleged scheme to stifle negative stories to fend off damage to his White House bid. Cohen told jurors that Trump promised to reimburse him for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about efforts to silence women who alleged sexual encounters with him. Trump denies the women’s claims.

Trump, who insists the prosecution is an effort to damage his campaign to reclaim the White House, says the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses because Cohen was a lawyer. The defense has suggested that he was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by squelching what he says were false, scurrilous claims.

“The crime is that they’re doing this case,” he told reporters Thursday before entering the courtroom, flanked by a group of congressional allies that included Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.

The former president has been joined at the courthouse in recent days by a slew of conservative supporters, including some considered potential vice presidential picks and others angling for future administration roles. House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared Tuesday.

Gaetz later posted a photo on social media of him standing behind Trump in court, with the words, “Standing back, and standing by, Mr. President.” That is a phrase that the Proud Boys, an extremist group whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, have used since Trump, during a 2020 campaign debate, said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

While questioning Cohen, defense lawyers have not focused on the hush money scheme or the criminal charges at issue. Instead, they have peppered him with questions about his own misdeeds and his new persona as fierce Trump critic to attack Cohen’s credibility and motivations.

Blanche confronted Cohen with profane social media posts, a podcast and books he wrote about the former president, getting Cohen to acknowledge that he has made millions of dollars off slamming Trump. In one clip played in court Thursday, Cohen could be heard using an expletive and saying he truly hopes “that this man ends up in prison.”

“It won’t bring back the year that I lost or the damage done to my family. But revenge is a dish best served cold,” Cohen was heard saying. “You better believe that I want this man to go down.”

Cohen acknowledged he has continued to attack Trump, even during the trial.

In one social media post cited by the defense attorney, Cohen called Trump an alliterative and explicit nickname, as well as an “orange-crusted ignoramus.” Asked if he used the phrase, Cohen responded: “Sounds correct.”

Cohen, in earlier testimony, told jurors how his life and relationship with Trump were upended after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room in 2018. Trump initially showered him with affection on social media and predicted that Cohen would not “flip.” Trump’s tone changed when, months later, Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign-finance charges and implicated him in the hush money scheme. Trump was not charged with a crime related to the federal investigation.

Cohen also described a meeting in which he says he and Trump discussed with Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump Organization chief financial officer, how the reimbursements for Cohen’s $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels would be paid as legal services over monthly installments. That’s important because prosecutors say the reimbursements were falsely logged as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose.

Defense lawyers are expected to question Cohen through the end of the day on Thursday. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has said it will rest its case once he’s done on the stand, though it could have an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses if Trump’s lawyers put on witnesses of their own.

The defense isn’t obligated to call any witnesses, and it’s unclear whether the attorneys will do so. Blanche told Judge Juan M. Merchan on Tuesday that the defense may call one expert witness and that there was still no determination on whether Trump would take the stand.

In any event, the trial will take Friday off so Trump can attend the high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron.

A miniature poodle named Sage won the top prize Tuesday night at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, in what veteran handler Kaz Hosaka said would be his final time at the United States’ most prestigious canine event. After 45 years of competing and two best in show dogs, he plans to retire.

Sage notched the 11th triumph for poodles of various sizes at Westminster; only wire fox terriers have won more. The last miniature poodle to take the trophy was Spice, with Hosaka, in 2002.

“No words,” he said in the ring to describe his reaction to Sage’s win before supplying a few: “So happy — exciting.”

Striding briskly and proudly around the ring, the inky-black poodle “gave a great performance for me,” Hosaka added.

Sage bested six other finalists to take best in show. Second went to Mercedes, a German shepherd whose handler, Kent Boyles, also has shepherded a best in show winner before.

Others in the final round included Comet, a shih tzu who won the big American Kennel Club National Championship last year; Monty, a giant schnauzer who arrived at Westminster as the nation’s top-ranked dog and was a Westminster finalist last year; Louis, an Afghan hound; Micah, a black cocker spaniel; and Frankie, a colored bull terrier.

While Sage was going around the ring, a protester carrying a sign urging people to “boycott breeders” tried to climb in and was quickly intercepted by security personnel. Police and the animal rights group PETA said three demonstrators were arrested. Charges have not yet been decided.

In an event where all competitors are champions in dog showing’s point system, winning can depend on subtleties and a standout turn at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, home of the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

The final lineup was “excellent, glorious,” best in show judge Rosalind Kramer said.

To Monty’s handler and co-owner, Katie Bernardin, “just to be in the ring with everyone else is an honor.”

“We all love our dogs. We’re trying our best,” she said in the ring after Monty’s semifinal win. “A stallion” of a dog, he’s solid, powerful and “very spirited,” said Bernardin of Chaplin, Connecticut.

So spirited that while Bernardin was pregnant, she did obedience and other dog sports with Monty because he needed the stimulation.

Dogs first compete against others of their breed. Then the winner of each breed goes up against others in its “group.” The seven group winners meet in the final round.

The best in show winner gets a trophy and a place in dog-world history, but no cash prize.

Besides the winners, there were other dogs that were hits with the crowd. A lagotto Romagnolo named Harry earned a chuckle from the stadium audience by sitting up and begging for a treat from his handler, and a vizsla named Fletcher charmed spectators by jumping up on its handler after finishing a spin around the ring.

There were big cheers, too, for a playful great Pyrenees called Sebastian and a Doberman pinscher named Emilio.

Other dogs that vied in vain for a spot in the finals included Stache, a Sealyham terrier. He won the National Dog Show that was televised on Thanksgiving and took top prize at a big terrier show in Pennsylvania last fall.

Stache showcases a rare breed that’s considered vulnerable to extinction even in its native Britain.

“They’re a little-known treasure,” said Stache’s co-owner, co-breeder and handler, Margery Good of Cochranville, Pennsylvania, who has bred “Sealys” for half a century. Originally developed in Wales to hunt badgers and other burrowing game, the terriers with a “fall” of hair over their eyes are courageous but comedic — Good dubs them “silly hams.”

Westminster can feel like a study in canine contrasts. Just walking around, a visitor could see a Chihuahua peering out of a carrying bag at a stocky Neapolitan mastiff, a ring full of honey-colored golden retrievers beside a lineup of stark-black giant schnauzers, and handlers with dogs far larger than themselves.

Shane Jichetti was one of them. Ralphie, the 175-pound (34-kg) great Dane she co-owns, outweighs her by a lot. It takes considerable experience to show so big an animal, but “if you have a bond with your dog, and you just go with it, it works out,” she said.

Plus Ralphie, for all his size, is “so chill,” said Jichetti. Playful at home on New York’s Staten Island, he’s spot-on — just like his harlequin-pattern coat — when it’s time to go in the ring.

“He’s just an honest dog,” Jichetti said.

The Westminster show, which dates to 1877, centers on the traditional purebred judging that leads to the best in show prize. But over the last decade, the club has added agility and obedience events open to mixed-breed dogs.

And this year, the agility competition counted its first non-purebred winner, a border collie-papillon mix named Nimble.

And Kramer, the best in show judge, made a point of thanking “every dog, whether it’s a house dog or a show dog.

“Because you make our lives whole.”

Associated Press photographer Julia Nikhinson contributed.

But purebreds won every year — until Saturday, when a border collie-papillion mix aptly named Nimble outran and outmaneuvered 50 other finalists to seize the trophy and plant a flag for blended-breed dogs everywhere.

“She just tries hard, and she’s a wonderful dog,” handler Cynthia Hornor told The Associated Press this week.

Just about a foot (30.5 cm) tall, Nimble powered through an obstacle course of jumps, tunnels, ramps and other features like a furry, black-and-white, well-targeted torpedo to cheers from the crowd in the agility finals.

Victory goes to the fastest canine, with penalties for any goofs in clearing the obstacles. Handlers run alongside to signal their dogs where to go. A time under 30 seconds is notable.

Nimble had a flawless run in 28.76 seconds, over a second ahead of her closest competitor, a border collie called Vanish. Border collies have dominated in prior years, and no dog as small as Nimble had ever won before.

“I wasn’t sure it was possible,” said Hornor, an agility trainer from Ellicott City, Maryland, who won the agility contest last year with a border collie named Truant. Truant also competed this year, but Hornor thinks he wasn’t jealous of Nimble’s win: “Truant loves her.”

Nimble was deliberately bred from two breeds that are known for their agility chops. The sport’s devotees even have a term for the mix: “border paps.”

Still, her win amplifies Westminster’s pledge to celebrate all dogs.

“We were thrilled” to see what the show world calls an “all-American” winner, club President Donald Sturz said.

The Westminster show, which dates to 1877, included a few mixed-breeds in its early days but soon became a purebred-only event. It centers on breed-by-breed judging that leads to the coveted best in show award.

In adding agility in 2014, the club embraced a fast-growing sport — and a way to broaden its tent, attract a bigger audience of dog lovers and provide something of a retort to longstanding criticism from animal-rights activists who view Westminster as a wrongheaded canine beauty contest for the pedigreed set. The agility contest includes a special prize for the top mixed-breed competitor.

As for Nimble, she might be a special speedster mix, but she’s also a regular dog that loves swimming, hiking and just hanging out, Hornor said.

“She’s a great dog to live with,” she said. “She’s calm — until she goes out there.”

She had developed severe kidney problems after contracting Lyme disease, despite being on medications meant to repel the ticks that carry the bacteria that cause it. Veterinarians weren’t sure she would survive.

Yet on Monday, Frankie was at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, healthy and ready to compete. She would face off against over a dozen other Afghan hounds — including the winner of last month’s World Dog Show in Croatia — for a chance to advance to the next round of the United States’ most prestigious canine event.

“It was really tough,” Mary Ann Giordano said, her voice halting as she described Frankie’s eight-monthlong ordeal. “But she made it.”

For all the pooch pageantry of Westminster — the coiffed poodles, the top-knotted toy dogs, the formality of dogs trotting around a ring — it’s also an illustration of the bond people form with dogs, and what each will do for the other.

Like setting up an array of box fans and even a portable dehumidifier to get a puli’s long, thick cords dry after a bath, a process that can take 24 hours, in Valarie Cheimis’ experience. The cords form naturally, though owners aid the process by separating them.

Why go through all that?

“These are fun dogs. They’re full of personality,” Cheimis said as she petted Csoki, one of her pulik (the proper plural), ahead of ring time.

Sure, the Hungarian herding breed can be stubborn and barky, Cheimis said, but Csoki also looks after her geese and chickens at home in Kingfield, Maine, even lying down next to the goslings.

Mister, a bloodhound who won a merit award in his breed Monday, also puts his breed’s ancient instincts to work. He’s qualified to trail missing people, though his calls so far have been resolved before they got into the field, said co-owner, breeder and handler Renee Wagner, of Niagara Falls, New York.

The 148th Westminster show kicked off Saturday with an agility competition — won by a mixed-breed dog for the first time since Westminster added the event in 2014. Nimble, the winner, was handled by Cynthia Hornor, who took the trophy with a border collie last year.

Monday marked the start of the traditional judging that leads to the best in show prize, to be awarded Tuesday night. Semifinals begin Monday night, pitting the winners of each breed against others in their “group,” such as hounds or herding dogs.

The 2,500-plus first-round entrants range from tiny Yorkshire terriers to towering great Danes. They include a newly added breed, the Lancashire heeler, represented Monday by a single contestant named Mando.

If he knew a lot was riding on his little shoulders, he didn’t show it as he appeared in the first-round ring and someone in the audience yelled, “Yay! History!”

“He just has a rock-star attitude,” handler Jessica Plourde said afterward.

The show also was a first for Alfredo Delgado and Maria Davila, who had traveled from Juncos, Puerto Rico, with their French bulldog, Duncan.

Their path started when Delgado’s brother found a lost Frenchie. It was soon reunited with its owner, but Delgado was intrigued by the breed.

Fast-forward some years, and he was in the Westminster ring as Duncan’s breeder, owner and handler, with Davila cheering him on.

“We made a dream come true to be here,” Davila said afterward. “To share with experienced people in the ring — that was awesome.”

Westminster routinely attracts a roster of dog showing’s heavy hitters. This year’s field includes Stache, a Sealyham terrier who won the National Dog Show televised last Thanksgiving, and Comet, a shih tzu who won the huge American Kennel Club National Championship that was televised on Dec. 31.

Comet is “just everything you would want in a shih tzu,” co-owner, breeder and handler Luke Ehricht said after Comet won his breed Monday morning. With a flowing coat like a vanilla-and-caramel ice cream sundae that’s melting onto the table, the dog looked up at his handler with the sweet expression that’s prized in the breed.

“He’s a very sweet, loving dog” who knows when it’s time to perform and when it’s time to relax, said Ehricht, of Monclova, Ohio.

Later, Frankie, the recovered Afghan hound, and her littermate Belle stood side-by-side in their breed’s ring. So did the Giordanos, an Annandale, New Jersey, couple who have been side-by-side since high school. David handled Frankie, while his wife led Belle.

Both dogs took jaunty spins around the ring, but neither won. Nor did the recent World Dog Show winner, named Zaida. The ribbon went to another highly ranked Afghan, named Louis.

“This breed’s supposed to be ‘the king of dogs,’ and he knows he is,” handler and co-owner Alicia Jones said.