Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs were back in federal court on Thursday to appeal his prison sentence for his conviction on two prostitution-related charges.
Combs, 56, is currently serving more than four years in prison and received a fine of US$500,000, the maximum possible, for his conviction on federal prostitution-related offences in October. He will also be under five years’ supervised release after serving his prison time.
In July, Combs was found guilty of two counts of prostitution, including the transportation of his ex-girlfriend Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura to engage in prostitution. He was also found guilty of the transportation of another former girlfriend, who testified under the pseudonym “Jane,” for the same purposes.
The disgraced rap mogul’s legal team is currently trying to persuade federal appeals court judges that Combs was treated unfairly at the trial that sent him to prison, and that the First Amendment should win his freedom.
Combs’ lawyers say his conviction should be reversed, or he should at least be freed and resentenced to less time.
In written arguments reviewed by The Associated Press, his lawyers repeated claims they made before the trial judge, including an assertion that Combs’ films of sexual encounters between his girlfriends and male sex workers amounted to “amateur pornography” and were protected by the First Amendment. The lawyers said the term “prostitution” should be interpreted narrowly to exclude what they portray as voyeuristic and expressive activity.
They further argued that his sentence was “too harsh,” and said the trial judge wrongly based it in part on a conclusion that the crimes involved fraud and coercion and that Combs was a leader or organizer of criminal activity.
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The Bad Boy Records founder was acquitted in July of the top charges: racketeering and sex trafficking. The defence won three acquittals after he was found not guilty of running a criminal enterprise and two counts of sex trafficking.
Prosecutors oppose the arguments and said the sentence was fair. They also said that Combs’ recordings don’t make his case a free speech issue.
They said that if Combs was right in claiming that “creative,” “elaborate” and “highly staged” sex acts meant that they were protected by the First Amendment, then “brothels offering elaborate and staged scenes for individuals to have sex with women for payment could claim First Amendment protection.”
In his ruling in October, Judge Arun Subramanian said: “A history of good works can’t wash away the record in this case, which shows that you abused the power and control over the lives of women who you professed to love.”
Subramanian said a substantial sentence was required “to send a message to abusers and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability.”
Federal prosecutors had asked that Combs be sentenced to at least 11 years and three months in prison. Combs’ lawyers urged the judge to sentence him to no longer than 14 months, which would have resulted in his near-immediate release, as he had already served nearly 13 months in a Brooklyn jail at the time of sentencing.
In a letter to Subramanian ahead of his sentencing, Combs proclaimed himself to be a new man after realizing that he was “broken to my core.”
“Over the past year there have been so many times that I wanted to give up. There have been some days I thought I would be better off dead. The old me died in jail and a new version of me was reborn. Prison will change you or kill you — I choose to live,” he said.
Combs is currently scheduled to be released on April 15, 2028, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Since his conviction, his release date has repeatedly changed. In late October, his release date was May 8, 2028, and it changed again in November to June 4, 2028.
In November, Combs’ spokesperson Juda Engelmayer said that the rapper was participating in a drug rehabilitation program in prison that could help reduce his sentence by a year.
The program is offered at Fort Dix, the federal prison complex in New Jersey where Combs is serving his sentence.
Combs is “committed to sobriety, focused on healing, and trying to set an example for others,” Engelmayer told the New York Times.
“Mr. Combs is an active participant in the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP) and has taken his rehabilitation process seriously from the start,” Engelmayer said. “He is fully engaged in his work, focused on growth, and committed to positive change.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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