The judge overseeing Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal proceedings did not grant the hip-hop star’s plea to dismiss his convictions related to prostitution on Tuesday, paving the way for his upcoming sentencing.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who presided over Combs’ eight-week federal trial in New York this summer, denied Combs’ request to discard his convictions on two charges of transporting individuals for prostitution purposes, with each charge potentially leading to a 10-year prison term.
Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
Federal prosecutors claimed that Combs orchestrated a decade-long “criminal enterprise,” compelling women to partake in prolonged, drug-induced sexual activities with male escorts, dubbed “freak-offs.”
Combs maintained his innocence by pleading not guilty to all five charges central to the trial, refuting the claims against him while being detained for over a year in a Brooklyn jail.
The jury cleared Combs of one count of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, averting a possible life sentence.
Ultimately, he was convicted under the Mann Act, a federal statute from 1910 that criminalizes the interstate transport of individuals for “immoral purposes.”
Combs’ lawyers argued at a hearing Thursday that the Mann Act didn’t apply to their client in part because he wasn’t running a “commercial business.”
They also insisted that the prosecution’s key witnesses — including ex-girlfriends Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman identified by the pseudonym “Jane” — willingly participated in the “freak-offs.”
“We are talking about adults having a threesome, bringing another adult into their private sex life,” Alexandra Shapiro, one of Combs’ defense lawyers, told Subramanian.
The prosecution tried to rebuff that narrative, telling Subramanian that the government has an “important and substantial” interest in cracking down on exactly the kind of interstate prostitution Combs was accused of orchestrating for his sexual encounters.
“The government proved the defendant transported Cassie and ‘Jane’ domestically and internationally so they could participate in prostitution,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik said. “The ‘freak-offs’ were about one thing: his sexual gratification, his personal pleasure.”
Subramanian previously denied Combs’ efforts to be released on bail, saying in part that he “fails to satisfy his burden to demonstrate an entitlement to release.”
