Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been sentenced to a prison term exceeding four years for his involvement in a prostitution case, signifying a dramatic downfall for the disgraced music mogul.

At 55, the producer lowered his head in silence while Judge Arun Subramanian delivered the 50-month sentence in a Manhattan court on Friday, as Diddy’s tearful family observed from the gallery.

Diddy has been in custody since September 2024. With the 13 months he has already spent behind bars, he is on course to be freed in November 2028.  

The judge also imposed a $500,000 fine, criticizing Diddy for his ‘brutal’ mistreatment of former partner Cassie Ventura. He emphasized that the sentence was meant to set an example due to the ‘lasting damage’ inflicted on his victims.

Though Diddy was not officially charged with any crime against Ventura, notorious footage of him assaulting her exists, and Friday’s events might offer some comfort to the victimized model.

“A discouragement needs a substantial sentence,” the judge remarked, pointing out that Diddy continued hosting ‘freak offs’ even after facing search warrants and public condemnation for his actions against Ventura.

The producer remained impassive and shocked as the judge delivered his ruling, gazing ahead while being condemned for the physical, emotional, and psychological harm inflicted on his victims.

‘You abused the power and control you had over the lives of women you professed to love dearly,’ the judge said. ‘Why did it go on so long? Because you had the power and resources to keep it going.’  

The decision came following a tumultuous sentencing hearing that went from bad to worse for Diddy, with the judge deciding at the start of the day he would still consider evidence from sex trafficking and racketeering charges that he was cleared of back in July. 

A courtroom sketch artist showed the star mirroring the iconic ‘Scream’ painting during the proceedings as it appeared to dawn on him that he was facing a lengthy stint in prison. 

Prosecutors then told the judge Diddy had arrogantly arranged speaking arrangements for Monday in Miami, suggesting he didn’t believe he was going to spend any more time behind bars at all. 

Diddy’s attorney Nicole Westmoreland broke down in tears in her floundering argument for a light sentence, claiming he deserved leniency because he was awarded Menswear Designer of the Year by the American Fashion Council in 2004.

‘It wasn’t just about an award, it was about breaking barriers,’ she said, as courtroom reporters said she appeared to start crying. 

The sentence handed down on Friday completes the disgrace of the 55-year-old who was once one of the most powerful men in the entertainment industry. 

The judge repeatedly praised Ventura in his closing speech to Combs and said he admired her bravery in coming forward. 

Ventura’s attorney, Douglar Wigdor, told the Daily Mail in a statement after the sentencing that the entire trial was thanks to Ventura’s ‘courage to file her civil complaint in November 2023’, which triggered the criminal investigation into Combs. 

‘Although the jury did not find Combs guilty of sex trafficking Cassie beyond a reasonable doubt, she paved the way for a jury to find him guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution,’ he said. 

‘By coming forward with her experience, Cassie has left an indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice. We must repeat – with no reservation – that we believe and support our client who showed exemplary courage throughout this trial. 

‘She displayed unquestionable strength and brought attention to the realities of powerful men in our orbit and the misconduct that has persisted for decades without repercussion. 

‘This case proved that change is long overdue, and we will continue to fight on behalf of survivors.’ 

Diddy’s explosive courtroom saga came to a close with today’s sentencing two years after his arrest and following an eight-week trial. He was facing up to 20 years behind bars. 

His freedom ended on the night of September 16, 2024, when he was arrested by Homeland Security officials at the Park Hyatt hotel in midtown Manhattan.

And he’s been locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ever since, originally charged with racketeering and sex trafficking. 

But the jury threw out the most serious charges after three days of deliberation only finding him guilty of two charges of transporting former girlfriend Cassie Ventura and another woman for the purpose of prostitution.

Texts from Ventura saying she enjoyed the freak-offs fatally-weakened that charge. Horrific surveillance footage showed Diddy beating her up in 2016, but he was never charged over that incident.  

The blockbuster trial mesmerized the world as prosecutors and his defense teams went over the mountains of eye-popping evidence from gut-wrenching victim testimony, which involved 1,000s of bottle of baby oil and the infamous 2016 hotel security footage showing him beating Ventura. 

Ventura, who was eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, took the stand to testify that the music mogul subjected her to physical and psychological abuse spanning more than a decade, from 2007 to 2018.

She recounted the regular beatings she allegedly endured, along with claims that he used blackmail and intimidation to coerce and control her, forced her into degrading sex acts, and left her with lasting medical consequences.

Ventura concluded her testimony on May 16, just 11 days before she went into labor.

Diddy did not testify during the trial, but he occasionally seemed eager to speak, even going so far as to interrupt the judge at one point. 

During that instance, Diddy cut off Judge Arun Subramanian to tell him that he would not be testifying towards the end of his trial on June 24.

The judge asked Diddy: ‘Have you discussed whether you should or should not?’

‘Yes, thoroughly. Yes, have discussed it,’ the rapper replied, in his first words to the Manhattan court after seven weeks of evidence.

Judge Subramanian began to speak before Diddy cut him off and added: ‘That is solely my decision. It’s my decision with my lawyers.’

Another shocking moment in the trial came from testimony by security guard Eddy Garcia, who described his brutal assault on Ventura in the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles. 

Garcia recounted in vivid detail how the hip-hop mogul used a counting machine to tally $100,000 in cash from a paper bag to bribe him into deleting video footage from the hotel’s servers and providing a copy on a USB stick. 

Diddy even called him ‘Eddy, my angel’ for his efforts. 

Garcia testified that the cash was ultimately divided between himself, another security officer, and the hotel’s head of security. 

Then there was the testimony of rapper Kid Cudi, who  had an affair with Ventura in 2011, while she was still dating Diddy. He told the court a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the roof of his convertible – burning through the seats and creating a hole in its soft top. 

Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, testified that he was first alerted by his dog sitter that his driveway was on fire, and later tipped off by one of Diddy’s associates that the rap mogul had broken into his home after he has found out about the affair.

When Cudi arrived back home, he found items in disarray and his ‘jittery’ and ‘anxious’ dog locked in the bathroom. 

The associate who tipped off Cudi turned out to be his former personal assistant, Capricorn Clark, who testified about the abhorrent abuse she experienced at the hands of Diddy. 

She claimed her life had been threatened multiple times by the rap mogul, once when she was locked in an abandoned building in New York while she was questioned over missing diamond jewelry.

She was confined for days, she said, and forced to take lie detector tests. One of Diddy’s henchmen told her that if she failed, they would throw her in the East River. 

Clark was also forced to come with Diddy to Mescudi’s house when he broke in. When Diddy pulled up to the house at 5.30am to grab her, he said: ‘Get dressed we’re going to go kill this n*****’.

When Clark resisted, Diddy told her: ‘I don’t give a f*** what you want to do. Go get dressed’.

But the heart of the case concerning the sex trafficking charges relied on claims from Diddy’s ex-girlfriends, Ventura and ‘Jane,’ who testified under a pseudonym.

Both claimed they were forced to take part in ‘Freak Offs’ and the jury was shown multiple clips of them, during which one female juror grimaced, while another put her hand to her face.

The X-rated material was not released to the public.

Despite around 70 letters showing support pouring in from family and friends, Diddy’s push for early release was an uphill battle, as the judge had already turned down a $50million bail proposal and ordered him to stay in custody in the Brooklyn detention center until Friday’s sentencing. 

But Diddy escaped the most serious charges that could have landed him being bars for life: racketeering and two counts of sex trafficking.

Instead, the hip-hop mogul was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, related to flying male escorts around for ‘Freak Offs.’ 

These disturbing events, which spanned more than a decade, involved Diddy paying the ‘entertainers’ hundreds of dollars each time to have sex with his girlfriends while he watched, directed and masturbated.

The verdict shocked those watching, but Diddy appeared elated, dropping to his knees and praying in court once his fate was read aloud, leaning his head against the chair he had been sitting on. 

This moment of relief for Diddy came after more than six weeks of evidence at the trial in New York which began amid fears it would expose Hollywood’s darkest secrets.

The jury of eight men and four women heard from 34 witnesses including two of Diddy’s ex-girlfriends and six of his former personal assistants.

Prosecutors painted a picture of a mob-like figure who threatened to kill people if they spoke out against him and ran a ‘criminal enterprise’ that covered it up.

Combs’s latest move to sway Judge Subramanian came in a four-page letter that was made public on Thursday.

In it he said he had had to ‘look in the mirror like never before’.

‘I have to admit, my downfall was rooted in my selfishness,’ he wrote.

‘The scene and images of me assaulting Cassie play over and over in my head daily. I literally lost my mind. I was dead wrong for putting my hands on the woman that I loved. I’m sorry for that and always will be.’

He also confessed his time in prison had got him sober for the first time in 25 years. 

‘I lost my way. I got lost in my journey. Lost in the drugs and the excess.’

And he added: ‘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 described prison life as being locked in a room with 25 other inmates – a far cry from the privileged life he led on the outside. 

‘In this room that I share, there are no windows, there is no natural/clean air, there is no sunlight and we all live in one room. We eat, sleep, use the toilet, take showers, and prepare meals all in the same room.’

But he was careful not to lay the blame for his fate on anyone but himself. ‘I am not expecting pity or sympathy, but my time at MDC has changed me forever!’ he wrote.

‘I started from nothing and worked hard to earn everything I had. But because of my conduct, I have lost all of my businesses. I have lost my career. I lost the charter schools that I started and I have destroyed my reputation and stained the reputation of those that worked for me.’

At the trial, dozens of celebrities were named but none implicated in criminal wrongdoing and only one turned up to support Diddy, Kanye West, who briefly appeared in court.

Until his arrest, Diddy had been one of the biggest names in R&B and hip hop and won three Grammys during his decades-long career.

Among the artists that he helped to launch was Mary J Blige, The Notorious B.I.G – Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez, whom Diddy once dated.

Diddy, a father of seven, also had an empire outside of his music including a deal with UK drinks giant Diageo to promote the French vodka brand Ciroc.

He released his fifth album in 2023 under the name ‘Love’ called ‘The Love Album: Off the Grid’ – Diddy won his first solo nomination for it at the Grammy Awards that year.

He also was named a Global Icon at the MTV Awards the same year.