Give up? Not Diddy! Lawyers for Sean Combs urged a federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday evening (Dec. 23) to order his immediate release from prison. The latest appeal also asked the court to vacate his conviction on prostitution-related charges or order the trial judge to reduce his four-year sentence.
RELATED: Not This Mom! Janice Combs denies Diddy slapped her following allegations in Netflix docuseries
Diddy targets trial judge on appeal
Diddy’s lawyers said in a filing with the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan that his trial judge, Arun Subramaniantreated him harshly during sentencing. The documents claim Judge Subramanian allowed evidence related to his acquitted charges to unfairly influence the sentence.
Sean Combs is incarcerated in a federal prison in New Jersey and is expected to be released in May 2028. He was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges in a trial that ended in July. A jury convicted Diddy under the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of people across state lines for any sex crime.
Combs’ lawyers said Judge Arun Subramanian acted as a “thirteenth juror” in October when he sentenced Combs to four years and two months in prison. They said the judge erred in letting the evidence surrounding the acquitted charges influence the sentence he imposed.
What are combs looking for?
Additionally, attorneys noted that Diddy was convicted of two lesser counts, prostitution offenses that did not require force, fraud or coercion. They asked the appeals court, which has yet to hear oral arguments, to acquit Sean Combs, order his immediate release or order Subramanian to reduce his sentence.
“Defendants are generally sentenced to less than 15 months in prison for these offenses, even when duress, which the jury did not find here, is involved,” the attorneys wrote.
Furthermore, the lawyers wrote: “The judge defied the jury’s verdict and concluded that Combs had been ‘coerced,’ ‘exploited,’ and ‘forced’ his girlfriends to have sex and that he had led a criminal conspiracy. These legal findings overshadowed the verdict and led to the highest sentence ever imposed on a similarly charged defendant.”
What did Judge Arun Subramanian say during sentencing?
In sentencing, Judge Subramanian said that when calculating the prison term, he took into account Combs’ treatment of two former girlfriends who testified that the Bad Boy Records founder beat them and forced them to have sex with sex workers while he watched and filmed the encounters, sometimes masturbating.
At trial, former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura testified that Combs ordered her to have “disgusting” sex with strangers hundreds of times during their decade-long relationship that ended in 2018. Jurors saw video of him dragging and beating her in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel after such a days-long “panic.”
The second former girlfriend, who testified under the pseudonym “Jane,” said she was pressured to have sex with male workers during what Combs called “hotel nights,” drug-fueled sex from 2021 to 2024 that could also last several days.
At sentencing, Subramanian said he “rejects the defense’s attempt to characterize what happened here as merely intimate, consensual experiences, or simply a story of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.”
He added: “You abused the power and control you had over the lives of women you claimed to love deeply. You abused them physically, emotionally and psychologically. And you used that abuse to get what you want, especially when it involved scares and hotel nights.”
Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
What do you think of roommates?
