Diddy’s Legal Team Seeks Release, Challenges Four-Year Sentence in Mann Act Case
A federal appeals court is now considering a request for the immediate release of hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, or a reduction of his four-year prison sentence, following his conviction under the Mann Act. Lawyers for Combs filed an appeal late Tuesday, arguing that the sentencing judge improperly considered evidence related to charges of which he was acquitted.
The case centers around Combs, 56, currently incarcerated at a federal prison in New Jersey with a scheduled release date of May 2028. While acquitted of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in July, he was convicted of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits the interstate transportation of individuals for illicit sexual purposes.
According to the filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Combs’ legal team contends that Judge Arun Subramanian acted as a “thirteenth juror” during sentencing in October. They allege the judge allowed evidence from the acquitted charges to unduly influence the severity of the punishment.
“Defendants typically get sentenced to less than 15 months for these offenses — even when coercion, which the jury didn’t find here, is involved,” the lawyers wrote in their appeal. They are requesting the appeals court to either overturn the conviction, order Combs’ immediate release, or direct Judge Subramanian to reconsider a lighter sentence.
The core of the argument rests on the disparity between the charges Combs faced and the ultimate conviction. He was found guilty of two lesser prostitution offenses that did not require proof of force, fraud, or coercion. The legal team asserts that the judge’s sentencing decision effectively disregarded the jury’s verdict.
During sentencing, Judge Subramanian detailed his consideration of Combs’ treatment of two former girlfriends who testified about alleged abuse and coercion. One, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, testified that Combs compelled her to engage in sexual acts with strangers on hundreds of occasions during their decade-long relationship, which ended in 2018. Jurors were presented with video evidence depicting Combs physically assaulting Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway following one such encounter.
Another former girlfriend, identified only as “Jane,” testified that she was pressured into sexual encounters with male sex workers during events Combs referred to as “hotel nights” – drug-fueled encounters lasting multiple days between 2021 and 2024.
Judge Subramanian, at the time of sentencing, explicitly rejected the defense’s characterization of the events as consensual, stating, “You abused the power and control that you had over the lives of women you professed to love dearly. You abused them physically, emotionally, and psychologically. And you used that abuse to get your way, especially when it came to freak-offs and hotel nights.”
The appeal argues that these findings by the judge “trumped the verdict” and resulted in the harshest sentence ever imposed for a comparable offense. The court has not yet scheduled oral arguments in the case.
