Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
lawyers A federal appeals court order for hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was urged. new york His immediate release from prison was ordered late Tuesday and his conviction on prostitution-related charges was overturned or his trial judge was directed to reduce his four-year sentence.
The lawyers said in a filing with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals manhattan Combs was treated harshly at sentencing by a federal judge, who gave evidence regarding charges of improperly influencing the sentence to be acquitted.
Combs, 56, was imprisoned in a federal prison. new Jersey and was scheduled for release in May 2028, having been acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in a trial that ended in July. Combs was convicted under the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across state lines for any sex crime.
Combs’ lawyers said Judge Arun Subramanian acted like a “thirteenth juror” in October when he sentenced Combs to four years and two months in prison. He said he made a mistake by allowing evidence related to acquitted charges to influence the sentence he handed down.
He noted that Combs was convicted of two lesser counts, prostitution offenses that did not require force, fraud or coercion. He asked the appeals court, which has not yet heard oral arguments, to acquit Combs, order his immediate release from prison or direct Subramaniam to commute his sentence.
“Defendants typically receive sentences of less than 15 months for these crimes – even when coercion is involved, which the jury did not find here,” the lawyers wrote.
“The judge disregarded the jury’s verdict and found that Combs ‘coerced,’ ‘exploited,’ and ‘forced’ his girlfriends to have sex and led a criminal conspiracy. These judicial findings trump the verdicts and result in the largest sentence ever handed down for any similar defendant,” the lawyers wrote.
At sentencing, Subramanian said that when calculating the prison term, he considered Combs’ dealings with two former girlfriends, who testified that the Bad Boy Records founder beat them and forced them to have sex with male sex workers while he watched and filmed the encounters, sometimes even masturbating.
At the trial, former girlfriend Cassandra “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 watched video of him being dragged and beaten after one such “freak-off” in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel.
Second ex-girlfriend, who testified under a pseudonym jane,” said she was pressured to have sex with male employees during what Combs called “hotel nights,” drug-fueled sexual encounters that could last for days, from 2021 to 2024.
At sentencing, Subramanian said he “rejects the defense’s attempt to portray what happened here as merely an intimate, consensual experience, or just a sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll story.”
He added: “You abused your power and control over the lives of women you loved deeply. You abused them physically, emotionally and psychologically. And you used that abuse to get your way, especially when it came to fun and hotel nights.”