Sean ‘ Diddy ‘ Combs is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday following his conviction on two counts of arranging interstate travel for people engaged in prostitution
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been denied an acquittal and a new trial. The rapper, 55, will be sentenced late this week in Manhattan after his conviction on two counts of arranging interstate travel for people engaged in prostitution.
Diddy was found guilty of the two counts above but he was acquitted of the more serious offences of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. If he had have been found guilty, these could have resulted in a life sentence.
Diddy’s team had originally requested that the judge conduct a new trial based only on the prostitution charges as they claimed he was unjustly charged under the Mann Act for consensual sexual activity between adults.
However, an acquittal and new trial request has been denied. US District Judge Arun Subramanian wrote in new court documents: “The government at trial presented overwhelming evidence of Combs’s guilt under the Mann Act on many occasions with respect to both Ventura and Jane. The government proved its case many times over. That by itself might be enough to dispose of Combs’s challenge”, according to The New York Times newspaper.
Diddy faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the two counts of arranging interstate travel for people engaged in prostitution. His defence attorneys have asked that he is sentenced to no more than 14 months in prison, which with good behaviour would mean an immediate release from prison.
The prosecution have asked the judge to sentence Diddy to a minimum of 11 years and three months in prison.
During an eight week long trial, the jury heard testimony from Diddy’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and a woman who used the pseudonym Jane. In a three-page victim impact statement ahead of his sentencing, she wrote: “For four days in May, while nine months pregnant with my son, I testified in front of a packed courtroom about the most traumatic and horrifying chapter in my life.
“I testified that from age nineteen, Sean Combs used violence, threats, substances, and control over my career to trap me in over a decade of abuse. He groomed me into performing repeated sex acts with hired male sex workers during multi-day ‘freak offs,’ which occurred nearly weekly.
I was made to wear lingerie and heels, given exactly how to look, and given drugs and alcohol so he could manipulate me like a puppet. Before he demanded it all again, I had infections, illnesses, and days of physical and emotional exhaustion because these things were degrading and disgusting. My only option to stay in his good graces was to perform sex acts, which became my full-time job.
