{"id":15591,"date":"2026-04-10T04:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/15591\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:11:10","slug":"sean-diddy-combss-lawyers-appeal-his-conviction-claiming-freak-offs-were-protected-by-1st-amendment-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/15591\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s lawyers appeal his conviction, claiming ‘freak offs’ were protected by 1st Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawyers for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, who has been serving a 50-month prison sentence for prostitution-related charges handed down last October<\/a>, appeared before a federal court in New York City on Thursday to appeal his conviction.<\/p>\n

Combs\u2019s attorneys requested his immediate release from prison and for his conviction under the Mann Act, a federal law criminalizing transportation to engage in \u200bprostitution, to be overturned. The music mogul, who has been serving his prison sentence at the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey, did not attend<\/a> Thursday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n

His legal team claims that the judge imposed an overly harsh sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case presents an important issue about a respect for jury verdicts and public confidence in our criminal justice system,\u201d defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro told a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Shapiro said in court filings<\/a> that U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who oversaw last summer\u2019s high-profile trial, should not \u2060have considered evidence involving fraud and sexual coercion in his sentencing because those allegations were rejected by a jury last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendants typically get sentenced to less than 15 months for these offenses \u2014 even when coercion, which the jury didn\u2019t find here, is involved,\u201d Combs\u2019s lawyers argued in court papers. \u201cBut Combs got a sentence more than three times as long, despite the acquittals. He sits in prison today, serving a 50-month sentence, because the district judge acted as a thirteenth juror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Combs\u2019s lawyers also argued in court filings that the recordings Combs orchestrated with girlfriends and male sex workers were \u201chighly choreographed sexual performances\u201d that were basically \u201camateur pornography,\u201d and should be protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

In court papers<\/a>, prosecutor Christy Slavik defended Subramanian\u2019s decision to consider evidence of Combs\u2019s threats and abuse toward former girlfriends \u2014 even though he was acquitted of sex trafficking charges \u2014 because his conduct was still relevant to the prostitution counts of which he was convicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to Combs, the District Court should have closed its eyes to how he carried out his Mann Act \u200boffenses and abused his victims,\u201d Slavik wrote.<\/p>\n

During last year\u2019s seven-week trial, federal prosecutors accused Combs of leading a criminal enterprise that \u201cabused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct,” according to the indictment<\/a>. Combs pleaded not guilty and denied all of the allegations against him.<\/p>\n

Last July, a jury found Combs guilty<\/a> on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution related to his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura and a victim who testified under the pseudonym \u201cJane.\u201d The jury also acquitted Combs of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking that could have seen him sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Combs says sorry to his family during his sentencing hearing after being convicted in New York City in October 2025.<\/p>\n

(Jane Rosenberg\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Combs faced a maximum of 20 years in prison for the two prostitution-related charges. Federal prosecutors asked for a sentence of more than 11 years in prison and to impose the maximum fine of $500,000. The defense sought a sentence of no more than 14 months in prison.<\/p>\n

Last October, in a Manhattan federal court, Subramanian ultimately handed down a sentence of 50 months \u2014 four years and two months \u2014 in prison. The judge also imposed a $500,000 fine and ordered five years of supervised release.<\/p>\n

The judge told the court at the time that a substantial sentence was needed \u201cto send a message to abusers and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subramanian said at the sentencing that he \u201crejects the defense\u2019s attempt to characterize what happened here as merely intimate, consensual experiences, or just a sex, drugs and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll story.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge told Combs directly, \u201cYou 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 \u2018freak offs\u2019 and hotel nights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal appeals court could either uphold Combs\u2019s conviction, order a new sentencing hearing or completely overturn the case.<\/p>\n

Combs\u2019s release date has fluctuated in recent months. It was recently moved from April 25, 2028, to April 15 of that year, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. He was originally scheduled for release in June, then May, of that year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawyers for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, who has been serving a 50-month prison sentence for prostitution-related charges handed down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2641,5390,1506,8,10033,9,10034,10032,10035,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-15591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-arun-subramanian","9":"tag-conviction","10":"tag-federal-court","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-jury-verdicts","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-prison-sentence","15":"tag-sean-diddy-combs","16":"tag-sexual-coercion","17":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116378460699744316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}