Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs asks US appeals court to overturn sentence

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Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs urged an appeals court Thursday to overturn the US hip-hop mogul’s prison term of more than four years for prostitution-related crimes.

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Combs, 56, was sentenced in October after a salacious trial that detailed the alleged “freak-offs” he organized: sexual marathons involving hired male escorts and his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura and another unidentified women.

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He was acquitted by a jury of the most serious charges against him — sex trafficking and racketeering — but convicted of two counts of transporting people across state lines for prostitution.

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The disgraced artist was not present at the Manhattan courthouse on Thursday as defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro sought to persuade a three-judge panel that Combs’s sentence of four years and two months was unfairly long for his crimes.

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“The evidence the judge was relying on was totally separate and in fact was acquitted conduct,” Shapiro said.

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She said District Judge Arun Subramanian should not have considered evidence that Combs made threats against Ventura and the other woman as it was related to the acquitted charges.

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Prosecutors disagreed and pointed to an instance where Combs showed Ventura he had videos of her engaging in sex parties hours before another “freak-off” in an apparent bid to ensure her continued participation.

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“These incidents are specifically tied to transportation,” prosecutor Christy Slavik told the court.

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In a sign of the complex legal arguments, Slavik at one point drew an analogy of pizza to highlight how certain “slices” of evidence were relevant to the ultimate sentencing decision.

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The court did not issue an immediate ruling in what one judge, William Nardini, called an “exceptionally difficult case.”

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Combs is also appealing his conviction though that was not discussed in detail on Thursday.

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He is being held in the low-security Fort Dix prison in New Jersey and is due for release in spring 2028.

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AFP

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