NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs faces sentencing Friday in a sordid legal case that might preserve him locked up for years.
The hip-hop mogul was convicted in July of flying folks across the nation for sexual encounters, together with his girlfriends and male intercourse staff, in violation of the federal Mann Act.
A jury acquitted Combs, 55, of extra severe racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking expenses that might have put him away for all times.
Prosecutors say he ought to spend greater than 11 years in jail for his conviction on two counts of transportation to have interaction in prostitution. Combs’ legal professionals need him freed now, saying the lengthy sentence sought by prosecutors is “wildly out of proportion” to the crime.
U.S. District Decide Arun Subramanian, who will determine the sentence, has signaled that Combs is unlikely to be freed quickly. He twice rejected bail for the rapper, who has been jailed at a federal detention heart in Brooklyn since his arrest a 12 months in the past.
The sentencing comes after an almost two-month trial that includes testimony from girls who described being crushed, threatened, sexually assaulted and blackmailed by Combs.
A former girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, stated Combs ordered her to have “disgusting” intercourse with strangers lots of of occasions throughout their decade-long relationship.
The jury was repeatedly proven video clips of Combs dragging and beating Cassie in a Los Angeles resort hallway after a type of multiday sexual marathons, which she known as “freak-offs” throughout her 4 days of testimony.
A girl who testified beneath the pseudonym “Jane” advised jurors she too was subjected to violence and felt obligated to carry out sexually with male intercourse staff at drug-fueled “hotel nights” whereas Combs watched and typically filmed.
To help their racketeering case, prosecutors additionally introduced on witnesses who testified about different violent acts. A former private assistant testified that Combs raped her. Certainly one of Cassie’s associates advised the jury Combs dangled her from a seventeenth ground balcony. The rapper Child Cudi testified that Combs broke into his dwelling after studying he and Cassie had been relationship.
Though the jury acquitted Combs of racketeering, the decide can nonetheless think about that testimony as he decides the sentence.
Subramanian can be contemplating letters submitted by Combs and a few of his accusers.
In his letter to the decide Thursday, Combs promised he would by no means commit one other crime if launched, saying, “The old me died in jail and a new version of me was reborn.”
In her letter, Cassie referred to as Combs a manipulative abuser who has “no interest in changing or becoming better.”
“He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is,” she wrote.
A former private assistant who stated Combs raped her in 2010 requested Subramanian to ship a sentence “that takes into account the ongoing danger my abuser poses to me, and to others.” The previous assistant, who testified beneath the pseudonym “Mia,” is predicted to talk at Friday’s sentencing.
Combs will handle the court docket, in keeping with court docket filings. His protection staff can be planning to play a 15-minute video.
Combs’ legal professionals say the sexual encounters had been consensual and that being in jail has hastened Combs’ sobriety and compelled him to study from his misbehavior. They’ve stated there is no such thing as a want for him to stay behind bars as a result of he has already been punished sufficient.
At a court docket listening to final week, Combs appeared buoyant, as he advised his mom and kids that he’s “getting closer to going home.”
