Sean Combs will be sentenced on Oct. 3, a judge decided on Tuesday.
Last week, a jury found Mr. Combs guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, charges that were related to hiring and arranging travel for male escorts to have sex with his girlfriends in voyeuristic encounters known as “freak-offs” and “hotel nights.” The music mogul was acquitted on the most serious counts, sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, after an eight-week trial.
Mr. Combs faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but it is unusual for federal judges to assign the maximum punishment. The time that Mr. Combs will have already served in jail, which will be one year at the time of sentencing, would be credited to the ultimate sentence.
Prosecutors have said that based on their preliminary calculations, federal sentencing guidelines indicate a range of at least 51 to 63 months’ imprisonment, or four and a quarter to five and a quarter years. But the government could ask for more time. Sentencing guidelines are used to create a penalty range based on various factors, including the nature of the offense, specifics of the case and personal characteristics of the defendant, such as the person’s criminal history.
Using the same guidelines, Mr. Combs’s defense team calculated a very different range: between 21 and 27 months, where the top in that range would be just over two years.
After the verdict last week, Judge Arun Subramanian, who oversaw the trial, denied Mr. Combs’s request for release on bail, citing the defense’s own admissions that its client had been responsible for domestic violence.
The counts on which Mr. Combs was convicted, which fall under a federal law known as the Mann Act, are far less severe than the sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges he had faced at trial.
Under those charges, prosecutors accused Mr. Combs of coercing two women into drug-fueled sex sessions with male escorts, and using violence and threats to keep them compliant. The government also sought to prove that Mr. Combs operated a criminal enterprise of loyal aides who helped him carry out crimes over a period of two decades, including kidnapping, arson and bribery, as well as procuring drugs and handling other logistics for the freak-offs.
If convicted on those counts, Mr. Combs faced a possible sentence of up to life in prison.
The defense argued that the sex at the heart of the case was consensual, and that Mr. Combs’s employees were working for a lawful business, running errands for and managing the life of a celebrity.
Judge Subramanian will have wide latitude over Mr. Combs’s ultimate sentence.
A key question is whether the judge will impose a more severe sentence based on Mr. Combs’s pattern of physical violence. At trial, Casandra Ventura, who was in a decade-long relationship with Mr. Combs, testified that he repeatedly beat her, leaving her at times with bruising, black eyes and swollen lips.
“If he was charged with domestic violence we wouldn’t all be here having a trial because he would have pled guilty — because he did that,” Marc Agnifilo, Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer, said during the defense’s closing argument.
The other former girlfriend at the center of the case, who took the stand under the pseudonym “Jane,” testified that an explosive fight in June 2024 left her with welts on her head and a black eye.
The defense has argued that Mr. Combs had taken steps to address his problem with violence, telling the judge last week that before his arrest, he attended meetings at a “batterers’ program” in New York called Urban Resource Institute. Mr. Agnifilo said an official with the program would likely be asked to speak at the sentencing about Mr. Combs’s efforts.
In seeking a shorter sentence, the defense has argued that Mr. Combs is an unusual case because he was not a defendant who made money through prostitution, but rather someone who used prostitution services.
“I think we have very strong arguments for a reasonable sentence in this case,” Mr. Agnifilo said in court after the verdict last week.
The prosecution has said it will ask the judge to consider evidence of violence, as well as drug use, in evaluating the sentence. Maurene Comey, the lead prosecutor in the case, cited the episode of violence in June 2024, when Mr. Combs knew he was under criminal investigation, and the fact that the government recovered drugs from Mr. Combs’s hotel room, where he was staying in anticipation of being arrested. Mr. Combs also continued to violate the Mann Act, hiring and transporting escorts for sex, while he was under investigation, Ms. Comey said.
“There is nothing exceptional about this case,” she said, “except for his continued criminality and his willingness to violate the law.”
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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