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- Sean Combs launched a business class for fellow inmates at his Brooklyn jail, his lawyers said.
- The “Free Game with Diddy” 6-week course was meant to teach “essential” business management skills.
- Combs’ attorneys mentioned the class in a lengthy presentencing submission.
Sean “Diddy” Combs went from embattled music mogul to jailhouse mentor.
While locked up at a notorious federal jail in Brooklyn, Combs launched a 6-week business course called “Free Game with Diddy” in order to “spread his knowledge to his fellow inmates,” Combs’ attorneys said in new court papers.
“Mr. Combs scripted a 15-page class plan for the course, which is an educational program designed to equip participants with essential skills in business management, entrepreneurship and personal development,” his lawyers wrote in a presentencing submission that made a plea for leniency.
The 55-year-old businessman and rapper, once worth close to a billion dollars, developed the curriculum for the course before his recent Manhattan federal trial in which he was convicted of prostitution-related charges, Combs’ attorneys said in the late Monday filing.
Combs’ course was offered to all those in his dorm at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where former crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried was housed up until March, and where accused CEO killer Luigi Manigone remains behind bars.
The class also had a Spanish interpreter, “so everyone who wanted to participate had the opportunity to do so,” Combs’ lawyers wrote in the court documents.
“Because there are no other educational courses offered at MDC, ‘Free Game with Diddy’ had a substantial impact on many fellow inmates,” his attorneys added.
The Bureau of Prisons, which runs MDC where Combs has been locked up since his arrest and indictment more than a year ago, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Combs’ lawyers said in the court papers that despite the Bad Boy Records founder’s “many professional successes,” Combs “counts his Free Game course as one of the most impactful and important endeavors of his life.”
“He hopes to continue with and expand and improve upon this curriculum in the future,” Combs’ attorneys wrote. “His goal is to implement this program on a grander scale upon his release with programming to extend to youth in the community as well as in state operated facilities.”
At Combs’ trial, the jury cleared him of the top charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, sparing him from a possible sentence of life in prison.
In the 182-page Monday court filing, Combs’ attorneys made their argument for why they believe Combs should be released with a punishment of time served at his coming October 3 sentencing.
“He has served over a year in one of the most notorious jails in America—yet has made the most of that punishment,” the lawyers wrote. “It is time for Mr. Combs to go home to his family, so he can continue his treatment and try to make the most of the next chapter of his extraordinary life.”
A prison sentence of no more than 14 months — which Combs has nearly served — “is the only reasonable sentence,” his attorneys said.
Prosecutors have suggested in previous court filings to the judge overseeing the case, US District Judge Arun Subramanian, that Combs should be sentenced to at least four years in prison.
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