Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs will learn Friday how long he will serve in prison for transporting prostitutes across state lines to engage in drug-fueled sexual performances that he dubbed “freak-offs.”
His sentencing comes a year after federal prosecutors unsealed a sweeping indictment that painted Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment as a mob-style operation designed to allow him to sex traffic women for his own desire. But in July, a jury cleared him of the most serious charges — racketeering and sex trafficking — following a weeks-long federal criminal trial in New York.
Still, the eight men and four women found Combs, 55, guilty of two counts of transportation for prostitution, each carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Federal prosecutors are asking U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian to sentence Combs to 11 years and 3 months and a $500,000 fine.
They argue the “relevant conduct” revealed at trial, where witnesses testified he beat his girlfriends and gave them illegal drugs, must be considered at sentencing. The prostitutes participated in drug-fueled sexual performances dubbed “freak-offs” with Combs’ then-girlfriends.
“The defendant tries to recast decades of abuse as simply the function of mutually toxic relationships,” the prosecutors wrote. “But there is nothing mutual about a relationship where one person holds all the power and the other ends bloodied and bruised.”
Combs’ ex-girlfriend and the trial’s most prominent witness, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, wrote in a letter to the judge that he should consider “the many lives that Sean Combs upended with his abuse and control…”
“Sex acts became my full-time job,” Ventura wrote in one of seven letters attached to prosecutors’ sentencing request. “His power over me eroded my independence and sense of self until I felt no choice but to submit.”
In his own letter to the judge ahead of his sentencing Friday, Combs said he was taking “full responsibility and accountability” for his “past wrongs,” and apologized for the pain he’s caused others.
“I have to admit, my downfall was rooted in my selfishness. The scene and images of me assaulting Cassie play over and over in my head daily. I literally lost my mind. I was dead wrong for putting my hands on the woman that I loved. I’m sorry for that and always will be,” Combs wrote. “I lost my way. I got lost in my journey. Lost in the drugs and the excess. My downfall was rooted in my selfishness. I have been humbled and broken to my core.”
After the July 2 verdict, Combs fell to his knees and placed his head on his chair as if in prayer. “Mr. Combs has been given his life by this jury,” defense attorney Marc Agnifilo told the judge.
The legal drama generated global attention and offered a graphic and often violent glimpse into the life of one of the nation’s most powerful music figures and his nearly billion-dollar enterprise.
During the trial, jurors heard from three women, his two former girlfriends and a personal assistant, who described a culture within the empire that prosecutors likened to a mob-style racketeering operation.
Prosecutors portrayed Combs and his associates as luring female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Once he had gained their interest, prosecutors said Combs used force, threats of force, coercion and drugs to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes while he occasionally watched.
On the stand, witnesses testified that Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
The government’s case relied heavily on three key witnesses: Combs’ onetime lover, Ventura, whose 2023 civil lawsuit began the unraveling of Combs’ empire; his most recent ex-girlfriend, who was identified only as Jane; and his former assistant, identified in court only as Mia.
Prosecutors charged Combs under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO, which requires that a defendant be part of an enterprise involved in at least two overt criminal acts out of 35 offenses listed by the government. Those offenses include murder, bribery and extortion. But RICO cases are challenging to prosecute by design, legal experts say.
At trial, Ventura testified she felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse by Combs, and that the relationship involved years of beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape. She claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of her sexual encounters with male prostitutes while under the influence of drugs.
One such freak-off led to an infamous hotel beating that was captured on hotel security cameras. Video footage from that March 2016 night shows Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to protect herself in front of an L.A. hotel elevator bank. He then drags her down the hall by her hooded sweatshirt toward their hotel room.
A second angle from another camera captures Combs throwing a vase toward her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a swollen lip and a bruise that prosecutors showed was still visible during a movie premiere two days later, where she wore sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.
In the trial, prosecutors said Combs and members of his group worked to cover up the incident. Eddie Garcia, a former InterContinental Hotel security guard, testified that Combs gave him a brown paper bag containing $100,000 in cash for the video.
Combs’ defense team was aggressive in cross-examination, hammering witnesses about why they did not report the celebrity at the time or simply leave him.
His lawyers said the sexual encounters with his girlfriends were consensual, and Ventura was in a long-term relationship. The hotel incident was a disagreement over a cell phone and not part of a sexual encounter.
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