A federal judge on Monday denied Sean Combs’s request to be released on bail pending his sentencing for two prostitution-related convictions.
After an eight-week trial that concluded last month, the music mogul was acquitted of the most serious charges against him, sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, in a case that accused him of coercing two long-term girlfriends into drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts.
But a jury found that Mr. Combs had violated the Mann Act, a federal law that bans interstate commerce related to prostitution. Those convictions carry a maximum sentence of 10 years apiece.
To secure his release, Mr. Combs would have had to prove that his case involves “exceptional” circumstances, and that he does not pose a danger to others or a risk of flight. His lawyers offered a $50 million bond for his release, secured by his island mansion outside Miami.
After the verdict on July 2, Judge Arun Subramanian denied Mr. Combs bail and found that he did pose a danger, pointing to the defense’s admissions that he had been violent with two girlfriends.
Last week, Mr. Combs’s lawyers asked the judge to reconsider and requested again that he be released on bail pending his sentencing, which has been scheduled for Oct. 3. They asserted that Mr. Combs’s case was “exceptional,” arguing that he and the women involved had participated in a consensual, “swingers” lifestyle that involved threesomes, and that the women had not been coerced.
Mr. Combs’s case, his lawyers argued, was a highly unusual use of the Mann Act, a law that was passed in 1910. Over the past 75 years, they said, that law has primarily been used to prosecute cases involving “financial gain through the business of prostitution,” not against “johns” who make use of a prostitute’s services.
In his decision on Monday, Judge Subramanian rejected the defense’s argument that Mr. Combs’s case was exceptional, and said that “increasing the amount of the bond or devising additional conditions doesn’t change the calculus given the circumstances and heavy burden of proof that Combs bears.”
Ben Sisario, a reporter covering music and the music industry, has been writing for The Times for more than 20 years.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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