A federal judge on Tuesday denied a request by Sean Combs to vacate a jury’s verdict from this summer and acquit him of prostitution-related charges, clearing the way for the music mogul to be sentenced on Friday.
In July, after an eight-week trial, a jury found Mr. Combs guilty of transporting people across state lines for the purposes of prostitution. Those charges related to elaborate, drug-filled sex marathons that he arranged, known as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights,” during which he watched his girlfriends have sex with male escorts.
Two women — Casandra Ventura and a woman who used the pseudonym Jane — testified that they felt pressured and manipulated into the sexual encounters. But the jury did not find that they had been coerced and acquitted Mr. Combs of the more serious counts of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, which could have resulted in a life sentence.
The mogul’s lawyers then asked the judge overseeing the case, Arun Subramanian, to acquit him or order a new trial based solely on the prostitution charges, arguing that he had been unjustly charged under the federal Mann Act for consensual sexual activity between adults.
But in his decision released on Tuesday, the judge ruled that he did not find any reason to accept the defense’s argument, setting the stage for his sentencing decision on Friday.
“The government at trial presented overwhelming evidence of Combs’s guilt under the Mann Act on many occasions with respect to both Ventura and Jane,” Judge Subramanian wrote, adding that “the government proved its case many times over.”
The defense also argued that Mr. Combs could not be guilty of prostitution offenses because, it said, the activity at the heart of the case was between male escorts and Mr. Combs’s girlfriends, and he did not benefit financially from the encounters.
Judge Subramanian was not persuaded.
“To any modern reader, the plain meaning of prostitution is sex for sale,” he wrote, adding that the defense’s more limited definition “would narrow prostitution almost out of existence.”
Judge Subramanian also noted that the trial record showed that Mr. Combs, far from being simply a voyeur, “sometimes participated in the sexual activities.” The judge recounted, in brief but graphic detail, testimony about Mr. Combs and an escort both engaging in sex with Ms. Ventura, and about occasions when Mr. Combs would have intercourse with Ms. Ventura or Jane soon after those women finished with an escort.
Mr. Combs, 55, known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, has been held in a Brooklyn detention center for more than a year and faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the two counts on which he was convicted. His lawyers have asked for a short prison term that would free him soon after the sentencing.
In a filing earlier on Tuesday, the prosecution asked the judge to sentence Mr. Combs to no less than 11 years and three months.
The defense’s arguments in the wide-ranging bid to see the verdict reversed foreshadowed a likely appeal. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have asserted that because he regularly filmed the freak-offs — they compared him to an “adult film producer” — the conduct was protected by the First Amendment.
Judge Subramanian rejected that argument, writing that “illegal activity can’t be laundered into constitutionally protected activity just by the desire to watch it.”
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
Ben Sisario, a reporter covering music and the music industry, has been writing for The Times for more than 20 years.
The post Judge Denies Sean Combs’s Request to Vacate Conviction appeared first on New York Times.
