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Sean “Diddy” Combs has been sentenced to 50 months in prison – just over four years – for violating federal prostitution laws in the US.
The ruling was handed down on Friday (3 October) in a Manhattan federal court. When sharing his sentencing, Judge Arun Subramanian said, per Billboard, “This was subjugation, and it drove both [victims] to thoughts of ending their lives.”
Judge Subramanian added that his ruling would “send a message to abusers and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability.”
However, he also noted that the prosecution’s proposed 11-year sentence was “not reasonable.”
Combs could have faced a far longer sentence if the prosecution’s racketeering (RICO) and sex trafficking charges stuck.
However, in July, he was convicted on two lesser charges of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted of more serious sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. At the time, Judge Subramanian set the tentative sentencing date for last Friday and announced that the ten months Combs had already spent in prison would go towards his final sentence as time served.
Throughout a seven-week trial, Combs was accused of using his successful music career to operate a “criminal syndicate,” alleging that he and his associates committed crimes such as kidnapping, bribery, drug-dealing, and arson.
The jury also heard testimony that Combs was allegedly violent and threatened his musician ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, and an anonymous woman known as “Jane” to participate in “freak-offs,” which the prosecution described as sex trafficking.
Before receiving his sentence, Diddy spoke to the judge and apologised to his victims for “disgusting, shameful and sick” behaviour, as well as asking the judge for mercy.
The prosecution urged the judge to ignore the hip-hop star’s promises to change, describing him as a “master puppeteer of his own image.”
Last September, Combs was arrested and accused of sexual abuse, as well as running a “racketeering conspiracy that included sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson and bribery.” Manhattan federal prosecutors accused Combs of operating a criminal enterprise that outlined his “pervasive pattern of abuse toward women.”
In March 2024, Combs’ Los Angeles and Miami homes were raided by federal agents as they investigated allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault.
Last year also saw shocking footage of Combs physically assaulting Cassie Ventura surface online. The video's release matched Ventura’s allegations in the lawsuit she filed against Combs in November 2023.
