Lawyers for hip-hop star Sean “Diddy” Combs have asked a federal appeals court in New York for his immediate release and to overturn his pimping conviction, arguing that the artist was punished far too harshly.
In a document filed Tuesday, Dec. 23, in Manhattan Court of Appeals, the music producer’s defense attorneys say the federal judge who handed down the sentence would “treated severely” on P. Diddy and allegedly interfered with the jury’s verdict, according to the Associated Press.
Conviction contested by the defense
Sean Combs is currently incarcerated in a New Jersey prison. He was acquitted of several charges, including sex trafficking, but was sentenced in October to 50 months in prison for transporting people for prostitution. Having already spent more than a year in detention, the rapper is set to be released in May 2028.
His lawyers argue that the sentence is disproportionate to judicial practice. “Defendants are generally sentenced to less than 15 months in prison for these crimes, even under duress, which the jury did not find in this case“, they emphasized in the request addressed to the Manhattan Court of Appeals, according to News.ro.
Accusations against the judge
The defense also claims the judge ignored the jury’s findings. According to the lawyers, “the judge overturned the jury’s verdict and concluded that Sean Combs coerced, exploited and coerced his female partners into having sexual relations and that he ran a criminal association. These judicial conclusions prevailed over the verdict and resulted in the most severe sentence ever imposed against a defendant whose acts were vaguely similar“.
Judge Arun Subramanian said at the end of the trial in October that the testimony of the women who accused P. Diddy weighed decisively in determining the sentence. Several complainants have accused the former producer of sexual violence, including rape, and sex trafficking.
The firm position of the court
In court, Justice Subramanian dismissed the defense’s arguments, explaining that “rejects the defense’s attempt to frame what happened as mere intimate and consensual experiences or simply a story of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll”.
He directly accused Sean Combs of abuse of power: “You abused the power and control you had over the lives of the women you claimed to love deeply. You abused them physically, emotionally and psychologically. And you used that violence to get what you wanted, especially during temper tantrums and hotel nights.”.
The Court of Appeals is to consider the request of P. Diddy’s lawyers for his immediate release and to overturn the conviction.
