Federal prosecutors say Sean “Diddy” Combs should serve more than 11 years in prison after he was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, ahead of his sentencing on Friday.
Combs was acquitted of more serious racketeering and sex trafficking charges at a trial in July, but convicted of two Mann Act charges that outlaw interstate commerce related to prostitution. The maximum sentence for each charge is 10 years.
In a 189-page submission to Judge Arun Subramanian, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton wrote that Combs, 55, is “unrepentant” and should be punished after he “engaged in violence and put others in fear.”
“Consistent with those cases and based on the corroborated evidence presented at trial, this Court should impose a sentence of no less than 135 months’ imprisonment,” the submission said.
Filed just after midnight Monday, the prosecution’s submission contains letters from former employees and associates of Combs pleading with Judge Subramanian to impose a tough sentence.
Cassie Ventura, Combs’s former girlfriend who gave lengthy testimony at the trial about their relationship and the multi-day, drug-fueled sex sessions known as “freak offs,” said in a letter that the events were “degrading and disgusting.”
She said they left her “with infections, illnesses, and days of physical and emotional exhaustion before he demanded it all again.”
“Sex acts became a full-time job, used as the only way to stay in his good graces,” she said, adding that she still suffers nightmares and flashbacks and receives ongoing psychological care “to cope with my past.”
Lawyers for Combs said in their own written presentence submission to Subramanian last week that he should serve no more than 14 months, which could see him walk free in a matter of weeks — he has already served almost 13 months after being denied $50 million bail.
“Mr. Combs’s celebrity status in the realms of music, fashion, spirits, media, and finance has been shattered and Mr. Combs’s legacy has been destroyed,” his legal team wrote.
The prosecutors’ submission, however, said the defense had “recast decades of abuse as simply the function of mutually toxic relationships.”
“But there is nothing mutual about a relationship where one person holds all the power and the other ends up bloodied and bruised,” it said.
The federal prosecutors added that Mann Act perpetrators regularly face significant sentences. “The defendant should be no exception — particularly when his history and characteristics demonstrate years of abuse and violence,” the submission said.
In their own submission to the court, Regina and Rodrick Ventura, Cassie’s parents, also urged the judge to impose a sentence “that appropriately reflects the severity and depravity of the abuse, the breach of trust, and the suffering that our daughter experienced.”
A former assistant to Combs between 2009 and 2017, who testified during the trial under the pseudonym “Mia,” wrote in her own submission to the court that former music mogul should receive a sentence that reflects the “the years of coercion, financial abuse, humiliation, physical and sexual violence, and the profound trauma that he has inflicted as a result.”
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