When the district judge, who presided over Sean “Diddy” Combs’s sex trafficking trial, imposed the 4 year and 2 months prison sentence on Combs for his convictions on two counts of prostitution charges on Friday afternoon, the music producer, who had kept his head down in anticipation of the verdict, lifted his head but showed no visible reaction. His nine defense attorneys remained equally stoic. They intend to appeal the verdict. 

“I would have popped a bottle of champagne,” criminal defense attorney Arthur Aidala told the Sun outside the Manhattan federal courthouse later.   

Mr. Aidala is currently defending the film producer Harvey Weinstein, who faces 25 years in prison for his conviction in his recent rape re-trial. Combs, the defense attorney noted, “went from facing life in prison to 4 years and 2 months, and he has already served over a year.” 

In July, after an eight week long trial, the jury acquitted Combs, 55, of the most serious charges, racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. But the jury didn’t let him off the hook completely, finding Combs guilty of two counts of transportation for the purpose to engage in prostitution. 

Prosecutors had accused Combs of transporting male escorts across state lines to have sex with his ex-girlfriends, Cassandra Ventura, and a woman, who testified under the pseudonym Jane, during drug-enhanced, hours-long sex marathons, he called “Freak Offs,” while he watched, pleasured himself and video taped the encounters. 

The charges carry a maximum of ten years in prison per each count. But  prosecutors asked the judge to put Combs in prison for eleven years – a stiff sentence compared to what other offenders convicted of the prostitution charges have received. 

“This isn’t just a case about freak-offs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik told the judge during Friday’s sentencing hearing, adding it was also not “just a case about transportation for prostitution. It’s a case about transportation for prostitution and violence.”  

Ms. Slavik described the violence in this case as “uncontested.” She reminded the court how Combs had brutally beaten Ms. Ventura for over two decades. “He hit her. He kicked her. He threw her into walls and on the ground. He stomped on her face. He dragged her by the hair. The video of the defendant’s assaults of Cassie at the InterContinental Hotel was played multiple times during the trial, and it never got easier to see… That was just one of many violent outbursts, but one that took place in a public hallway in a Los Angeles hotel in the middle of the day. Imagine how much worse it was behind closed doors.” 

The prosecutor consented that the “physical abuse of Jane was limited to a single incident, but it was a brutal incident. He kicked down doors. He choked her… He slapped her. He did all of this just over a year ago when he knew that he was under federal investigation. And, critically, the defendant did not deny abuse.” 

Ms. Slavik condemned the defense for its “gross mischaracterization of the conduct.” The defense argued, as she phrased it, that the transportation of the male escorts was “just a minor consequence of a sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle.”    

Indeed, defense attorneys had admitted during opening arguments that their client had been violent but argued he was not charged with domestic violence. They disputed the sex trafficking and prostitution accusations, saying that Combs had led the lifestyle of a “swinger” and that all participants in his freak off parties had been consenting adults. They asked the judge to issue a lenient sentence of 14 months, of which Combs, who was arrested in September 2024 and denied bail five times, has already served 13. 

During the sentencing hearing, which lasted over six hours, prosecutors fumed that Combs had “booked speaking engagements in Miami for next week,” calling it “the height of hubris.” Defense attorneys clarified later that the event was a “teaching engagement” for inmates in South Florida, but did not deny that Combs had made plans for the coming week under the assumption that he would be released.  

While incarcerated and awaiting trial at Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, Combs taught a six-week course he called “Free Game with Diddy,” which focused on business and personal development for fellow inmates. His legal team presented the course, and letters from the inmates to the judge as evidence of his rehabilitation.  

One of his defense attorneys, Nicole Westmoreland, who was sobbing   while she spoke on Friday, cited one of the inmates, who cannot read nor write, and had someone else write the letter for him. The inmate, Ms. Westmoreland said, “just wanted to let the Court know how much the class meant to him and how much it means to him that Mr. Combs basically thought he was worthy of teaching.”  

The defense brought out every possible argument to convince the judge that their client should be released. Four different attorneys addressed the court, as well as a reverend and a founder and executive director of a re-entry program for former prison inmates in South Florida, where Combs has a mansion. 

Both the reverend and the re-entry program director insisted that Combs could help his community, like he had helped the inmates at the Brooklyn jail, with motivational classes, and that with the help of his community he could rehabilitate himself.  

“If you free him, free his body from this incarceration,” Rev. Dr. Gary Johnson told the judge, “and allow him to have probation, we’ll help free his mind.” He promised that he would personally be responsible “for seeing (Combs) rehabilitate” and said that the “community will be thanking” the judge if he would “consider giving him to us.” 

“Sean needs an opportunity. If he gets an opportunity, he’ll turn it into an empire, and the empire to help people, help women, help children become young millionaires, become young business people,” the reverend pleaded. 

Another argument the defense repeated, which they had failed to raise during the trial, was that incarceration could not cure the traumas and drug addictions Combs had suffered, which had led him to lose his way. 

Defense attorney Brian Steel told the judge that when Combs was making his career as a music producer in the 1990s, he used to tell people to stay away from drugs, that “drugs make you stupid” and “if you do drugs, you’re gonna be behind.” But Combs became addicted to pain killers, the attorney said, after he had an operation in the year 2000. Mr. Steel blamed the drug addiction and Combs’s personal traumas, like the loss of his father, Melvin Combs, a New York City drug dealer who was murdered when Combs was only three years old, for his erratic and often violent behavior.

Lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, added that Combs had been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety disorder, depression order, mental health challenges, drug addiction, and trauma. He asked the judge to allow Combs to undergo a “meaningful mental health treatment.” 

Mr. Agnifilo almost held a speech on criminal justice reform. “Obviously, there is domestic violence and there is tremendous drug use,” the attorney said. “We don’t have to resort to early 1990s methods. We have learned a lot since then… Crime has gone down because we have gotten enlightened.” 

In an almost comical remark, Mr. Agnifilo made the court aware that October was “Domestic violence awareness month” and that Combs could heal and help address the issue, if he were given the chance to be free.

Mr. Steel urged the judge to consider the dangers Combs faced in prison, saying that he was a “trophy” inmate for other inmates, who wanted to harm him. Combs, his attorney argued, had not slept more than two hours consecutively out of fear of being hurt, especially after one inmate tried to stab him with a shank. “The guards stopped a person who was armed with a shank who was right on top of Sean and was about to cut him. Every day he lives in fear,” Mr. Steel said. 

The most moving moment of the hearing, however, was when Combs’s six adult children all went to the lectern together, and one after the other addressed the judge. Combs has seven children with four different mothers. Throughout the trial his children showed unwavering support, coming to almost every hearing, holding hands as they sat on the bench in the courtroom and praying together outside in the hallway.  

Quincy Combs, 33, his eldest son, whom Combs adopted, and who is the biological son of the late Kim Porter, Combs’s longtime romantic partner who died in 2018 after a battle with pneumonia, and with whom Combs has four biological children, told the judge, “This is our father and we are going to love him unconditionally through his struggles.”

“Our father will never, ever do anything to jeopardize his freedom. As his children, we want to thank you, and we only wish to heal together,” . Quincey Combs said.   

Quincy’s younger brother, Justin Combs, 31, whom Combs had with designer and stylist Misa Hylton, said his father was his “superhero” and asked the judge to give him a second chance. 

“This has been the toughest time I have ever been through in my life,” said the young Mr. Combs, who himself faces sexual assault allegations in a civil lawesuit filed this year. “My father is my superhero. Seeing him broken down and stripped of everything is something I will never forget.” He told the judge that his father was now drug free and had refound his “purpose” and still had “so much more to give the world, but even more importantly, so much more to give his children.”

Combs’s identical twin daughters, D’Lila and Jessie Combs, 18, the daughters of his late partner, Ms. Porter, both wept as they spoke. 

Jessie Combs said, “everyone has had their own views on our dad. We know he isn’t perfect and he has made many mistakes, and we aren’t here to excuse any of those mistakes. But, your Honor, he is still our dad and we still need him present in our lives.”  

She said that when their mother died, Combs sat her down and told her he would always be around to keep her “safe.” Her sister D’Lila admitted in tears that “we are tired of being strong” and asked the judge to let the family “heal together.”

Finally, in the late afternoon, Combs himself stood up and addressed the judge. He was visibly nervous, shifting from one leg to the other, going through the sheets of papers he had spread out before him on the defense table. 

Combs began with a loud sigh. Then he said, “One of the hardest things that I’ve had to handle is having to be quiet, not being able to express how sorry I am for my actions.” He apologized to Ms. Ventura, and to her family, to Jane, to his mother, his children and to his community. “I got lost in my journey of life… I got lost in the excess. I got lost in my ego… I hate myself right now. I have been stripped down to nothing.” 

He promised the judge that he would never “put (his) hands on another person again.” 

Finally, it was the judge’s turn to reveal the sentence he would impose. 

Judge Subramanian first commended the victims, Ms. Ventura and Jane, for being “strong women, who came forward to tell the world their stories. Horrific stories, but stories of courage.”  

He praised Ms. Ventura and Jane for speaking up and telling the world that “that violence behind closed doors doesn’t have to stay hidden forever.”  

Then he addressed Combs, and urged him to use this experience to help women and to help fight domestic violence, using the public platform his stardom has granted him.  

“The things that the women in this case talked about, it’s happening all over this country. Every day, every minute. You have the power to help it stop. The same power that enabled you to hurt these women, you can use it to help others like them,” the judge said. “We all have voices, but you have a megaphone.” 

The judge encouraged Combs to lean on his family, and seek their help.  “There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” the judge said, and referred to the many letters he had received with the defense’s sentencing recommendation. “These letters, all those letters that I saw, show that you have a universe of people who love you. Let them lift you up now, just like you’ve lifted them up for so many years.”  

He said that he acknowledged that Combs “is a self-made artist and businessman who has innovated, inspired and lifted up communities, including communities of color worldwide.” 

“The Court agrees with the defense… that your work history, impact on the black community, and entrepreneurship are celebrated and iconic, he said.” 

The judge also commended the video montage that the defense had shown earlier in the day, where the court saw Combs playing with his children and engaging with his numerous charities, and even Combs running the New York City Marathon with an injured knee to raise funds for education.  

“You have donated your time and millions of dollars to benefit worthy causes, including providing schooling for underprivileged children in New York City. And we saw that in the video. And that is commendable,” he said. 

But the judge was not going to let Combs walk. “You abused the power and control that you had over the lives of women you professed to love dearly,” he told Combs. “You abused them physically, emotionally, and psychologically … Why did it happen so long? Because you had the power and the resources to keep it going, and because you weren’t caught.” 

He sentenced him to 50 months in prison, with five years of supervised release and a fine of $500,000. “A meaningful sentence is needed to protect the public from further crimes,” the judge said.

When the verdict came, there was an almost palpitating silence in the courtroom. The court officer had advised everyone earlier not to react loudly to the verdict, and it appeared that everyone held their breath in compliance. 

Outside, as reporters waited in vain for the defense attorneys to address the media, the Sun spoke to trial spectator and software veteran, Ron Verni, who wouldn’t tell us his age but hinted that he was in his 60s, and who has been going to watch high-profile trials since the 1980s. 

Combs’s sentencing hearing, Mr. Verni said, was one for the books. “The fact that he had four of his own lawyers able to speak, in addition to himself, when usually at a sentencing, you’re lucky if you get one. And then his family was great for the sketch artist…
And that video… Harvey Weinstein and even Charles Manson would say, ‘How come I didn’t get a video?’” 

To get inside the courtroom, Mr. Verni had waited outside the courthouse on the line for the public seating since midday Thursday. When asked what he thought about the sentence, he pondered for a moment.  

“A year to Diddy could be like four years to an average person because he’s used to the highlife. So, actually, he got, like, 20 years today, in my opinion,” Mr. Verni said. 

“He’s penalized so much more because he’s so used to his own jet and his own women and his own champagne and his own vodka. And it’s not like me, you give me a bed and I’m happy. You know what I’m saying?” Mr. Verni added with a smirk.