Federal prosecutors have asked the district judge presiding over the sex-trafficking case against Sean “Diddy” Combs to impose an 11-year prison sentence on the music producer. Included in their sentencing recommendation was a letter from Combs’s former girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, who testified during the trial and who expressed fears that Combs may come after her if he is released from prison. 

“My worries that Sean Combs or his associates will come after me and my family is my reality,” Ms. Ventura, 39, wrote in her letter, which was filed after midnight on Monday along with other letters in the 164-page sentence recommendation submitted by federal prosecutors.   

The sentencing hearing for Combs is scheduled for October 3 at the Southern District for New York, where his eight-week trial took place in May and June. When the jury reached a verdict on July 2, it acquitted Combs of the most serious charges, sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. 

However, the jury didn’t clear all charges against the rapper. He was convicted of two counts of transportation for the purpose of prostitution, a crime laid out in the Mann Act, a 1910 federal law (previously called the White-Slave Traffic Act) that prohibits the interstate or foreign transportation of individuals for prostitution or other “immoral” purposes, which carries a maximum of 10 years in prison per count.  

The jury agreed with prosecutors that Combs transported male escorts across state lines to engage in sexual activities during his drug-fueled so-called freak off sessions with his former girlfriends, Ms. Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane, while he watched, videotaped the encounters, and pleasured himself. 

As the Sun reported last week, defense attorneys asked the district judge, Arun Subramanian, to dismiss these convictions, arguing that their client was an amateur porn movie director and had hired the male escorts to star in his pornographic films. They further argued that no one has ever been convicted of hiring male prostitutes and not having sex with them. 

But during the hearing, the judge questioned that argument, saying a businessman who hires a prostitute for a client and, thus, does not personally engage in sexual conduct with the prostitute, could still be guilty of a prostitution offense. The judge is expected to rule on the motion any day. 

Should the judge let the convictions stand, defense attorneys asked him to sentence their client to no more than 14 months in prison. Combs, who was arrested last September and has been incarcerated in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center at Brooklyn for close to 13 months, would then be released within a few weeks after his sentencing hearing.   

Prosecutors want to see Combs serve far more time behind bars and recommended a prison sentence of “no less than 135 months,” or 11.25 years, a severe sentence for the actual prostitution conviction, which usually gets punished by four- to five-year sentences or less.    

Prosecutors insisted they are not seeking the harsh penalty to punish Combs for the charges he was cleared of. “The defendant will not be punished for any crimes of which he was acquitted, of course, but punishment for his crimes of conviction must take into account the manner in which he committed them,” prosecutors wrote.

In their court filing, they argued that Combs was violent toward Ms. Ventura during the “freak off” sessions, when she, as they argue, was drugged and forced to have sex with the male prostitutes he had transported. The defense rejected that argument, saying that all participants were consenting adults and no one was forced into anything. They presented enthusiastic texts from Ms. Ventura telling Combs, “I love our freak-offs.”

“The defendant’s violence towards Ventura surrounded and extended into Freak Offs. The defendant beat Ventura during multiple Freak Offs, including in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami,” prosecutors wrote, and cited as one of the examples the testimony of one of the male escorts, Daniel Philips, who testified during the trial that Combs would “become angry” during the “freak offs” when Ms. Ventura did not do what he wanted her to do, one time throwing a glass bottle at her head.

Prosecutors urged the judge to take this violent behavior into consideration, writing that “in multiple cases” other defendants, “who, like Sean Combs, engaged in violence and put others in fear,” were sentenced to “over ten years” in prison.

“Defendants who perpetrate violations of the Mann Act involving such violence and fear regularly face significant penalties,” the prosecutors wrote, and argued the judge should make no “exception,” adding that the “seriousness and duration” of the “unchecked violence” should be weighed “in favor of a substantial sentence.” 

Prosecutors also reminded the judge of “substantial psychological, emotional, and physical damage he has inflicted” on his victims.  

Ms. Ventura, who was in an 11-year off-and-on relationship with Combs, between 2007 and 2018, and who testified in the high-profile trial, echoed that sentiment in her letter.   

“I testified how,” she wrote, “Sean Combs frequently used violence to get his way. Over the nearly eleven years we were together, Sean Combs would hit me, punch me, stomp on my face, pull my hair, and throw my body to the ground and against the wall.” 

The letter went on to detail the bruises and acts of violence prosecutors had shown the jury during the trial. “The jury saw pictures of bruises on my back from Combs kicking me and saw the deep gash over my eye he caused when he slammed me into a bed frame. The entire courtroom watched actual footage of Combs kicking and beating me as I tried to run away from a freak off in 2016. People watched this footage dozens of times, seeing my body thrown to the ground, my hands over my head, curled into a fetal position to shield me from the worst blows.” 

Ms. Ventura was referring to the now infamous video, first aired by CNN in March 2024, which shows Combs running after Ms. Ventura in the hallway of a luxury hotel at Los Angeles. Ms Ventura testified that she was trying to escape an on-going “freak off” session inside the hotel room. Surveillance footage shows her, waiting by the elevator, as Combs storms after her, wearing nothing but a towel and socks, and throwing Ms. Ventura to the ground and kicking her. 

“I testified that I learned to read Sean Combs’s signals, knowing that when he spoke of ‘freakoffs,’ he was demanding them, and that refusing meant punishment—losing my car, my phone, or worse. He controlled every part of my livelihood and threatened to destroy my reputation by leaking sex tapes, a threat he repeated often. “ Ms. Ventura wrote. 

Ms. Ventura and Combs finally split in 2018, and five years later — having married Mr. Combs’s personal trainer and started a family — she sued him. The lawsuit, which was only public for one day, laid out in lurid and horrifying detail Ms. Ventura’s accusations against Combs. He quickly settled with her for $20 million, but the damage had been done: Federal prosecutors used the evanescent lawsuit as a roadmap for their indictment. 

Ms. Ventura was clearly shaken by Combs’s acquittal on the more serious charges and the prospect of him leaving the Brooklyn detention center, where he’s been imprisoned. She urged the judge to consider that her safety was at risk and that Combs would come after her family — she now has three children, one of whom was born this summer — if he was released from incarceration. 

“I have in fact moved my family out of the New York area and am keeping as private and quiet as I possibly can because I am so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about his abuse at trial,” said Ms. Ventura, who was a rising musical performer before she became Combs’s romantic partner. 

Ms. Ventura found the defense’s claim that Combs is a “changed man” not credible, writing that “he is not being truthful” and that her ex-boyfriend has “no interest in changing or becoming better.” 

“He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is,” Ms. Ventura wrote. She recalled how Combs reacted after she filed her bombshell civil lawsuit in November 2023.

“When I came out with my allegations in my civil case, he flatly denied them again and again. It was only after actual video footage corroborated the exact words in my civil complaint that he issued an insincere apology on the internet.” 

Combs settled the lawsuit with Ms. Ventura within 24 hours, leaving legal observers bewildered about why he didn’t settle with her before she filed her suit, which is usually how damaging lawsuits against celebrities are handled. 

After the disturbing video footage from the hotel incident was released a few months later — despite Combs’s elaborate efforts, described in trial testimony, to obtain the only copy of the video and keep it secret — Combs did in fact issue an apology, which he posted on social media, saying “my behavior on that video is inexcusable.”  

Further testimony at trial concerned violent behavior by Combs, including his alleged firebombing of the Porsche of a romantic rival, Scott Mescudi, whose nom de rap is Kris Cudi. Another witness, a graphic designer named Bryana Bongolan, alleged Combs held her over a high-floor balcony, terrorizing her. 

The case’s other victim, the woman who testified as Jane and who dated the rapper up until his arrest — and who also described a brutal beating on the same night he called a male escort for a “freak off” session at her home — did not submit an impact statement. But other witnesses who testified did, such as Combs’s former stylist, Deonte Nash. 

“Judge, this is not a good man,” Mr. Nash concluded in his letter. In late September, Mr. Nash filed a civil lawsuit against Combs accusing the music mogul of sexually molesting him, exposing himself to him, and false imprisonment, among other allegations. Combs’s attorneys called the lawsuit “opportunistic.”

Among several reasons — listed by,Mr. Nash in his letter — that Combs should serve “an appropriate sentence” is a concern for public safety. 

“The allegations include violent, physical abuse, death threats and intimidation. His release would endanger survivors and the public at large,” Mr. Nash wrote. 

The sentencing hearing is scheduled for Friday and is expected to last until Monday, as several victims have been called to speak.