NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs faces sentencing Friday in a sordid felony case that would preserve him locked up for years.
The hip-hop mogul was convicted in July of flying folks across the nation for sexual encounters, together with his girlfriends and male intercourse employees, in violation of the federal Mann Act.
A jury acquitted Combs, 55, of extra severe racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking prices that would have put him away for all times.
Prosecutors say he ought to spend greater than 11 years in jail for his conviction on two counts of transportation to have interaction in prostitution. Combs’ attorneys need him freed now, saying the lengthy sentence sought by prosecutors is “wildly out of proportion” to the crime.
U.S. District Decide Arun Subramanian, who will determine the sentence, has signaled that Combs is unlikely to be freed quickly. He twice rejected bail for the rapper, who has been jailed at a federal detention middle in Brooklyn since his arrest a yr in the past.
The sentencing comes after a virtually two-month trial that includes testimony from girls who described being overwhelmed, threatened, sexually assaulted and blackmailed by Combs.
A former girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, mentioned Combs ordered her to have “disgusting” intercourse with strangers a whole lot of instances throughout their decade-long relationship.
The jury was repeatedly proven video clips of Combs dragging and beating Cassie in a Los Angeles resort hallway after a kind of multiday sexual marathons, which she known as “freak-offs” throughout her 4 days of testimony.
A lady who testified beneath the pseudonym “Jane” instructed jurors she too was subjected to violence and felt obligated to carry out sexually with male intercourse employees at drug-fueled “resort nights” whereas Combs watched and typically filmed.
To assist their racketeering case, prosecutors additionally introduced on witnesses who testified about different violent acts. A former private assistant testified that Combs raped her. Certainly one of Cassie’s associates instructed the jury Combs dangled her from a seventeenth flooring balcony. The rapper Child Cudi testified that Combs broke into his house after studying he and Cassie have been relationship.
Though the jury acquitted Combs of racketeering, the choose can nonetheless contemplate that testimony as he decides the sentence.
Subramanian can also be contemplating letters submitted by Combs and a few of his accusers.
In his letter to the choose Thursday, Combs promised he would by no means commit one other crime if launched, saying, “The outdated me died in jail and a brand new model of me was reborn.”
In her letter, Cassie referred to as Combs a manipulative abuser who has “no real interest in altering or turning into higher.”
“He’ll all the time be the identical merciless, power-hungry, manipulative man that he’s,” she wrote.
A former private assistant who mentioned Combs raped her in 2010 requested Subramanian to ship a sentence “that takes under consideration the continuing hazard my abuser poses to me, and to others.” The previous assistant, who testified beneath the pseudonym “Mia,” is anticipated to talk at Friday’s sentencing.
Combs will handle the court docket, in response to court docket filings. His protection crew can also be planning to play a roughly 11-minute video.
Combs’ attorneys say the sexual encounters have been consensual and that being in jail has hastened Combs’ sobriety and compelled him to study from his misbehavior. They’ve mentioned there isn’t a want for him to stay behind bars as a result of he has already been punished sufficient.
At a court docket listening to final week, Combs appeared buoyant, as he instructed his mom and youngsters that he’s “getting nearer to going house.”
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