{"id":45716,"date":"2026-04-09T12:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=45716"},"modified":"2026-04-09T12:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:32:20","slug":"sean-diddy-combs-lawyers-to-urge-appeals-court-to-overturn-conviction-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=45716","title":{"rendered":"Sean &#8216;Diddy&#8217; Combs&#8217; lawyers to urge appeals court to overturn conviction, sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Lawyers\u00a0for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/03\/us-news\/sean-diddy-combs-sentenced-to-more-than-4-years-prison-after-salacious-trial-exposed-moguls-reign-of-terror\/\">Sean\u00a0\u201cDiddy\u201d Combs<\/a>\u00a0are expected to tell an\u00a0appeals\u00a0court\u00a0on Thursday the judge who oversaw the hip-hop mogul\u2019s sex crimes trial should not have considered evidence that he abused and threatened former girlfriends in sentencing him to more than four years in prison for his\u00a0conviction\u00a0on prostitution charges.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/23\/us-news\/sean-diddy-combs-asks-for-release-on-time-served-on-prostitution-conviction\/\">Combs<\/a>, 56, is asking the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit\u00a0Court\u00a0of\u00a0Appeals\u00a0to\u00a0overturn\u00a0both his\u00a0conviction\u00a0and\u00a0sentence. Combs is serving his\u00a0sentence\u00a0at a low-security federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p>His seven-week trial last year in Manhattan federal\u00a0court\u00a0centered on drug-fueled and days-long sexual performances, sometimes called \u201cFreak Offs,\u201d between two former girlfriends of Combs and male sex workers. Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, was\u00a0found guilty\u00a0by a jury on July 2, 2025, on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Diddy\u2019s lawyers will attempt to overturn the disgraced mogul\u2019s conviction.  <span class=\"credit\">Jane Rosenberg<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Diddy is serving his 50 month prison sentence. <span class=\"credit\">WireImage<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But jurors acquitted him on more serious sex trafficking and racketeering charges related to allegedly forcing the two former girlfriends \u2013 rhythm and blues singer Casandra Ventura and a woman known in\u00a0court\u00a0by the pseudonym Jane \u2013 to take part in the encounters while he watched, masturbated and sometimes filmed.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>At Thursday\u2019s hearing before a 2nd Circuit three-judge panel, defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro is expected to argue that his\u00a0conviction\u00a0on prostitution charges should be\u00a0overturned because he was alleged to have watched his former girlfriends have sex with paid escorts but did not take part himself.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>High heels, sex toys found inside Diddy\u2019s Miami Beach mansion. <span class=\"credit\">Department of Justice<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In challenging the\u00a0sentence, Shapiro is expected to argue that U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian improperly considered conduct related to the counts for which Combs was acquitted in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reutersconnect.com\/all?search=all%3AL6N3VK0IY&amp;linkedFromStory=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sentencing him<\/a>\u00a0to 50 months in prison on October 3, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Shapiro has said the judge should not have considered evidence that Combs threatened to release an explicit video of Ventura and threatened to cut off rent payments for Jane in deciding on the\u00a0sentence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was unlawful, unconstitutional and a perversion of justice to\u00a0sentence\u00a0Combs as if the jury had found him guilty of sex trafficking and RICO,\u201d Shapiro wrote in\u00a0court\u00a0filing, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Bottles of baby oil and lube found at Diddy\u2019s home in Miami Beach. <span class=\"credit\">Department of Justice<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In response, prosecutor Christy Slavik said in a\u00a0court\u00a0filing that Subramanian was right to consider evidence of threats and abuse by Combs toward his former girlfriends, even though he was acquitted of sex trafficking, because that conduct was relevant to the prostitution counts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccording to Combs, the District\u00a0Court\u00a0should have closed its eyes to how he carried out his Mann Act offenses and abused his victims,\u201d Slavik wrote, referring to the federal law criminalizing transportation to engage in prostitution.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The front page of the New York Post on July 3, 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Combs has acknowledged abusing his former girlfriends. But he has said incidents of what he called domestic violence were separate from the sexual performances at issue in the case, which he said were consensual.<\/p>\n<p>He is currently due to be released from prison on April 15, 2028, Bureau of Prisons records show.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/09\/us-news\/sean-diddy-combs-lawyers-to-urge-appeals-court-to-overturn-conviction-sentence\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawyers\u00a0for\u00a0Sean\u00a0\u201cDiddy\u201d Combs\u00a0are expected to tell an\u00a0appeals\u00a0court\u00a0on Thursday the judge who oversaw the hip-hop mogul\u2019s sex crimes trial should not have considered evidence that he abused and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}