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Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs have called for him to be acquitted of prostitution-related offences, or given a new trial on the same charges.
Combs, 55, was found guilty of two counts of transportation for engagement in prostitution at the end of his high-profile trial in New York earlier this month – for flying girlfriends and male sex workers around the US and abroad for sexual encounters referred to as “freak offs”.
However, he was cleared of more serious charges of racketeering, conspiracy and sex-trafficking.
Marc Agnifilo is one of the lawyers on the defence team. Pic: Reuters
The hip-hop mogul has been in prison since his arrest in September 2024 and is due to be sentenced in October.
On Tuesday, his lawyers made a renewed request for his release on a $50m bond ahead of the hearing.
Now, they have filed another motion to the court, saying it “should either grant a judgment of acquittal or, at a minimum, a new trial” on the prostitution-related offences.
In the new filing, Combs’s defence team said the US government had “painted him as a monster” ever since his arrest, but argued his two-month trial showed allegations of a “20-year racketeering enterprise and of sex trafficking multiple women… were not supported by credible evidence, and the jury rejected them”.
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How the Diddy trial unfolded
They also say that to their knowledge, he is “the only person” ever convicted of these charges for the conduct he was accused of in court.
“It is undisputed that he had no commercial motive and that all involved were adults,” the filing states. “The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily. The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted during the freak offs or hotel nights.”
Read more:
How the trial unfolded
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
They describe the prosecution’s evidence on the counts as “thin at best” and say the trial would have been “totally different” had the rapper only been charged with the prostitution-related offences and not the more serious counts.
“Sean Combs sits in jail based on evidence that he paid adult male escorts and entertainers who engaged in consensual sexual activities with his former girlfriends, which he videotaped and later watched with the girlfriends. That is not prostitution, and if it is, his conviction is unconstitutional,” the filing says.
Combs, one of the most influential hip-hop producers of all time, faces being jailed for several years after his conviction on the prostitution-related charges.
But he was cleared of the more serious charges that could have put him in prison for life – and the verdict was hailed a “victory” by his team.
Immediately after he was acquitted of those charges, his lawyers asked for his release on bond. The request was denied by Judge Arun Subramanian, who heard the trial, and said Combs at the time had not met the burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence a “lack of danger to any person or the community”.
