By Luc Cohen and Jack Queen
NEW YORK -Sean “Diddy” Combs’ “business voyeurism” doesn’t qualify as prostitution, his protection lawyer argued on Thursday in urging a choose to put aside a jury’s verdict discovering the hip-hop mogul responsible on prostitution prices.
Combs, 55, faces as much as 20 years in jail if the July 2 conviction stands. Jurors discovered he paid male escorts to journey throughout state traces to have intercourse along with his girlfriends whereas he filmed and masturbated, however cleared him of extra critical counts of intercourse trafficking and racketeering.
He had pleaded not responsible to all the prices, which may have landed him in jail for all times.
In a listening to earlier than U.S. District Choose Arun Subramanian in Manhattan, protection lawyer Alexandra Shapiro characterised Combs’ conduct throughout days-long, drug-fueled intercourse marathons typically referred to as Freak Offs as “business voyeurism.”
She stated the legislation criminalizing transportation to interact in prostitution must be utilized solely to individuals who themselves took half in sexual exercise, or to folks earning profits off the prostitutes.
“The statute must be construed narrowly basically to solely apply to pimping,” Shapiro stated.
Meredith Foster, a prosecutor with the Manhattan U.S. Lawyer’s workplace, stated Combs needn’t have personally taken half within the intercourse acts to be convicted, since he helped prepare for the male escorts to journey.
Subramanian has not stated when he’ll rule on Combs’ movement.
In court docket papers, Combs’ legal professionals had beforehand argued that Combs was filming the encounters as “novice pornography,” which they referred to as protected speech below the U.S. Structure’s First Modification.
Prosecutors stated Combs used the movies as blackmail by threatening to launch them if his girlfriends stopped participating within the encounters.
TRIAL CENTERED ON FREAK OFFS
Combs, the founding father of Dangerous Boy Information, is credited with elevating hip-hop in American tradition. He was arrested on intercourse trafficking prices on September 16, 2024, and has since been held on the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn.
As he entered Subramanian’s courtroom , Combs smiled, hugged his legal professionals, and waved at his household seated within the viewers.
Throughout his two-month trial earlier this 12 months, prosecutors stated he coerced two former girlfriends into the sexual performances.
Each girls – rhythm and blues singer Casandra Ventura, referred to as Cassie, and a lady identified by the pseudonym Jane – testified that Combs bodily attacked them and threatened to chop off monetary help in the event that they refused to take part within the intercourse performances.
Combs’ legal professionals acknowledged the bodily assaults, however argued there was no direct hyperlink between what they referred to as home violence and the ladies’s participation within the Freak Offs.
Additionally they stated Ventura and Jane consented to the encounters as a result of they liked Combs and needed to make him comfortable.
COMBS SEEKS SHORT SENTENCE
On the listening to, prosecutors and protection legal professionals will every be given 20 minutes to current their arguments. Subramanian requested legal professionals for either side to deal with whether or not Combs ought to have raised his First Modification argument earlier.
Combs is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3, ought to Subramanian uphold his conviction.
In a court docket submitting earlier this week, his legal professionals prompt a 14-month sentence. That will see him launched quickly, as he could be credited for the time he has already spent in jail.
Prosecutors are on account of file their very own sentencing advice on September 29.
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