Sean “Diddy” Combs has requested to address the court for the first time at his sentencing hearing after he was convicted of two prostitution-related charges.
After an eight-week trial, a jury acquitted the 55-year-old music mogul of the more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges, but found him guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
The rapper didn’t take the stand during the trial but is now asking to address the court at his sentencing hearing Friday.
“The sentencing proceeding holds significant importance for Mr. Combs. He wishes to appear before the Court, address Your Honor, and allocute in the most dignified and respectful fashion possible,” Teny Geragos, one of his attorneys, wrote in a filing last week.
She also requested her client be allowed to wear non-prison clothing at the sentencing.
Diddy “is permitted to have one button-down shirt, one pair of pants, one sweater, and one pair of shoes without laces to wear to court,” Judge Arun Subramanian ordered Tuesday.
Last Friday the mogul appeared in court — sporting a scraggly gray beard and beige prison garb — as his lawyers argued that he should be granted a new trial or an acquittal. Subramanian denied those motions Tuesday.
“Every day, every hour, I get closer to coming home,” the rapper said, speaking hopefully to his friends and family at the hearing. “Your support means more than y’all know.”
Prosecutors are asking for the judge to sentence Diddy to 135 months — more than 11 years — behind bars.
“His crimes of conviction are serious and have warranted sentences over 10 years in multiple cases for defendants who, like Sean Combs, engaged in violence and put others in fear,” government lawyers wrote in a filing.
Throughout the trial, a New York jury heard testimony from his ex-girlfriends and former associates detailing years of domestic abuse, drug use, and so-called “Freak Offs.”
Cassie Ventura, Diddy’s on-and-off girlfriend for more than a decade who took the stand while nine months pregnant, submitted a three-page victim impact statement, urging the judge’s decision to consider “justice and accountability.” She wrote about the violence she endured at Diddy’s hands, the multi-day “Freak Offs,” and his control over her career.
She branded her relationship with the rapper “a horrific decade of my life stained by abuse, violence, forced sex, and degradation.”
Ventura underscored that even though she’s made progress after her relationship with Diddy ended, she still lives in fear of his “malice,” she wrote.
“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,” the statement read.
Mia, Diddy’s former assistant who testified under a pseudonym, submitted a three-page victim impact statement. “His coercive control and unpredictable violence left lasting psychological scars: anxiety, hyper-vigilance, dissociation, self-doubt, and an ongoing struggle to reclaim my autonomy,” she wrote.
Mia urged the judge to “deliver a sentence that takes into account the ongoing danger my abuser poses to me, and to others. A sentence that honors the truth, the pain, and the lives that have been destroyed. A sentence that gives us hope, protection, and justice.”
The government requested that Mia be allowed to read her victim impact statement at the sentencing.
Diddy’s lawyers have objected, urging the judge to deny the request. They accused Mia of assuming a “made-up voice and demeanor” and telling falsehoods about the rapper: “Virtually everything that came out of her mouth was a lie.”
