Citing ‘decades of abuse,’ feds seek 11-year sentence for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

MANHATTAN (CN) — An “unrepentant” Sean “Diddy” Combs should get no less than 135 months behind bars for a pair of prostitution-related transportation convictions, federal prosecutors argued Tuesday.

The hip hop mogul was spared from the potential of life in prison after a Manhattan jury acquitted him on sex trafficking charges at trial earlier this year. But prosecutors say that his admitted history of violence should be duly noted when U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian sentences him on Friday for the convictions on lesser counts.

“A substantial term of imprisonment is also needed in this case because the defendant is unrepentant,” prosecutors said Tuesday in a 164-page sentencing memo. “Incredibly, while the defendant conceded his acts of violence and abuse throughout trial, he now argues that his victims should shoulder the blame.”

Accused by the government of running a criminal racketeering enterprise centered around drug-fueled sex marathons with his then-girlfriends — who testified that they were forced to sleep with male escorts for Combs’ pleasure — Combs pushed to be released on time served in his own sentencing submission from last week.

But prosecutors claim that doing so would be “offensive to common sense,” as it would invalidate evidence that Combs used threats, physical violence, money and influence to put the women “in a position where they felt that they could not say no.”

They further accuse Combs of justifying his behavior by trying to “recast decades of abuse as simply the function of mutually toxic relationships.”

“But there is nothing mutual about a relationship where one person holds all the power and the other ends up bloodied and bruised,” they wrote.

Central to the prosecutors’ case was a notorious 2016 surveillance video of Combs violently grabbing, dragging and kicking singer Cassie Ventura, one of his former partners who said she participated in the so-called “freak-offs” under pressure from Combs. Combs never denied physically abusing Ventura, but holds that the violence was an uncommon two-way street.

Prosecutors disagree.

“Contrary to the defendant’s assertion that his abuse was ‘rare,’ the record shows the defendant physically abused Ventura consistently throughout their relationship,” prosecutors wrote, citing Combs’ own filing,

In acquitting Combs on the case’s top counts, jurors ultimately rejected Ventura’s testimony that she was trafficked by the rapper against her will. She penned an emotional letter to the court in support of the government’s request for a more than 11-year prison sentence for Combs.

“These events were degrading and disgusting, leaving me with infections, illnesses and days of physical and emotional exhaustion before he demanded it all again,” Ventura wrote of the freak-offs in a letter docketed Tuesday. “Sex acts became my full-time job, used as the only way to stay in his good graces.”

Ventura, who took the witness stand while nine months pregnant, added that she moved her family out of New York 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.”

“As much progress as I have made in recovering from his abuse, I remain very much afraid of what he is capable of and the malice he undoubtedly harbors towards me for having the bravery to tell the truth,” she wrote.

In his own sentencing memo, Combs boasted that he developed a 6-week course while in federal lockup called “Free Game with Diddy,” designed to teach business skills to fellow inmates. He claims he’s a changed man who wants to mentor abusers.

“This disgusts me,” Ventura wrote of those claims in her letter. “He is not being truthful.”

Ventura’s mother and father were among others who penned similar letters to the court, writing that they are “extremely concerned parents” seeking justice for their daughter’s “horrific nightmare.”

Combs’ fate will be in the hands of Subramanian, who could sentence the disgraced musician to up to 20 years in prison later this week.

In the meantime, the Joe Biden-appointed judge is also fielding a last-ditch defense effort to toss the prostitution convictions on the grounds that Combs was not facilitating prostitution at all, but producing pornography. Subramanian is expected to rule on that bid in the coming days.

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