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MANHATTAN (CN) — The entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs asked a New York federal judge late on Wednesday to overturn his trial convictions on charges related to transportation for purposes of prostitution, claiming that he was producing legal “amateur pornography” when he paid for male escorts to perform at consensual hotel sex parties with his girlfriends.
“The sexual performances that occurred during freak-offs and hotel nights are materially indistinguishable from — and, indeed, can be considered a form of — adult pornography,” Combs’ defense argued in the court filing. “This type of content is now ubiquitous on both unpaid (e.g., Pornhub) and paid (e.g., OnlyFans) channels.”
The motion, filed shortly before midnight on Wednesday evening, comes four weeks after a federal jury in New York City acquitted Combs on the three top charges of his criminal indictment — two counts of sex trafficking and one of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — but convicted on the remaining two lesser counts for transporting individuals for prostitution.
Combs, 55, faces up to a maximum sentence up to 20 years in prison on his convictions for the two prostitution-related counts under the Mann Act, but his attorneys argue those convictions should be overturned or retried because there was insufficient evidence that Combs transported any individuals with the intent to engage in “prostitution.”
“The evidence did not reveal any understanding on Mr. Combs’s part that the transportation was for purposes of having sex for money,” his lawyer argue in the motion for post-conviction acquittal. “To the contrary, the proof showed that Combs hired the services of legitimate escorts advertised through lawful businesses offering male companionship in exchange for a fee — usually at a pre-determined rate.”
Combs was “not a commercial purveyor of prostitution,” his defense argues, rather the evidence at trial showed he transported the escorts or entertainers and his girlfriends interstate so they could enjoy sex together while he watched and choreographed the experience.
“Narrowly construed, the Mann Act does not proscribe Mr. Combs’s conduct because he lacked a commercial motive and did not intend for paid escorts to have sex with him ,” the filing states. (Emphasis in original.)
The motion for acquittal was filed by attorney Alexandra Shapiro, a partner at Shapiro Arato Bach specializing in appellate law.
In a separate filing earlier in the week, seeking Combs’ release on bail ahead of his October sentencing hearing, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo similarly argued that Combs was participating in a consensual “swingers” lifestyle “that is not uncommon today,” where he and his girlfriend “arranged for adult men to have consensual sexual relations with the adult long-term girlfriend.”
Combs’ defense pointed out that in similar Mann Act convictions where there was no conviction on the sex trafficking or violence offenses, but a conviction on the prostitution transportation offense, the defendants were released pending sentencing.
Combs has been detained at the at the troubled Metropolitan Detention Center in South Brooklyn for nearly 11 months, since his arrest at the Park Hyatt hotel in midtown Manhattan in September 2024.
Combs’ numerous applications for release on bail before his case went on trial, secured by his $48 million Star Island Miami mansion as collateral, were repeatedly denied by multiple judges who cited his 2016 beating of R&B singer Cassie Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel and subsequent apparent attempts at witness tampering.
During the trial, Agnifilo conceded that Combs had subjected Ventura to domestic violence, and said Combs would have pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges. Instead, he is standing trial on racketeering and sex trafficking counts.
“We own the domestic violence,” he said during the defense’s closing summation.
Those very same episodes of domestic violence were referenced in U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian’s decision to keep Combs detained after the jury’s split verdict was returned in early July, acquitting Combs on the top RICO and sex trafficking counts but convicting on the Mann Act prostitution-transportation crimes.
Judge Subramanian, a Biden appointee, ordered federal prosecutors to respond to Combs’ bail motion by Thursday, July 31.
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