Diddy's bid to avoid prison: He'll become a domestic abuse counselor

Business Insider

2 days ago

Sean "Diddy" Combs' redemption plan includes his aspirations to become an anti-domestic violence advocate, one of his defense lawyers told Business Insider.
Combs, who was found guilty last month of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, plans to cite his hopes to counsel other domestic abusers in a bid to avoid prison.
"That's something that he actively wants to pursue in the future," defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro said in an interview.
Combs wants to work with domestic violence programs "to help in whatever ways he can to kind of encourage other people not to do this and really to help in positive ways in the future," said Shapiro.
"The idea is that he would work with programs and be able to go in and talk to people, talk to youth, talk to others about the issue in a proactive way and be an advocate for this," Shapiro said. "And sometimes, people like him can be the best spokesperson to try to help."
Shapiro said that Combs' legal team plans to include these arguments in sentencing-related court filings to the Manhattan judge overseeing his criminal case. She said Combs will request a sentence of time-served — meaning that the time he has spent in jail awaiting trial and since would be all of the time he spends behind bars.
Combs has been locked up at a notorious Brooklyn jail since his arrest and indictment nearly one year ago. The Bad Boy Records founder has been denied bail five times, with the latest time being this week.
Though Combs skirted a possible life sentence in prison when the Manhattan federal jury cleared him of the more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking at his trial, he still faces up to 20 years behind bars.
The two prostitution-related counts Combs was convicted of are Mann Act charges, and each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Shapiro and other legal experts who are not involved in the case expect any sentence to be much lower than that.
"We're hopeful that the judge is going to consider these arguments that we're going to make about Sean's future, his redemption," Shapiro said. While Combs "has had struggles in the past with the domestic violence problem," he's accomplished a "tremendous amount," she said.
"He's a self-made person who's done so much," Shapiro said of the 55-year-old businessman and rapper who was once worth close to a billion dollars. "And we're hopeful that the judge will look at the whole person and consider the impact he could have in the future, the positive impact, and give him the benefit of the doubt."
At Combs' two-month trial, his defense attorneys painted him as a "complicated" and "flawed" man with a violent side, arguing that domestic violence is not sex trafficking.
The music tycoon's violent side was on full display at the trial where several women, including Combs' ex-girlfriend R&B singer Cassie Ventura, accused Combs of physical or sexual violence in, at times, emotionally-charged testimony.
Combs' jury was also shown the infamous hotel surveillance video where he was seen kicking and dragging Ventura in a Los Angeles hallway. Graphic footage of "freak off" sex encounters were played for the jury, but withheld from the public and media.
Combs' prosecution was 'overcharged and unfair,' lawyer says
Shapiro told Business Insider she believes the entire prosecution of Combs was "overcharged and unfair, adding that the Mann Act is historically never used in a situation like this.
"The history of the statute is that for basically like 75 years, the government has focused on prosecuting people with a commercial interest in a prostitution business, people who are engaged in exploiting vulnerable women and making money off them," said Shapiro. "This is night and day from that."
"We're talking about someone who's, at worst, a customer," Shapiro said of Combs, adding that the male escorts who prosecutors alleged Combs arranged to cross state lines for sex were "people who voluntarily chose to be commercial sex workers."
"They're not vulnerable, they're not exploited, they're American citizens. They could do whatever they want with their career," the defense attorney said.
These points, Shapiro said, will be part of the arguments that Combs' defense team plans to make to US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who will decide Combs' sentence at a hearing scheduled for October 3.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan declined to comment.
"We're also going to be talking about some of the things that Sean has already started to do to get himself on a path to redemption, in terms of overcoming his drug addiction, working on counseling with regard to the domestic violence problem that he had in the past, and a lot of the things that he would like to do in the future," Shapiro said.
If all else fails, Combs is apparently hoping for a pardon from President Donald Trump.
Shapiro confirmed to Business Insider that members of Combs' inner circle have reached out to the Trump administration about a possible pardon.
Trump, however, recently signaled that a pardon for Combs was unlikely.