Latest news with #ArunSubramanian
Boston Globe
4 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Sean ‘Diddy' Combs asks judge to throw out guilty verdicts or grant him a new trial
'To our knowledge, Mr. Combs is the only person ever convicted of violating the statute for conduct anything like this,' a Wednesday filing from Combs legal team said. Combs, 55, was convicted in a New York federal court of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution for flying people around the country, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, for sexual encounters, while he was acquitted of more serious charges. He could get up to a decade in prison at his sentencing set for Oct. 3. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up His lawyers argued that none of the elements normally used for Mann Act convictions, including profiting from sex work or coercion, were present here. Advertisement 'It is undisputed that he had no commercial motive and that all involved were adults,' The filing said. 'The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily. The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted.' The lawyers said that Combs, 'at most, paid to engage in voyeurism as part of a 'swingers' lifestyle' and argued that 'does not constitute 'prostitution' under a properly limited definition of the statutory term.' Combs was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, charges could have put one of hip-hop's celebrated figures in prison for life. Advertisement The new motion asks Judge Arun Subramanian to vacate the jury's verdict, or to order a new trial whose evidence is limited to matters related to the Mann Act counts, because of 'severe spillover prejudice from reams of inflammatory evidence' related to the more serious counts. Prosecutors insisted during the eight-week trial that Combs had coerced, threatened and sometimes viciously forced two ex-girlfriends to have sex with male sex workers to satisfy his sexual urges. They cited multiple acts of violence he carried out against them as proof that they had no say. A day earlier, Combs' team asked the judge to free him on a $50 million bond while he awaits sentencing in October after a jury found him not guilty of the most serious federal charges he faced earlier this month. His lawyer argued that conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn are dangerous, noting that others convicted of similar prostitution-related offenses were typically released before sentencing. Subramanian previously denied a request that Combs be released on bail while he awaits sentencing, citing a now-infamous video of Combs beating a former girlfriend and photographs showing injuries to another ex-girlfriend. The judge has not yet ruled on either of this week's motions.
UPI
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Combs attorneys ask judge to release Diddy ahead of October sentencing
On Tuesday in a 12-page letter to federal Judge Arun Subramanian, Sean Combs lawyers wrote there were "exceptional" reasons why Diddy (pictured May 2022 in Las Vegas) should be granted his freedom as he awaits sentencing in October. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo July 29 (UPI) -- Attorneys for Sean "Diddy" Combs asked a federal judge to release the convicted entertainment mogul from jail as he awaits sentencing in early October. In a 12-page letter on Tuesday to Judge Arun Subramanian, Combs lawyers wrote that there were "exceptional" reasons why he should be granted the privilege and that the laws under which he was convicted allegedly had "never been applied to facts similar to these to prosecute or incarcerate any other person." "Sean Combs should not be in jail for this conduct," the letter read in part. On July 2 at New York's southern U.S. District Court in Manhattan, a jury found Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, and acquitted him on one count of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking. "There has literally never been a case, like this one," the defense letter stated. "Where a person and his girlfriend arranged for adult men to have consensual sexual relations with the adult, long-term girlfriend as part of a demonstrated swingers lifestyle, and has been prosecuted and incarcerated under the Mann Act." The letter proposes his release under the conditions of a $50 million bail and that Combs will reside at his Miami home with travel limited to the Southern District of Florida, the Southern District of New York for legal briefings, "as well as airports necessary to travel between the two." Subramanian previosuly declined to release Combs on bail following his conviction. Combs' legal team went on to claim that he "may be the only person currently in a United States jail for being any sort of john, and certainly the only person in jail for hiring adult male escorts for him and his girlfriend." He has spent over 10 months confined in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since his September 2024 arrest.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Yahoo
Diddy could get a 20-year prison sentence but the reality probably won't be anything close to that
Sean 'Diddy' Combs faces up to 20 years in prison, despite being acquitted on the most serious counts. It likely won't be that high. Prosecutors said the guidelines call for around 5 years and 3. The judge said he's already considering Combs' violent conduct and decided to keep him in jail. Shortly after a jury acquitted Sean "Diddy" Combs of the most severe charges against him, a prosecutor still warned that he was a danger to society. The two Mann Act counts for which he was convicted, related to transporting victims for prostitution, still carried a combined sentence of up to 20 years in prison, said Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey Wednesday, urging the judge to keep Combs in jail until his sentencing hearing. "The maximum sentence the defendant faces is 20 years in prison under the two statutes of which he's been convicted now," Comey said. While Combs could get a severe sentence, he's not likely to get anything close to 20 years. "Even though the Mann Act carries a potential 10-year maximum sentence, Diddy is going to get time served or close to it," said Neama Rahmani, the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor. "His sentencing guideline range may be as low as 15-21 months." The sentence will ultimately be decided by US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who presided over the trial in a lower Manhattan courtroom. In a letter to the judge later on Wednesday, prosecutors said that sentencing guidelines called for more like five years in prison. Even though Combs was acquitted of racketeering and sex-trafficking charges, which could have resulted in a lifelong prison sentence, prosecutors said Subramanian should still take into account the violence and drug use that witnesses testified about. They estimated a sentence of between 4 years and 3 months to 5 years and 3 months, but cautioned that they were still evaluating a sentencing recommendation and may come up with a new estimate before the hearing. Combs' attorneys say the sentencing guidelines point to a range of 21 to 27 months, and that he would be entitled to even less time behind bars. Nadia Shihata, a former Assistant US Attorney who prosecuted R. Kelly on racketeering related to sex abuse, said a 20-year sentence was unlikely even if Subramanian takes a broad view of the evidence. In order to get 20 years, prosecutors will have to ask the judge to consider acquitted conduct, Shihata said. Even though those predicates and sex trafficking weren't proved at trial, the judge can decide if there was a perponderance of evidence proving those acquitted crimes. Shihata believes it's unlikely the judge "will give him anywhere near 20 years." Combs has already spent 10 months incarcerated in the Metropolitan Detention Center, which would count toward any sentence decided by Subramanian. The judge on Wednesday indicated he is already considering Combs' violent conduct, which his lawyers had admitted to jurors at trial. Subramanian did not grant Combs bail to allow him to be released from custody ahead of the sentencing hearing, noting that the trial evidence demonstrated he couldn't prove he wouldn't be a danger to those around him. "This type of violence, which happens behind closed doors in personal relationships, sparked by unpredictable bouts of anger, is impossible to police with conditions," Subramanian said. "Having conceded the defendant's propensity for violence in this way, it is impossible for the defendant to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he poses no danger to any other person or the community." Subramanian set a tentative sentencing hearing date for October 3, but said it may be sooner depending on whether the federal sentencing commission could prepare a report on a recommended sentence before then. Read the original article on Business Insider
eNCA
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- eNCA
Sean 'Diddy' Combs acquitted of sex trafficking, convicted on lesser charge
NEW YORK - Music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs was found not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking on Wednesday but convicted of a less serious prostitution charge after a high-profile seven-week trial in New York. The jury, after 13 hours of deliberation over three days, found Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Combs, 55, smiled and looked relieved as the verdict was read out. He shook hands with one of his lawyers and said "thank you" to members of the eight-man, four-woman jury as they left the courtroom. Judge Arun Subramanian also thanked the jury for their service before dismissing them. "You listened, you worked together, you were here every day, rain or shine," he said. "You did so with no reward, other than the reward that comes from answering the call of public service." The verdict came at the end of a trial in which prosecutors had accused Combs of being the boss of a decades-long criminal group who directed loyal employees and bodyguards to commit myriad offences at his behest. The alleged crimes included forced labour, drug distribution, kidnapping, bribery, witness tampering and obstruction and arson. To find Combs guilty of racketeering, jurors needed to find the existence of a criminal enterprise and that the organisation committed at least two of the offences. Jurors announced a partial verdict late Tuesday and said they were deadlocked on the racketeering charge but Judge Arun Subramanian instructed them to keep working. Combs, once one of the most powerful figures in the music industry, had vehemently denied all charges. - 'Untouchable' - Jurors began deliberating on Monday after the judge read them nearly three hours of instructions on how to apply the mountain of evidence and testimony in the case to the law. The trial included at times disturbing testimony along with thousands of pages of phone, financial and audiovisual records. Combs was charged with sex trafficking two women: singer Casandra Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane. Both were in long-term relationships with the entrepreneur and hip hop powerhouse, and they each testified about abuse, threats and coercive sex in wrenching detail. They both said they felt obligated to participate in Combs-directed sexual marathons with hired men. Combs's lawyers insisted the sex was consensual. They conceded domestic violence was a feature of his relationships -- one harrowing example of him beating and dragging Ventura was caught on security footage that has been widely publicised. Yet while disturbing, that did not amount to sex trafficking, the defence said. But prosecutors in their final argument tore into Combs's team, who they said had "contorted the facts endlessly." "In his mind he was untouchable," prosecutor Maurene Comey told the court. "The defendant never thought that the women he abused would have the courage to speak out loud about what he had done to them."
New York Times
02-07-2025
- New York Times
Experts Say Judge Has Wide Latitude in Sentencing Sean Combs
Though Sean Combs was acquitted on Wednesday of the most serious charges in his federal trial, he still faces the possibility of prison time because the jury found him guilty of two counts of transporting people to engage in prostitution. Sentencing experts say it is difficult to predict how severe his punishment will be, as the judge in the case must go through complicated calculus to determine a just outcome. A sentencing date has not yet been set. Each of the two transportation for prostitution convictions carries up to 10 years in prison, creating a maximum of 20 years if those sentences are served consecutively. But there are several reasons to think Mr. Combs's sentence could be considerably shorter than that, experts said. 'Judges almost never come close to' the maximum sentences, said Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York. The judge in the trial, Arun Subramanian, will likely start by considering federal sentencing guidelines, rubrics which are used to create a penalty range based on various factors, including the nature of the offense, specifics of the case and personal characteristics of the defendant, like criminal history. Nationally, judges stuck to the sentencing guidelines in 67 percent of cases in the fiscal year 2024. But judges in the Southern District of New York imposed sentences within the guidelines just 34.5 percent of the time, almost always imposing shorter sentences than the guidelines suggested. Mr. Richman said the judge has wide latitude to consider what a reasonable sentence would be. 'When making that decision he can consider the guidelines, especially since he just calculated them, but he can consider many other things and need not follow the guidelines,' he said. Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at Ohio State University, said that even if judges do not stick to sentencing guidelines, they are often still used as a benchmark. Judges generally don't want to stray too far from established norms, he said. Mr. Berman said every aspect of the defendant's character and history — his charity work, his professional success, his threat to others, any bad behavior — can be taken into account. 'There really are no limits to what the judge can consider,' he said. That also extends to evidence presented at trial regarding the counts on which Mr. Combs was acquitted, if the judge deems it relevant to the sentencing. Judges must weigh, among other things, whether the defendant is likely to commit a crime again. In the courtroom on Wednesday, Mr. Combs appeared to treat the verdict as a victory, pumping his fist in celebration and thanking jurors. Mr. Berman said that 'how much of a win will really turn on how aggressive prosecutors are in their sentencing recommendations,' which he said can often influence judges.
