Sean “Diddy” Combs has requested a choose to throw out his responsible verdicts on prostitution-related counts or grant him a brand new trial, saying such convictions are with out precedent.
“This conviction stands alone, nevertheless it should not stand in any respect,” the Wednesday submitting mentioned.
Combs’ legal professionals argue that his two felony convictions had been a singular misapplication of the federal Mann Act, which bars interstate commerce associated to prostitution,
“To our information, Mr. Combs is the one individual ever convicted of violating the statute for conduct something like this,” a Wednesday submitting from Combs authorized staff mentioned.
Combs, 55, was convicted in a New York federal courtroom of two counts of transportation to interact in prostitution for flying individuals across the nation, together with his girlfriends and male intercourse employees, for sexual encounters, whereas he was acquitted of extra severe prices. He might rise up to a decade in jail at his sentencing set for Oct. 3.
His legal professionals argued that not one of the parts usually used for Mann Act convictions, together with making the most of intercourse work or coercion, had been current right here.
“It’s undisputed that he had no business motive and that each one concerned had been adults,” The submitting mentioned. “The lads selected to journey and interact within the exercise voluntarily. The decision confirms the ladies weren’t weak or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted.”
The legal professionals mentioned that Combs, “at most, paid to interact in voyeurism as a part of a ‘swingers’ life-style” and argued that “doesn’t represent ‘prostitution’ beneath a correctly restricted definition of the statutory time period.”
Combs was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking, prices might have put one in every of hip-hop’s celebrated figures in jail for all times.
The brand new movement asks Decide Arun Subramanian to vacate the jury’s verdict, or to order a brand new trial whose proof is restricted to issues associated to the Mann Act counts, due to “extreme spillover prejudice from reams of inflammatory proof” associated to the extra severe counts.
Prosecutors insisted through the eight-week trial that Combs had coerced, threatened and typically viciously compelled two ex-girlfriends to have intercourse with male intercourse employees to fulfill his sexual urges. They cited a number of acts of violence he carried out in opposition to them as proof that they’d no say.
A day earlier, Combs’ staff requested the choose to free him on a $50 million bond whereas he awaits sentencing in October after a jury discovered him not responsible of probably the most severe federal prices he confronted earlier this month.
His lawyer argued that situations on the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn are harmful, noting that others convicted of comparable prostitution-related offenses had been sometimes launched earlier than sentencing.
Subramanian beforehand denied a request that Combs be launched on bail whereas he awaits sentencing, citing a now-infamous video of Combs beating a former girlfriend and images exhibiting accidents to a different ex-girlfriend.
The choose has not but dominated on both of this week’s motions.
