Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Miles Guo, the Chinese businessman convicted of fraud in the US last year, said he and his fellow detainee Sean Combs had discussed creating an artificial intelligence platform together when they are released from jail.
Guo, also known as Guo Wengui and Ho Wan Kwok, was found guilty of racketeering, fraud and money laundering offences more than a year ago, after a Manhattan jury found he conducted a $1bn fraud on his online followers.
Before his conviction he had criticised the Chinese Communist party and allied himself with US President Donald Trump and the populist political strategist Steve Bannon. Prosecutors said he funded a lavish lifestyle through investment scams. Bannon was arrested on fraud charges in 2020 while on Guo’s yacht. (Bannon was later pardoned by Trump, but subsequently charged in a separate fraud case in state court.)
Combs was convicted in July on charges related to the interstate transport of sex workers to participate in “freak-off” parties. He is scheduled to be sentenced in a Manhattan federal court on Friday.
Guo wrote a letter to Arun Subramanian, the New York judge who oversaw Combs’ trial, ahead of the rapper and entrepreneur’s sentencing hearing. He said he hoped Combs could “get out” of jail. Guo is scheduled to be sentenced in January 2026, after his sentencing hearings were repeatedly delayed.
Guo told the judge he and Combs “sleep right across from each other” at the federal jail in Brooklyn, where they had been housed together “for close to 200 days”. Guo said he had multiple conversations with Combs and described him as a “very kind, sensitive, genius person”.
Combs “personally ask[ed] me that when we are released if we can create an AI platform so that we can help the people”, Guo said in the letter. He did not set out details of the proposal but said it would be “not only for business but for emotional support”.
Guo said he had met a lot of celebrities and many “are not that organised”, but that Combs had been very well organised while delivering a self-help course to fellow inmates titled “Free Game with Diddy”.
Combs has been in custody at the Brooklyn jail since he was arrested in September 2024 and charged in the trafficking case. He has asked the judge for a sentence of 14 months, which, if granted, would allow him to go free before the end of the year with credit for time served. Prosecutors are seeking an 11-year sentence.
Combs’ trial included weeks of graphic testimony, including from his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura who said her relationship with the music mogul had been violent and abusive.
The letter from Guo is one of scores of letters that Combs’ defence lawyers have submitted to the judge ahead of the sentencing hearing.
Prosecutors have also submitted letters to the judge, including one from Ventura in which she says Combs “would hit me, punch me, stomp on my face, pull my hair, and throw my body to the ground and against the wall”. She said the sentence should reflect “the strength it took for victims of Sean Combs to come forward”.
Credit: Source link
