Music mogul Sean Combs has been sentenced to more than four years in prison, after a jury convicted him of prostitution-related charges in July.
The 50-month sentence, less than the 11 years prosecutors sought but more than the 14 months Combs pushed for, comes after a trial earlier this year in which the rapper-entrepreneur was also acquitted of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering counts. He was fined $500,000, the maximum permitted.
“I know you feel like you’re in a dark place right now but these crimes were serious ones,” Judge Arun Subramanian told Combs after announcing the sentence. He said Combs’ violence towards women had “devastating consequences” and that the sentence sent a message to Combs’ victims that “we heard you”.
The trial this year, during which Combs’ former girlfriend Cassie Ventura described a violent and abusive relationship, had been the subject of a media frenzy and one of the music industry’s most high-profile reckonings with alleged sexual misconduct. It centred on “freak-offs”, at which prosecutors said Combs forced women to take drugs and have sex with hired male escorts. At the trial, a video was played showing Combs violently assaulting Ventura.
Shortly before the sentence was announced, at the end of an all-day hearing, Combs made an emotional appeal to the judge, saying he wanted to apologise to his victims and that his actions had been “disgusting, shameful and sick” and that “no matter what anybody says, I know I’m truly sorry”.
He apologised to his children, saying they “deserve better”, and to his mother, saying: “I’ve failed you as a son . . . You raised me better.”
He said he wanted to return home so he could be with his family and help others: “I don’t care about fame and money, making records and performing.”
Earlier at the hearing, he had looked on as six of his seven children — the seventh, Love, is a toddler — made tearful pleas to the judge to let him return home.
“We know he isn’t perfect . . . but your honour, he is still our dad,” his 18-year-old daughter Jessie Combs told the judge.
Combs’ lawyers played a roughly 10-minute video showing clips of him playing with his children, raising money for charity and giving motivational speeches.
Prosecutor Christy Slavik said Combs had “not expressed remorse for the actual offence” that he was convicted of, transporting people for the purposes of prostitution.
“It’s clear that [Combs] doesn’t appreciate or understand the gravity of his criminal conduct,” she said, adding that he had booked a speaking engagement in Miami for next week.
“That is the height of hubris,” she said. Combs’ lawyers later said the purpose of the Miami event was part of a programme to help convicts avoid recidivism.
Combs has already spent more than a year at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was sent while he awaited trial. Ahead of Friday’s hearing, Combs’ lawyers asked the judge to sentence him to no more than 14 months, which would have allowed him to be released soon after on the basis of time served.
Combs was the architect of a far-reaching business empire that included a partnership with drinks company Diageo, a record company, TV network and reality show. He settled a legal dispute with Diageo last year.
Combs’ defence lawyers said he had struggled with substance abuse, anger and anxiety in the past but his time in jail had been “life-changing” and he had “taken the time to achieve necessary rehabilitation . . . including getting clean of all substances”. He ran an educational course in jail called “Free Game with Diddy”, they said.
They submitted scores of letters in support of Combs, including from friends, family members and a handwritten note on behalf of a fellow inmate who said Combs had “inspired me” to “better myself”.
Another fellow inmate, the convicted Chinese businessman Miles Guo, said in a letter to the judge that Combs had asked him if they could create an AI platform together once they were released.
“Without minimising Mr. Combs’s conduct, this is in many ways a ‘sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll’ story,” his lawyers, led by Marc Agnifilo from the law firm Agnifilo Intrater, said in a filing. In court, the judge said he rejected this characterisation of Combs’ behaviour.
Prosecutors had asked for an 11-year sentence, saying Combs had conceded that his past behaviour included “violence, domestic abuse, drug use and distribution, and bribery”.
They submitted letters including one from Ventura, in which she wrote: “Over the nearly eleven years we were together, Sean Combs would hit me, punch me, stomp on my face, pull my hair, and throw my body to the ground and against the wall” and said the sentence should reflect “the strength it took for victims of Sean Combs to come forward”.
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