Sean “Diddy” Combs’s lawyers have called for the music mogul to be given no more than 14 months in prison when he is sentenced next month – meaning he would walk free almost immediately.
In a new written legal submission, the defence team also detailed “inhumane” conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York – saying food sometimes contains maggots, that the rapper is routinely subjected to violence, and that he has “not breathed fresh air in nearly 13 months”.
Combs, 55, was found guilty of two prostitution-related charges following his high-profile trial in the summer, but cleared of the more serious charges of sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
He has already served a year in custody in New York following his arrest in September 2024, and is due to be sentenced on 3 October.
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His defence lawyers have now made their arguments for sentencing in a written submission to Judge Arun Subramanian, who heard the trial.
“In the past two years, Mr Combs’s career and reputation have been destroyed,” his lawyers said in the document. “He has served over a year in one of the most notorious jails in America – yet has made the most of that punishment.”
They said Combs has been “adequately punished” already, having been jailed in “terrible conditions”. He has also become sober “for the first time in 25 years” and had an “incident-free record”, they added, and helped other inmates by creating an educational programme on business management and entrepreneurship.
It is now time for the rapper “to go home to his family, so he can continue his treatment and try to make the most of the next chapter of his extraordinary life”, the defence team said.
‘Maggots and limited clean water’
The defence’s submission provides new information about what life behind bars has been like for Combs, a Grammy-winning artist and Bad Boy Records founder who was one of the most influential hip-hop producers of the 1990s and 2000s, and for his family and previous associates.
The rapper had to let more than 100 employees go from his businesses following his arrest, it said, and many have been unable to find work due to their previous association with him.
Combs’s seven children have also faced “devastating consequences”, according to the legal filing, including lost business opportunities in acting, television, fashion and music.
The rapper and his family were also set to star in a Hulu show about their lives, but the show was cancelled once the allegations against him became public.
Combs was removed from the boards at three charter schools he created in Harlem, the Bronx and Connecticut and was also stripped of an honorary doctorate degree from Howard University, which plans to return his prior donations, it said.
The defence’s document also goes into detail about the alleged conditions at the detention centre where Combs is being held.
“Mr Combs is routinely subject to violence – both directed at him and at others,” they said. On 12 September, they said members of the defence counsel were in the middle of a call with the rapper that had to be ended suddenly “because of a stabbing that locked the facility down for the next several days”.
Living conditions are “inhumane”, they argued, and Combs has been “under constant suicide watch”, meaning every two hours he “must present his identification card to the guards to show he is alive and well. While he is sleeping, he is awoken by an officer to ensure he is well and subjected to bright lights illuminated 24 hours per day”.
He also has limited access to clean water, they said, and often “heats his water to have clean water to drink without getting sick”.
Describing the dorm-style room he sleeps in, they said he is within “two feet from other inmates with the bathroom in the same room, with no door”.
Read more:
How the trial unfolded
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
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The rapper “has not breathed fresh air in nearly 13 months, or felt sunlight on his skin”, the document added, while food “on any given day can contain maggots”.
The judge has already rejected a proposed $50m bail package for Combs.
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Prosecutors, who will also submit their recommendations for sentencing ahead of the hearing, have already said they will call for him to remain in prison for a substantial period.
Combs was found guilty of two counts of transportation for engagement in prostitution – for flying girlfriends and male sex workers around the US and abroad for sexual encounters referred to as “freak offs”. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
