A judge has again refused to release Sean “Diddy” Combs on bail ahead of his October sentencing for interstate prostitution, confirming that the disgraced music mogul will stay in jail despite being acquitted on more serious charges.
Combs’ attorneys had argued that after the rapper’s stunning acquittal on sex-trafficking and racketeering counts, he’s unfairly being held in detention for merely arranging consensual sex marathons called “freak-offs” between his girlfriends and male escorts. The defense lawyers said incarceration under these facts is unprecedented: “There has literally never been a case like this one,” they wrote last week.
But Judge Arun Subramanian is unconvinced, saying in a Monday (Aug. 4) ruling that Combs’ arguments “might have traction in a case that didn’t involve evidence of violence, coercion or subjugation in connection with the acts of prostitution at issue, but the record here contains evidence of all three.”
“While Combs may contend at sentencing that this evidence should be discounted and that what happened was nothing more than a case of willing ‘swingers’ utilizing the voluntary services of escorts for their mutual pleasure, the government takes the opposite view: that Cassie Ventura and Jane were beaten, coerced, threatened, lied to and victimized by Combs as part of their participation in these
events,” writes the judge.
Due to these contradictory narratives about whether Combs’ freak-offs were coercive or consensual, Judge Subramanian says he can’t release the rapper at the moment. But it remains to be seen how the judge will interpret these events at Combs’ Oct. 3 sentencing hearing.
“The court offers no view as to how the parties’ competing arguments about the evidence will cash out for purposes of sentencing, which is happening in just sixty days,” writes the judge. “At this juncture, however, the record doesn’t establish the kind of out of the ordinary exceptional circumstances requiring immediate release.”
Combs likely faces between two and five years in prison for the prostitution conviction under nonbinding guidelines in October. He’ll have already been in jail for over a year by the time he’s sentenced, and that time will likely get deducted from any prison term.
The rapper’s partial acquittal on July 2 was a major defeat for prosecutors, who could have sought up to life in prison if Combs had been convicted on all the sex-trafficking and racketeering counts he faced.
The government seemed to face yet another blow this weekend, when one of the alleged victims they’d intended to call at Combs’ trial advocated for the mogul’s release. Virginia Huynh, who was listed as a witness but never showed up to the trial, told Judge Subramanian that she doesn’t see Combs “as a danger to me or to the community.”
Combs’ reps did not return a request for comment on Monday.
