Sean “Diddy” Combs is seeking a Christmas miracle — lobbying a federal appeals court to release him from prison or reverse his convictions after his stomach-churning sex crimes trial.
The rap mogul’s lawyers claimed Judge Arun Subramanian — who oversaw the blockbuster Manhattan trial — “acted as a thirteenth juror” by harshly sentencing Combs.
Combs was sentenced to four years and two months behind bars despite jurors only finding him guilty of two lesser prostitution charges, rather than the stiffer sex trafficking and racketeering raps.
“It was unlawful, unconstitutional, and a perversion of justice to sentence Combs, 56, as if the jury had found him guilty of sex trafficking and RICO,” Combs’ lawyer Alexandra Shapiro wrote in a Dec. 23 filing with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
The filing urges the mid-level appeals court to either order that Combs be released from his New Jersey prison “immediately,” or to overturn his July conviction of two counts of breaching the Mann Act by transporting people across state lines to engage in sex crimes.
The court typically holds oral arguments before making such a ruling, and has yet to set a date for them in Combs’ case — a factor that makes his Christmas season appeal a bit of a Hail Mary.
Subramanian took the extensive evidence of Combs’ violence revealed at trial into account before handing down the sentence, which was still more lenient than the roughly six-to-seven-year term recommended under federal guidelines.
But the defense lawyers argued that Subramanian “illegally and dramatically increased the
sentence” despite the jury finding that there was not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Combs “coerced” the women into the sex acts.
“He sits in prison today, serving a 50-month sentence, because the district judge acted as a thirteenth juror,” Shapiro wrote in the filing.
The “I’ll be Missing You” rapper’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who took the stand for four days while nine months pregnant, recounted in excruciating detail how Combs beat her for years and pressured her into hundreds of humiliating freak-off “performances” with male sex workers.
Another ex, using the pseudonym “Jane,” testified that Combs chillingly asked her “Is this coercion?” before forcing her to perform in a “freak-off” after brutally beating her for hours.
“You abused the power and control that you had over the lives of women you professed to love dearly,” Subramanian told Combs before delivering the sentence.
“You abused them physically, emotionally, and psychologically,” he said. “Why did it happen so long? Because you had the power and the resources to keep it going, and because you weren’t caught.
“A meaningful sentence is needed to protect the public from further crimes,” the judge said.
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