Sean “Diddy” Combs’s legal team has appealed his 50-month prison sentence for prostitution-related charges, urging a New York federal court to overturn his conviction under the Mann Act.
Combs, currently serving his sentence at Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey, did not attend Thursday’s hearing before a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. His attorneys also requested his immediate release.
Defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro argued that the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian was excessively severe. She said the judge improperly considered evidence of fraud and sexual coercion in sentencing, despite the jury having rejected those claims during last year’s trial.
“Defendants typically receive less than 15 months for these offenses—even when coercion, which the jury didn’t find here, is involved. But Combs was sentenced to more than three times that length, despite acquittals. He is in prison today because the district judge acted as a thirteenth juror,” Shapiro told the court.
The appeal raises questions about judicial discretion in sentencing and its impact on public confidence in the criminal justice system.
