Just over a year after he was first arrested, Sean “Diddy” Combs will appear in a federal courthouse Friday to be sentenced for his crimes.
Though he faced sweeping charges of racketeering and sex trafficking – prosecutors said he coerced women into “freak off” sex parties – the jury ultimately convicted him of only two lesser prostitution counts, an outcome widely seen as a major victory for the rap mogul.
Related
That split verdict means Diddy is no longer facing a life sentence, but how much time will he actually get? And how will the judge decide that question? Billboard turned to the experts to find out.
According to Tama Kudman, a veteran defense attorney at the law firm Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner LLP, much will depend on whether the judge sticks to that limited verdict. Will he focus narrowly on Diddy’s actual convictions? Or will he be swayed by broader signs that Combs is violent, like the infamous hotel assault video?
“Evidence of domestic violence has gotten in front of this judge, and he can’t just unsee it. The cat’s out of the bag,” Kudman says. “But Combs was not convicted of any crimes really associated with that violence, right?”
Combs was found guilty on two counts of violating the Mann Act, a century-old federal criminal statute that prohibits transporting people across state lines for prostitution. Those convictions carry no mandatory minimum and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
That’s far less than if he’d been convicted on the racketeering (RICO) charge, which could have added another 20 years, or been found guilty of sex-trafficking, which alone carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and maximum of life behind bars.
The first word on sentencing in any federal case comes from the U.S. Probation Department, which calculates a suggested range of sentences for the judge to consider. In Combs’ case, citing a number of “enhancements,” the probation office says the star should get between 70 and 87 months in prison – more than 7 years behind bars.
Diddy’s lawyers say that report “grossly overstates the seriousness” of his actual convictions and instead are asking for only 14 months – which would see him released almost immediately on time-served. They point repeatedly to the jury’s rejection of the most serious charges that formed the core of the case: “Put simply, the jury has spoken.”
But prosecutors want the judge to go even further than the recommendations, arguing that Diddy should get more than 11 years in prison. Even if he was only convicted on lesser Mann Act counts, the feds say the judge can still take into account “decades of abuse” by the “unrepentant” rap mogul when handing down his sentence.
Related
When weighing Diddy’s prison time, Judge Arun Subramanian will start with the federal sentencing guidelines – a points system that aims to give judges a uniform framework for meting out punishment. More serious offenses carry more points, which can be adjusted up or down based on circumstances; the point total is then combined with a defendant’s criminal history to reach a recommended range.
After setting the guideline range, the judge is then required to weigh several case-specific factors when considering his final sentence. They include the seriousness of the crime, the history and characteristics of the defendant, the need for deterrence, and the need to keep sentences consistent across different cases.
But beyond hard-and-fast maximums and minimums, federal judges themselves ultimately have final discretion on sentencing. They are the ones to decide the appropriate guideline range, and they are the ones to decide what elements of a case matter most.
“How much weight to give each of these factors is entirely up to the judge,” says Sarah Krissoff, a former longtime Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice at Cozen O’Connor. “And ultimately the judge will figure out a way to fit the sentence he wants to impose within this framework.”
How will Judge Subramanian apply those rules to Diddy’s case? Experts say it could turn on the split nature of the verdict: The fact that, while Combs was charged with a sprawling criminal case, he was only convicted of far more limited crimes. “That is the clear tension in this case,” says Kudman, the defense attorney.
Until recently, even after a defendant was acquitted of a particular charge, they could still be sentenced for other crimes based on that so-called acquitted conduct – a practice that led to sharp criticism from both lawmakers and Supreme Court justices. But last year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to amend the sentencing guidelines to limit the practice, citing concerns about the “perceived fairness” of the criminal justice system.
At Diddy’s trial, prosecutors spent much of the time trying to prove that he had used violence, intimidation, money and influence to coerce his victims into taking part in the freak offs; they did so because such conduct is a key legal requirement to prove racketeering or sex trafficking. But jurors then rejected those counts, and instead only convicted Combs on the few counts that didn’t require such proof.
As a result, Diddy’s lawyers have argued in their post-trial motions that the “vast majority of the evidence the government presented at trial” was the kind of acquitted conduct that cannot be weighed at sentencing. They explicitly say that includes the video of him assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel, as well as other incidents of violence.
“What is the point of a jury trial if the defendant can be acquitted, but then sentenced as if he had been convicted?” his attorneys asked the judge in one court filing. “Doing so nullifies the entire purpose of a jury.”
Unsurprisingly, prosecutors disagree. They say Diddy’s lawyers are seeking an “unprecedented” restriction on sentencing, and that the violence seen at the trial is still fair game. “The defendant will not be punished for any crimes of which he was acquitted, of course, but punishment for his crimes of conviction must take into account the manner in which he committed them.”
How Judge Subramanian resolves that argument could make or break Diddy’s sentence, but experts say it will be a challenge. It remains unclear how exactly judges must filter out acquitted conduct from their sentencing decisions under the new rules. And other sentencing factors, like the “history” of the defendant, seem to directly ask courts to look at past violence – something this judge saw in vivid detail at trial.
“Ostensibly, the judge is only going to sentence the defendant on the counts on conviction,” said Krissoff, the former prosecutor. “But it will be hard for the judge to unhear everything he has already heard about Combs.”
