A federal judge in New York declined on Monday to grant Sean “Diddy” Combs bail, finding no “exceptional reasons” to release him prior to his October sentencing.
Combs was convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution, which the judge said mandates incarceration. His sentencing is set for Oct. 3.
Judge Arun Subramanian said Combs remains a risk of flight and a danger to the community, pointing to the violence exhibited on 2016 hotel surveillance footage that shows him kicking and dragging Cassie Ventura.
Sean “Diddy” Combs attends Day 1 of 2023 Invest Fest at Georgia World Congress Center on August 26, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Defense attorneys said Combs transported male escorts not for profit or under duress but to join his “swingers lifestyle,” arguing those unique circumstances warranted release. The judge said that argument “might have traction” in a different case but not one that included evidence of violence, coercion or subjugation in connection with the prostitution.
“The record here contains evidence of all three,” Subramanian said.
“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,” the opinion said. Combs also argued for release on bail because of the squalor and danger at the Metropolitan Detention Center. But the judge said jail staff “has been able to keep him safe,” even during an incident of threatened violence from an inmate, according to the opinion. The judge’s order did not elaborate on the nature of the threat or what jail staff did to mitigate it.
Combs has been incarcerated at the federal jail in Brooklyn for 11 months.
Following an eight-week federal trial, a jury convicted Combs last month of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Subramanian denied him bail following the verdict, citing then as well the violence that was “starkly depicted” in the 2016 hotel security footage.
