Sean "Diddy" Combs' attorneys are urging a judge to let the music mogul return home after more than a year behind bars, arguing his conviction for transporting adults across state lines for prostitution warrants little more than time served. Defense lawyers are pushing for a sentence just shy of 14 months—about two months longer than the time Combs will have already served at the time of his Oct. 3 sentencing, reports the New York Times. In a 380-page court filing, they argue their client's sentencing should reflect only the crime the jury found him guilty of—not the graver sex trafficking and racketeering charges of which he was acquitted.
Combs, they say, is not the villain prosecutors make him out to be. The defense memo leans heavily on character references from family and industry colleagues, and highlights Combs' longstanding personal struggles, including substance abuse, the loss of close friends and family, damage to his reputation, and "terrible collateral consequences for his businesses." It also underlines that Combs did not profit from his acts, and that all participants were "fully competent adults"—though the women involved dispute that.
"It is time for Mr. Combs to go home to his family," the attorneys write, adding the government's approach is "draconian," and essentially amounts to, "Verdict be damned—lock him up and throw away the key," per ABC News. Prosecutors have yet to make their sentencing recommendation public, but are likely to cite Combs' history of domestic abuse as an aggravating factor. The defense suggests they will push for five years in prison, per ABC. The two counts of which Diddy was convicted each carry a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison, per the Times.
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