Lawyers for Sean Combs made a plea for leniency ahead of his Oct. 3 sentencing on prostitution charges, portraying the music mogul as a reformed domestic abuser who was largely vindicated at trial.
In court papers, filed late on Monday, his lawyers argued that after a jury acquitted Mr. Combs of the most serious charges brought against him, his case warrants no more than 14 months in prison, a far lighter sentence than the probation department’s recommendation of a maximum of seven-and-a-quarter years.
Mr. Combs has already spent more than a year in a Brooklyn jail and the defense lawyers’ recommendation, if accepted by the judge, would mean their client would be freed less than two months after sentencing.
“Mr. Combs has already seen how being arrested and convicted can destroy his reputation and lead to terrible collateral consequences for his businesses,” his lawyers wrote, “and he recognizes the consequences his actions have had for himself and his family.”
After an eight-week trial at Federal District Court in Manhattan, a jury convicted Mr. Combs this past summer of violating the Mann Act, which makes it a federal offense to transport people across state lines for the purposes of prostitution. He was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges that carried the possibility of a life sentence.
The two counts on which he was convicted relate to travel arrangements for two former girlfriends — Casandra Ventura and a woman known by the pseudonym Jane — and hired men, who performed sexually for Mr. Combs in drug-fueled sexual encounters known as “freak-offs” and “hotel nights.” Each count carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors, who have yet to submit their formal sentencing recommendation, have made clear that they will seek significant prison time, highlighting Mr. Combs’s history of domestic abuse as an aggravating factor.
At trial, Ms. Ventura testified that Mr. Combs beat her repeatedly during their decade-long relationship, and Jane recounted a physical fight that left her with welts on her head. Although the defense admitted to the violence, the jury did not find that the women had been forced or coerced into the so-called freak-offs.
In their filing, Mr. Combs’s lawyers wrote that Mr. Combs’s addiction to painkillers had been “often the reason” behind the assaults discussed at trial, and that his incarceration at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn had allowed him to get clean from drugs and alcohol.
Attached to their submission were letters from a variety of associates of Mr. Combs that spoke highly of him, including family members, friends and one from Caresha Brownlee, a rapper known as Yung Miami who dated him.
“I believe it’s important for the court to know the side of Sean that isn’t always seen or spoken about — the man who poured into others, who gave opportunities, who led by example, and who loved deeply,” Ms. Brownlee wrote.
In an effort to secure a shorter sentence, the defense lawyers have sought to situate Mr. Combs on the less severe end of Mann Act cases. They pointed in their filing to cases in which defendants acted as pimps, exploited underage victims and trafficked undocumented immigrants.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, have taken the position that Mr. Combs is a flagrant offender who transported individuals for the purposes of prostitution on “hundreds” of occasions, plied the women at the center of the case with drugs to ensure their participation in the sex marathons, and violated the Mann Act a month before his arrest — when he knew he was under federal investigation.
The government is expected to submit its sentencing recommendation in the coming days. Prosecutors’ preliminary calculation, based on sentencing guidelines, included a minimum of four-and-a-quarter years, but they have indicated that their formal recommendation could be significantly higher.
The prosecution, defense and probation office are relying on the same sentencing guidelines in making their recommendations, but how to properly calculate them in this case is the subject of dispute. The defense objected to the government’s contention, for example, that the hired men who traveled and were paid for freak-offs should be considered victims, which would exacerbate the potential sentence.
Judge Arun Subramanian, who oversees Mr. Combs’s case, must consider federal sentencing guidelines in determining the ultimate sentence, but he has broad discretion in making his decision.
Before the sentencing, Judge Subramanian is slated to consider Mr. Combs’s motion to vacate the jury’s verdict based on the argument that he should never have been prosecuted under the Mann Act. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Thursday, at which Mr. Combs is expected to make his first court appearance since the trial.