Combs’ request for verdict to be thrown out should be rejected – prosecutors

Federal prosecutors are urging a federal judge to quickly reject Sean “Diddy” Combs’ request that he throw out a jury verdict or order a new trial after a jury convicted the music mogul of two prostitution-related charges.

Prosecutors said in papers filed shortly before midnight on Wednesday that Combs masterminded elaborate sexual events for two ex-girlfriends between 2008 and last year that involved hiring male sex workers who sometimes were required to cross multiple state lines to participate.

A jury in July exonerated the Bad Boy Records founder of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges that carried the potential penalty of a mandatory 15 years in prison up to life behind bars.

But it convicted him of two lesser Mann Act charges that prohibit interstate commerce related to prostitution.

The Mann Act charges each carry a potential penalty of 10 years behind bars. Combs has been denied bail despite his lawyers’ arguments that their client should face little to no additional jail time for the convictions.

Prosecutors said he must serve multiple years behind bars.

Combs has been in a federal jail in Brooklyn since his September arrest at a Manhattan hotel. Sentencing is scheduled for October 3.

Prosecutors wrote that Combs’ lawyers were mistaken when they contended in a submission to the judge late last month that the Mann Act was unduly vague and violates his due process and First Amendment rights.

“Evidence of the defendant’s guilt on the Mann Act counts was overwhelming,” prosecutors wrote.

In their submission requesting acquittal or a new trial, Combs’ lawyers argued that none of the elements normally used for Mann Act convictions, including profiting from sex work or coercion, existed.

“It is undisputed that he had no commercial motive and that all involved were adults,” the lawyers said.

“The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily. The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted.”

The lawyers said that Combs, “at most, paid to engage in voyeurism as part of a swingers lifestyle” and argued that “does not constitute ‘prostitution’ under a properly limited definition of the statutory term”.