In a letter to a federal judge, Quinton Davis described the tremendous piece of good fortune that had recently come his way.
Davis, 35, had been incarcerated until recently in a prison in Brooklyn for cocaine dealing and there he got to take a business course taught by the rapper and record producer Sean Combs.
“I would of neva in a million years thought I would be getting first hand knowledge/wisdom from a mogul such as Mr Combs,” he wrote. “This is like a dream come true.”
Davis was not the only one. Judge Arun Subramanian heard from seven men who had taken the course and one who served as Combs’s teaching assistant, all giving the six-week programme rave reviews and sounding almost delighted to have been locked up in a federal prison so they could take it.
On Friday Judge Subramanian will decide whether Combs, also known as P Diddy, will be available to prisoners as a business coach for another 20 years, or if he should be released at once.
“I have never seen a sentencing where there was such a wide disparity in the potential sentences,” said Mitchell Epner, a New York defence attorney.
Combs, 55, was arrested last September, denied bail and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and violations of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of people across state lines to engage in acts of prostitution. The charges related to allegations that he forced two former girlfriends, Cassie Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane, to have sex with male escorts in sessions, sometimes lasting days, that he referred to as “freak offs”.
Combs with Cassie Ventura, his girlfriend at the time, 2017. She gave evidence at his trial this year
CHRIS PIZZELLO/AP
In July, jurors acquitted him of the sex trafficking and racketeering charges, but convicted him of two counts relating to the transportation of prostitutes — the male escorts who were hired for the “freak offs”.
Combs’s lawyers say that he should receive no more than 14 months in prison. If the judge accepted their arguments, he could be released at once, given that he has already been in jail for a year.
Prosecutors, who argue that the sentencing guidelines could call for more than 20 years, have asked for 11 years. Meanwhile the probation service has recommended five years.
Part of the reason for this broad range of possible sentences has to do with changes to sentencing guidelines this year and a dispute over whether Combs’s alleged conduct, in relation to the charges of which he was acquitted, could still be taken into account.
“If the judge believes that Sean Combs got a gift in the acquittals, on the sex trafficking and the Rico [racketeering], he could decide to punish him harshly,” Epner said. “If he believes that the whole case should have been an acquittal, he could sentence him to time served.”
The judge has enormous discretion to decide how the guidelines apply. “It could be anything from zero to 20 years,” Epner said. “We really have no idea what this judge is going to do.”
An artist’s sketch of Combs’s reaction after he was acquitted of the most serious charges in July
JANE ROSENBERG/REUTERS
The verdicts were widely regarded as stunning setback for prosecutors and campaigners against sexual abuse and domestic violence.
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Capricorn Clark, a longstanding employee of Combs, testified that she saw him beating and kicking Ventura, his girlfriend. Clark also claimed that she was kidnapped by Combs in 2011 and forced to take part in an effort to stop Ventura from seeing another man.
“Every last word you heard from me was the truth,” she said in a letter to the judge. “It’s insane to me that of all the things people heard, two counts of prostitution of men is the only thing that remains on the table.”
She had given evidence in court to “do the right thing,” she said. “But I am afraid that women and girls in America feel less protected than ever watching what just happened. The lesson seems to be that we should not speak up, not call law enforcement for help and not say anything but instead keep our heads down.”
Ventura, 39, who testified while nine months pregnant, said in her own letter to the judge that Combs had controlled “every part of my livelihood” and threatened to destroy it by releasing video tapes of her in “freak offs”. The jury had seen the bruises she bore after he attacked her and security camera footage of him kicking her and beating her in a hotel corridor in 2016 “as I tried to run away from a freak off.”
The jury saw video of Combs dragging and beating Ventura in a hotel
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE/REUTERS
The defence countered with text messages she had sent Combs, implying that she was glad to take part in them. “While the jury did not seem to understand or believe that I engaged in freak offs because of the force and coercion the defendant used against me, I know the truth,” she wrote. “I have in fact moved my family out of the New York area and am keeping as private and quiet as I possibly can because I am so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about abuse at his trial.”
Deonte Nash, a stylist who worked for Combs and recently filed a lawsuit against him, claimed that he was taking no responsibility for his actions. “He has focused on tactical manoeuvres meant to bypass scrutiny and maintain control, soliciting letters of support, crafting PR statements and attempting to manipulate public sentiment,” Nash wrote to the judge. “His plan to escape accountability has been in motion from the very start.”
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Epner said it was certainly common for defence attorneys to seek letters of support from prisoners, attesting to acts of altruism by the defendant. “I have seen cases where people have endeavoured to take courses [in jail],” he said. “I am not sure if I have ever seen anybody start a course.”
Combs announced his business course to his fellow inmates one Friday, according to Didier Galindo, 51, a Colombian also known as “El Nenguere”, who was arrested in Venezuela in 2011 and extradited to the US on drug smuggling charges.
“Mr Combs gathered the whole unit together and said to everyone that he would like to start a class,” Galindo wrote in a letter to the judge. “All my life my dream has been to be a … farmer but when I ran into any setback or problems I was quick to abandon my dreams.” He said Combs had taught them about setting goals and an “honest realistic deadline” and the importance of taking small steps towards it.
The course, which included weekly classes, was called Free Game with Diddy, according to court documents. Raymond Castillo, 33, from the Bronx, who was arrested in April for a probation violation, and served as Combs’s teaching assistant, said the course offered “exclusive insight into the journey of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs” in the corporate world. A translator was on hand for Spanish-speaking inmates, he said. Inmates learnt about compound interest, “slight edge theory” and “how successful people do what unsuccessful people won’t.”
Charles Scruggs, 37, who served three months in the Brooklyn jail for a probation violation over the summer, said Combs had shown compassion for his fellow inmates and had offered them invaluable guidance. “He gave the inmates in the unit an inside scoop of how he started as an intern to becoming a superstar mogul,” he said. “He said if I wasn’t building I was destroying.”