\n\tA three-judge panel on Thursday heard arguments from Sean \u201cDiddy\u2019 Combs attorney that his sentence should be reduced, arguing that a lower court\u2019s punishment factored in alleged crimes that he was acquitted of last year.<\/p>\n
\n\tCombs was sentenced to four years in prison and a $500,000 fine after a jury convicted him of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He was acquitted of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe lesser charges that Combs was found guilty of related to \u201cfreak offs,\u201d or sex parties that included sex workers. <\/p>\n
\n\tAlexandra Shapiro, arguing for Combs, noted precedent that \u201cdistrict courts must specifically explain in arriving at their sentence, they must specifically consider \u2026 the jury\u2019s acquittal when assessing the weight and quality of the evidence that the district court is relying on, and that did not happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe argued that U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian\u2019s references to Combs\u2019 acquittal on the more serious charges was insufficient.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cObviously the judge acknowledged that he had been acquitted, but that\u2019s not enough. That\u2019s just make weight.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tThat comment drew some scorn from Judge William Nardini, who interrupted her. \u201cYou mean, [the judge] didn\u2019t mean it or he wasn\u2019t thinking it? What does \u2018make weight\u2019 mean? It\u2019s a rather disparaging characterization.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShapiro said that Nardini\u2019s interpretation of the comment was \u201cnot what I mean.\u201d She said that precedent required \u201cnot just an acknowledgement that there has been an acquittal, but some sort of discussion of what [Subramanian], notwithstanding the acquittal finds that the weight and quality of the evidence supports enhancing the sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe prosecutor in the case, Christ Slavik, also faced some difficult questions. She argued that Subramanian properly considered the \u201caggravated manner\u201d in which Combs carried out the sentence on the charges of transportation to engage in prostitution, under the Mann Act.<\/p>\n
\n\tJudge M. Miller Baker asked, \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t we hold you to the way you prosecuted the case? You went to the jury and you said, \u2018This man did all these terrible things for the purposes of the RICO conspiracy, for the purposes of sex trafficking, and they acquitted him.\u2019 And then on the Mann Act, it was just a sideshow \u2026 and I don\u2019t think there was any live witness testimony. And now you want us to rely on all this acquitted conduct that was presented to the jury that was presumably rejected \u2026 to allow a district court for the purposes of a guidelines calculation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSlavik said that \u201cmuch of the conduct that the district court focused on in imposing the sentence was not acquitted conduct at all. In fact, it was admitted conduct, the extreme physical violence that took place in the context of these freak-offs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCombs\u2019 attorneys also want two convictions tossed out, arguing that \u201cfreak-offs and hotel nights involved
live sexual performances that Combs directed and recorded for subsequent private viewing with his girlfriends.\u201d They claim that it was protected First Amendment activity, noting that Combs referred to the \u201cfreak-offs\u201d as \u201chomemade porn\u201d and that they were \u201chighly staged performances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-judge panel on Thursday heard arguments from Sean \u201cDiddy\u2019 Combs attorney that his sentence should be reduced,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[76746,75,84,83,9,24,63,13255,11834,76747],"class_list":{"0":"post-191839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-cassie-ventura","9":"tag-manhattan","10":"tag-manhattan-headlines","11":"tag-manhattan-news","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-sean-diddy-combs","16":"tag-sean-combs","17":"tag-u-s-circuit-court-of-appeals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}