Hearing set in Sean 'Diddy' Combs' quest for acquittal or new trial
A court hearing is set for hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs' attorneys to argue for his acquittal on the two prostitution-related charges on which he was convicted in July.
U.S. District Court judge Arun Subramanian, who presided over the 55-year-old music impresario's trial, has scheduled a Sept. 25 hearing in Manhattan on the motion Combs' attorneys filed, asking the judge to either throw out the convictions or grant Combs a new trial.
Federal prosecutors have countered that Combs doesn't deserve a new trial or acquittal because "there was more than sufficient basis" to support his conviction on the two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
A federal jury acquitted the hip-hop mogul and businessman of two counts of sex trafficking and of the most serious charge, one count of racketeering conspiracy.
The court hearing on Combs' request will come a week before he is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 3 on the prostitution-related convictions.
Combs is being held Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Subramanian denied his request for bail on Aug. 4, ruling he remains a risk of flight and a danger to the community, pointing to the violence exhibited on 2016 hotel surveillance footage showing him kicking and dragging his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.
In their motion for a new trial, Combs' attorneys argued in part that the Mann Act – the law under which Combs was convicted – was too broadly interpreted to apply to him, that the evidence used to support his conviction was lacking, and that "spillover prejudice" from evidence introduced to support the charges on which Combs was acquitted was "inflammatory." The defense lawyers argued in their motion that the evidence would have been inadmissible had Combs been tried only under the Mann Act.
The Mann Act is a federal law that makes it a criminal offense to "knowingly [transport] any individual, male or female, in interstate or foreign commerce or in any territory or possession of the United States for the purpose of prostitution or sexual activity which is a criminal offense under the federal or state statute or local ordinance."
Combs doesn't dispute hiring male escorts but his attorneys argued in their motion that the Mann Act doesn't prohibit Combs' conduct "because he lacked a commercial motive and did not intend for paid escorts to have sex with him," but rather to watch and video record them them having sex with girlfriends in sexual encounters referred to in trial testimony as "freak-offs," which his attorneys contended is "protected First Amendment activity."
In a response to the defense motion, prosecutors argued that the law doesn't distinguish between voyeurism and profit.
"He transported escorts across state lines to engage in Freak Offs for pay. He directed the sexual activity of escorts and victims throughout Freak Offs for his own sexual gratification. And he personally engaged in sexual activity during Freak Offs," prosecutors said of Combs in their filing. “There was more than a sufficient basis, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, to support the counts of conviction."
Ventura testified during the trial that the "freak-offs" took place at different residences or in hotels in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Ibiza, and Turks and Caicos. Another former Combs girlfriend, testifying under the pseudonym "Jane," referred to the sexual encounters as "hotel nights."
“Escorts traveled to these Freak Offs with Ventura and hotel nights with Jane. The defendant discussed the escorts’ travel with Ventura and Jane,” prosecutors said in their filing, further noting that "the travel arrangements were generally made at the defendant's direction," including by using a travel agent, having an escort service coordinate it, or by having Ventura and "Jane" handle arrangements.
ABC News' William Hutchinson contributed to this report.
