Diddy faces sentencing Friday after year behind bars

Rapper and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs will learn his sentence on Friday, nearly three months after a jury found him guilty of two counts of transportation for engagement in prostitution but cleared him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

Combs, 55, was arrested in September 2023 in the lobby of the Park Hyatt hotel in Manhattan. Following a seven-week trial that concluded in July 2025, he was convicted under the Mann Act, a federal law prohibiting the knowing transportation of a person across state lines for unlawful sexual activity.

The hip-hop mogul founded Bad Boy Records and was one of the most influential producers of the 1990s and 2000s. He is a Grammy-winning artist who has spent more than a year in federal custody after being denied bail multiple times.

Prosecutors seek four to five years whilst defence argues for immediate release

Each count of transportation for engagement in prostitution carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, meaning Combs could theoretically face up to 20 years in prison. However, prosecutors have requested a sentence of at least four to five years, according to Sky News.

Combs’s legal team has appealed the verdict and is seeking a sentence of no more than 14 months. Given that he has already spent more than a year in federal custody, this would result in almost immediate release. His lawyers argue that he has been “punished enough” because his career, reputation and legacy have been destroyed by the case.

Combs acquitted of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering charges

During the trial, the court heard details of sexual encounters Combs called “freak offs”, also referred to as “hotel nights”, which involved his girlfriends and male sex workers. The rapper would “orchestrate” these encounters between the women and the sex workers whilst he watched. Sometimes these sessions took place in different states across the United States as well as abroad, with Combs paying for the sex workers and the women to travel.

He was found guilty of two charges: one relating to sex workers he paid for whilst in a relationship with singer and model Cassie Ventura, and another relating to sex workers who took part in sessions with a woman identified in court only as Jane, with whom he was later in a relationship.

Combs was found not guilty of two counts of sex trafficking relating to both Cassie and Jane, and one count of racketeering conspiracy. Whilst jurors believed Combs broke the law over using sex workers, they did not find the sexual encounters involving the women were non-consensual, which prosecutors had argued.

Both Cassie and Jane gave evidence, telling the court they felt manipulated, coerced and sometimes blackmailed into taking part in the encounters during their relationships with the rapper. However, defence lawyers argued these were consensual encounters and part of a “swingers lifestyle”.

“The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily,” defence lawyers said in legal submissions after the verdict. “The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted during the freak offs or hotel nights.”

Combs has been denied bail several times since his arrest and again since the trial.

The actual sentence is expected to be shorter than the maximum 20 years, considering the more than a year he has already spent in custody.