Sean "Diddy" Combs, sporting a grey beard, made his first public appearance since July to argue that the charges he was convicted of in his seven-week trial earlier this year should be thrown out.
The mogul and his legal team showed up in Manhattan federal court on Thursday (September 25) in an attempt to get his conviction reversed or, failing that, to get a new trial solely on the charges he was convicted of — two counts of transportation for the purposes of engaging in prostitution, otherwise known as the Mann Act. Diddy and his lawyers appeared in front of a packed courtroom that included Combs' sister and six of his children.
Diddy's arguing was done by Alexandra Shapiro, who faced off against prosecutors Christy Slavik and Meredith Foster. They went back and forth over two primary issues that each side had also addressed in exhaustive legal memos.
First, there was the question of whether Diddy's behavior should even count as prostitution, since he had no financial interest in the freak offs — sexual encounters between his girlfriends and male escorts that he directed and paid for. Those encounters, involving Cassie Ventura and the pseudonymous Jane Doe, were at the center of Diddy's criminal trial.
Second, Diddy's team claimed that because he frequently filmed the freak offs, he was therefore an amateur pornographer, and thus was entitled to First Amendment protections.
For either or both of those reasons, Shapiro said, her client's convictions should be thrown out. What Diddy engaged in wasn't prostitution, she continued. Rather, it was "commercial voyeurism." So even though he paid for the encounters, including for the transportation of the escorts, he should not be convicted of violating the Mann Act since the encounters themselves didn't quality as prostitution.
Foster replied that this was misleading to even bring up, since what Combs was convicted of was transporting someone to engage in prostitution. And if Diddy's team had an issue with the definition of prostitution that was used in the case, they had ample opportunity to bring it up before the trial started, but they did not.
But, she continued, even you went by Shapiro's definition, Combs would still be liable for aiding and abetting prostitution by providing money for the encounters and having his staff set up the hotel rooms where the freak offs would occur.
As for First Amendment protections, Slavik was dubious.
"The act that violated the law was the transportation," she explained, not the sex itself. And that transportation was "not protected" by the First Amendment.
She also hit back on Shapiro's claims that by filming, Combs became an "amateur porn producer," saying that was "not the case."
Shapiro reto, arguing that people prosecuted under the Mann Act were usually traffickers, people who exploited children, or people who made money from exploiting sex workers, none of which was the case here.
The attorney ended by noting the "racist and sexist origins" of the Mann Act.
"Many judges and juries refused to enforce it," she said. "The whole history of the statute is an embarrassment to the United States of America."
Slavik closed by pointing out that Combs' team had brought up their objections to the Mann Act before, and the judge had rejected them. In the end, she said, a reasonable juror could believe that Combs was guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution, which was the burden the government had to meet. And she pointed out that the freak offs were conducted for the benefit of only one person: Diddy.
"Those freak offs, they were about one thing only — the defendant's sexual gratification," she said.
Judge Arun Subramanian closed the hearing by saying he would issue a decision "very shortly."
If his conviction is not reversed, Combs is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3.