Diddy’s appeal of his conviction and prison sentence just took another step towards its conclusion, as his legal team dropped what is likely its final brief before oral arguments in early April — and they’re sticking to their take that the mogul’s freak-offs were protected by the First Amendment.
The 40-page brief, filed on Friday (Mar. 13), served as an answer to a government brief from February that defended Judge Arun Subramanian’s 50-month prison sentence for the Bad Boy founder’s violations of the Mann Act. The new document reveals that Diddy is still claiming, as he has since the beginning of the process, that freak-offs, the often days-long, drug-fueled sexual encounters involving him, a girlfriend, and male escorts, are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Diddy frequently recorded the freak-offs, which his new brief says makes him “indistinguishable from an adult film producer,” even though he was “merely an amateur pornographer.” As a result, his attorneys say, the sexual performances during the freak-offs are entitled to First Amendment protection, and thus shouldn’t be considered prostitution.
Government prosecutors, unsurprisingly, objected to this line of argument last month in their own brief.
“[Diddy’s] convictions do not raise any concern under the First Amendment,” they wrote at the time. “[U]nlike any adult film producer, Combs did not provide advance notice that he would film, or seek the participants’ consent to be filmed.”
Elsewhere, they wrote: “Combs’s intent to watch the sex sessions live cannot bring his interstate transportation of others to have sex for money within the First Amendment’s protection.”
The legal back-and-forth culminates on April 9, when each side will have 10 minutes to make their arguments to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.