Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been sentenced to four years and two months in prison on prostitution-related charges.
The I’ll Be Missing You rapper was found guilty in July of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, but acquitted of the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
After a lengthy hearing in New York on Friday, Judge Arun Subramanian sentenced Combs to 50 months in prison, which equals four years and two months.
The judge rejected the defence’s claim that Combs’s relationships with his ex-girlfriends Cassie Ventura and Jane were consensual, saying, “You abused them, physically, emotionally and psychologically.”
Many people spoke during the hearing, including six of Combs’s seven children and the rapper himself.
Speaking for the first time since his conviction, the Last Night hitmaker asked the judge for “mercy” and acknowledged his “disgusting, shameful, and sick” actions. He apologised to Ventura and Jane, who both testified during the trial, with the latter using a pseudonym.
Combs then turned to face his seven children and his mother, Janice, and apologised to them as well, saying they “deserved better”, reports BBC News.
Prosecutors had recommended 11 years in prison, while the rapper’s defence team advocated for 14 months.
His team also requested a new trial or an acquittal, but Subramanian denied both earlier this week, ruling that the government “presented overwhelming evidence of Combs’s guilt” during the trial in May.
On the eve of his sentencing, the 55-year-old wrote a four-page letter to the judge in which he apologised for his “past wrongs” and asked for leniency. He insisted he had become a changed man in prison and will “never commit a crime again”.
Combs has been behind bars since his arrest in September 2024.
