Sean “Diddy” Combs is heading into the Christmas holiday with dreams of freedom, according to a new appeals filing calling for him to be freed.
The music mogul’s legal team filed the document late Tuesday, Dec. 23, with a federal appeals court in New York, and demanded his “immediate release.”
In the 84-page filing obtained by Urban Hollywood 411, the mogul’s attorneys describe him as an “extraordinarily successful self-made businessman,” and say prosecutors failed to prove “inflammatory” allegations against him during his criminal trial.
Combs was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and trafficking charges in July, but jurors found him guilty of two lesser prostitution-related Mann Act violations, for transporting people across state lines for sex. A federal judge sentenced him on Oct. 3.His attorneys argue the mogul should never have been sentenced to 50 months in federal prison, with about 13-months credit for time served since his arrest in September 2024.
“Defendants typically get sentenced to less than 15 months for these offenses,” the new filing says. “But Combs got a sentence more than three times as long, despite the acquittals.”
The filing takes aim at trial Judge Arun Subramanian, saying he acted as a “thirteenth juror” when he sentenced the mogul.
“The judge defied the jury’s verdict and found Combs ‘coerced,’ ‘exploited,’ and ‘forced’ his girlfriends to have sex and led a criminal conspiracy,” the filing states.
The attorneys urge the appeals court to overturn the guilty verdict, or instruct the lower court to resentence Combs and send him home.
“If this Court does not overturn Combs’s conviction, it should release him immediately and instruct the district court to resentence him only for the conduct of which he was convicted,” the legal team says.
The attorneys included transcripts of explicit text messages exchanged between the Bad Boy Records founder and his ex-girlfriends Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman who testified using the pseudonym “Jane Doe.”
The defense claims the text exchanges are proof that the women “wanted to participate in freak-offs.”
One text, said to be sent by Cassie includes NSFW details about a previous freak-off session, adding that it was “messy” from bodily fluids and “pretty hot.”
The attorneys additionally argue that Jane “demonstrated her consent and enthusiasm” for the sessions.
The document concludes: “For the foregoing reasons, this Court should order Combs’s immediate release and either grant a judgment of acquittal or vacate and remand for resentencing.”
It was signed by attorneys Alexandra A.E. Shapiro, Theodore Sampsell-Jones, Jason Driscoll, and Christopher D. Johnson of the Shapiro Arato Bach firm in New York.
Combs is currently imprisoned at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
His release date has shifted a couple of times. As of publication time, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) website says he is scheduled to be released on May 25, 2028.
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