Is a Diddy Acquittal Next? Federal Prosecutors Battle to Keep Prostitution Charges Alive — And Diddy In Prison

Attorneys for Diddy asked the judge to acquit him of prostitution charges or grant him a new trial. But prosecutors say he doesn’t deserve a new trial.

Sean “Diddy” Combs was found not guilty on July 2 of charges including racketeering and sex trafficking—but he was still hit with two counts of prostitution-related charges in the highly publicized federal trial against him. Since then, his attorneys have asked the judge to acquit him of those charges or grant him a new trial. But prosecutors argue Combs doesn’t deserve a new trial, as there was “more than a sufficient basis” to support his conviction.

Four weeks after the trial, Combs’ attorneys asked the judge to acquit their client of the prostitution charges or grant him a new trial. They argued that the Mann Act—the law under which the mogul was convicted—was too broadly interpreted to apply to him, and the evidence to support his conviction was “lacking.” Further, they asserted that “spillover prejudice” from evidence introduced to support the charges on which he was acquitted “would have been inadmissible” had he only been tried under the Mann Act.

The Mann Act is a federal law that makes it a criminal offense to “knowingly [transport] any individual, male or female, in interstate or foreign commerce or in any territory or possession of the United States for the purpose of prostitution or sexual activity which is a criminal offense under the federal or state statute or local ordinance.”

While Combs doesn’t dispute hiring male escorts, his attorneys argued that the Mann Act doesn’t prohibit this conduct because “he lacked a commercial motive and did not intend for paid escorts to have sex with him.” Rather, he watched and recorded the escorts having sex with his girlfriends in sexual encounters referred to in the trial as “freak-offs.” These freak-offs, his attorneys contended, are “protected First Amendment activity.”

But the prosecution argued in their latest response that the law doesn’t distinguish between voyeurism and profit. “He transported escorts across state lines to engage in freak-offs for pay. He directed the sexual activity of escorts and victims throughout freak-offs for his own sexual gratification. And he personally engaged in sexual activity during freak-offs,” said prosecutors. “There was more than a sufficient basis, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, to support the counts of conviction.”

Combs is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3, and remains behind bars.