Disgraced Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison Friday for transporting women and male escorts across the U.S. to engage in depraved and morbidly relentless sexual performances — so-called “freak-offs.”
Manhattan federal court Judge Arun Subramanian handed down the 50-month term and a $500,000 fine after federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York asked for a sentence of more than 11 years to reflect Combs’ “decades of unchecked violence” against exes Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, and a woman who testified anonymously as “Jane.”
The judge said Combs’ claim that escorts were paid for their time and not sex was “flatly inconsistent with reality and any acceptance of responsibility,” and after hearing for hours about the mogul’s charitable endeavors, told him, “A history of good works can’t wash away the record in this case.”
“The evidence of the abuse in connection with freak-offs and hotel nights is massive,” Subramanian said.
“We saw it in the images — gashes, bruises, broken doors — and we saw the video of your savage beating of Ms. Ventura. This was subjugation, and it drove both Ms. Ventura and Jane to thoughts of ending their lives. That is the reality of what has happened.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs participates in the SXSW Interview: Sean “Diddy” Combs during the 2014 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive at Austin Convention Center on March 12, 2014 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for SXSW)
In a packed 26th-floor courtroom, the judge heard from Combs, his attorneys, emotional remarks from six of his teenage and adult children, and a reverend. Combs’ lawyers described him as “a civil rights leader” and played a campaign launch-style video highlighting his charity work in New York.
Combs, who declined to testify at trial, apologized to Ventura and to Jane and appeared to cry when he apologized to his mother, Janice Combs, seated in the gallery.
“I got lost in the excess. I got lost in my ego,” he said. “I lost my career. I totally destroyed my reputation. But most of all, I lost my self-respect. I been humbled and broken to my core. I hate myself right now. I’ve been stripped down to nothing. I really am truly sorry for it all, no matter what they say.”
The mogul and his lawyers told the court that he’d become a new man, mentoring fellow inmates at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, some of whom wrote to the judge, claiming he’d worked to desegregate the scandal-plagued jail facility.
“I ask your honor for mercy,” Combs said in court. “I beg your honor for mercy.”
In this courtroom sketch, D’Lila Combs, left center, makes a statement surrounded by family as Sean Diddy Combs, right, reacts during his sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik said Combs’ pleas for leniency and claims of rehabilitation were refuted by his brazen assurance, so confident in the likelihood he’d walk that he booked a speaking engagement in Miami, Fla., next week.
Calling him out “for the height of hubris,” Slavik said, “He doesn’t fully grapple with how his actions got him here — his respect for the law is just lip service.”
The father of seven evaded a potential life sentence when a jury acquitted him on the more serious counts of sex trafficking and racketeering at the conclusion of his seven-week trial on July 2. He could remain in prison until 2028, when accounting for the year he’s already served and time off for good behavior.
His conviction stemmed from allegations that, from 2009 through summer 2024, he had transported and paid dozens of commercial sex workers to sleep with Ventura, his ex of more than a decade, and Jane, who he was involved with in the years before his arrest, in violation of the Mann Act.
Jurors heard about hundreds of the compulsive, dehumanizing sex sessions that took place in hotel rooms in New York and across the U.S., during which witnesses said Combs directed sex acts and usually filmed and masturbated.
Diddy and Cassie Ventura arrive at the Met Gala in 2017 in New York. (Getty)
Ventura, whose four days on the stand contributed to his conviction, had implored Subramanian in a letter to acknowledge evidence of savage beatings he subjected her to for years — stomping on her head, choking her, and frequently leaving her with busted lips and black eyes.
“While nothing can undo the trauma caused by Combs, the sentence imposed today recognizes the impact of the serious offenses he committed,” lawyers for Ventura, Doug Wigdor and Meredith Firetog said in a statement.
Jurors watched clips of freak-offs and heard sordid details about Combs forcing Ventura to participate in freak-offs when she was menstruating and suffering from chronic urinary tract infections resulting from the sleepless and drug-fueled sessions.
They also saw widely watched footage of Combs violently assaulting Ventura in an L.A. hotel lobby in 2016. The incident, which Ventura said occurred after she sought to leave a freak-off when Combs punched her in the face, was central to the 2023 lawsuit she brought that blasted domestic violence allegations against Combs into public view and sparked the federal probe.
Responding to the highly produced video Combs’ lawyers played in court Friday, Slavik said the footage of Combs beating Ventura showed him “for who he is, when he doesn’t think the cameras are rolling.”
“The defendant is a master puppeteer of his own image,” the prosecutor said.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ mother, Janice Combs, leaves Manhattan Federal Court after her son was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025 in Manhattan, New York,. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Ventura and Jane each testified that they didn’t want to engage in the freak-off sessions, that they had told Combs as such, and that they had suffered in vicious beatings and under threats to their personal and professional reputations, including Combs threatening to release humiliating footage of freak-offs.
The jury also heard allegations that the music business tycoon had threatened one of his assistants, Capricorn Clark, at gunpoint, and raped a different assistant, who testified under the pseudonym “Mia.”
Friday’s sentencing capped a precipitous downfall for Combs, who had long been a kingmaker in his industry.
The once high-energy, hustling rap impresario born in Harlem rose to fame nurturing ultimately prolific artists who defined the 1990s hip-hop era, including Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Smalls, Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, 112 and Craig Mack. He played a central role in the notorious East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry that led to the still unsolved killings of Smalls and Tupac Shakur, who were killed seven months apart in 1997 in drive-by shootings.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ children leave Manhattan Federal Court after their father’s prison sentencing on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Combs broke out from behind the scenes and released his first personal album “No Way Out” under his former stage name “Puff Daddy” the year of Smalls and Shakur’s killings, going on to make hundreds of millions in the coming decades through a combination of Bad Boy record sales, his department store clothing line Sean John, his Revolt Films media company, and other ventures. Months before his arrest, Forbes reported that he was teetering on the edge of billionaire status.
But as his star rose, authorities said his sexual exploitation of women devolved to ever greater depths, and he considered himself untouchable.
In late 2023, Manhattan federal prosecutors and Homeland Security Investigations began investigating allegations that Combs had physically and sexually abused intimate partners, arresting him nearly a year later in September 2024.
Upon his arrest, the feds seized thousands of dollars in cash, MDMA and ketamine, a months-long stock of baby oil and lubricant at his residences, and months later, AR-15 rifles with defaced serial numbers in his bedroom closet.
Separate from his criminal matter, Combs has been sued for tens of millions of dollars in more than 100 lawsuits brought by men and women, including allegations of sexual violence and exploitation dating back decades. He denies responsibility.
Family members and supporters arrive for Sean Combs’ sentencing at Manhattan Federal Court Friday, Oct. 3, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Trial evidence painted Combs’ rage as uncontrollable.
Lawyer Brian Steel on Friday said Combs had gotten a handle on his anger. He spoke about the mogul’s challenging childhood after his father was murdered when he was 3 and the resulting trauma that he had endured, telling the judge his personal experiences and year in jail would enable him to “heal” young Black men tangled up in the criminal justice system were he to be freed.
“You could use him, your honor, as a tool,” Steel said. “He needs to repair, not be warehoused.”
Cassie Ventura takes an oath before testifying in Manhattan federal court on May 13. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Fighting back against the prostitution charges, the mogul’s lawyers had argued in vain that he didn’t pay escorts for sex, but for their time, and that he directed freak-offs in First Amendment-protected expression.
Slavik pushed back on Combs’ efforts to paint freak-offs as consensual on Friday, rehashing trial testimony about Ventura participating in one of the sessions while overdosing on drugs, being beaten by Combs at another of the events while an escort waited outside, and Jane begging Combs in vain to make an escort wear a condom.
“There’s nothing mutual about that,” she said.
Items in a home belonging to Sean “Diddy” Combs are pictured in this evidence photo. (Official Court Evidence)
The jury also heard allegations that Combs’ staff, like personal assistants, high-ranking managerial employees, security personnel and travel agents, facilitated his crimes and years of physical abuse, whether through monitoring women sent into hiding until their injuries were no longer visible, bribing hotel staff to destroy evidence of him beating Ventura, setting up travel and accommodation for freak-offs, or supplying drugs.
Jurors did not find the allegations about Combs’s staff supported charges alleging he operated a RICO conspiracy, nor that Ventura and Jane were trafficked for sex through force, fraud, or coercion, leading to outcry from domestic violence advocates and fears over societal misunderstandings of coercion and consent, harkening back to a pre-#MeToo era.
Subramanian said he intended his sentence “to send a message to abusers and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability.” He took a moment to commend the women who testified — saying their accounts had sent a message to millions of women across the world who suffer under domestic violence.
“You gave them a voice, you stood up to power. It’s not easy,” the judge said.
“You told those women and the world that violence behind closed doors doesn’t have to stay hidden forever.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/03/sean-diddy-combs-sentenced-freak-off-sexual-sessions/
