Sean “Diddy” Combs doesn’t deserve a new trial because “there was more than a sufficient basis” to support his conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, federal prosecutors argued in a new court filing overnight, submitted in response to a July 31 defense motion requesting acquittal or a new trial.
Attorneys for Combs, who was found not guilty on July 2 of more serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking, asked the judge four weeks later to acquit him of the prostitution-related counts or grant him a new trial, arguing in part that the Mann Act – the law under which Combs was convicted – was too broadly interpreted to apply to him, that the evidence used to support his conviction was lacking and that “spillover prejudice” from evidence introduced to support the charges on which Combs was acquitted – evidence the defense argued “would have been inadmissible” if Combs had been tried only under the Mann Act – was “inflammatory.”
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.”
Combs doesn’t dispute hiring male escorts but his attorneys argued in their July motion that the Mann Act doesn’t prohibit Combs’ conduct “because he lacked a commercial motive and did not intend for paid escorts to have sex with him,” but rather to watch and video record them them having sex with girlfriends in sexual encounters referred to in trial testimony as so-called “freak-offs,” which his attorneys contended is “protected First Amendment activity.”
Prosecutors argued in their 58-page 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,” prosecutors said of Combs in their filing. “There was more than a sufficient basis, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, to support the counts of conviction.”
The “freak-offs,” as former Combs girlfriend Cassie Ventura testified they were called and which another former Combs girlfriend testifying under the pseudonym “Jane” referred to as “hotel nights,” took place at different residences or in hotels in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Ibiza, and Turks and Caicos, according to trial testimony.
“Escorts traveled to these Freak Offs with Ventura and hotel nights with Jane. The defendant discussed the escorts’ travel with Ventura and Jane,” prosecutors said in their filing, further noting that “the travel arrangements were generally made at the defendant’s direction” including by using a travel agent, having an escort service coordinate it, or by having Ventura and “Jane” handle arrangements.
Combs is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 3.
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