Months after Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to four years in prison, his attorneys formally kicked off his appeal on Christmas Eve, setting in motion a complex legal battle aimed at freeing the music mogul immediately.
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Diddy Seeks Immediate Release From Prison in Appeals Argument
Combs was charged in 2024 with racketeering (RICO) and sex trafficking over claims that he forced girlfriends to have sex with male prostitutes for his entertainment. At a blockbuster trial last summer, jurors issued a verdict that acquitted Diddy on those charges but convicted him of two lesser counts of interstate prostitution, resulting in his 50-month prison sentence.
With their opening brief to the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Diddy’s lawyers laid out their long-awaited case: That he had been unjustly charged with “heinous crimes” over consensual sex, then given a “draconian” sentence even after he was largely cleared: “Combs’s sentence was illegal, and at a minimum, he should be resentenced.”
Diddy’s appeal spans nearly 70 pages of complex legal arguments, so here’s a quick explainer of the big things you need to know: What he’s arguing, why it matters and what comes next.
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“Thirteenth Juror”: Attacking The Sentence
Diddy’s attorneys are appealing both his sentence and the underlying convictions that led to it, as is typical in such cases. But the heart of the appeal appears to be the sentencing, centered on their argument that Judge Arun Subramanian handed down a draconian term that ignored the jury’s verdict.
Reprising arguments they made before sentencing, Diddy’s lawyers say prison terms under the federal Mann Act (the prostitution law he was convicted of violating) average less than 15 months. But they say Subramanian hit their client with a sentence that was more than three times that length because the judge was “determined to punish Combs.”
“He sits in prison today, serving a 50-month sentence, because the district judge acted as a thirteenth juror,” Diddy’s lawyers write, telling the appeals court that Subramanian “defied the jury’s verdict” and that no “remotely similar defendant” had ever gotten a stiffer sentence.
“What was the point of exercising his right to a jury trial if Combs could be acquitted of the most serious charges but end up with a severe and disparate sentence on lesser charges because a judge disagreed with the acquittals?”
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“Not Guilty Means Not Guilty”
In attacking the sentence, Diddy’s lawyers center their argument on the legal concept of acquitted conduct — meaning the elements of the case that jurors rejected in their verdict.
Until recently, even after an accused defendant was cleared of a particular charge, they could still later be sentenced for other convictions based on that acquitted conduct. That practice was controversial, and in 2024 the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to amend its guidelines to impose new safeguards against it, citing concerns about the “perceived fairness” of the criminal justice system. When the rule was enacted, the chair of the commission was succinct: “Not guilty means not guilty.”
In their appeal, Diddy’s lawyers say Judge Subramanian “flouted” those rule changes, factoring in allegations of “coercion” and “force” even though those were part of the racketeering and sex trafficking charges that jurors had rejected. They say such an approach would “run roughshod” over basic fairness and constitutional protections.
“The court should have sentenced Combs for what he was convicted of — interstate transportation of adults for voluntary prostitution,” Diddy’s lawyer say. “It was unlawful, unconstitutional and a perversion of justice to sentence Combs as if the jury had found him guilty of sex trafficking and RICO.”
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Prostitution or Pornography?
Diddy’s lawyers are, of course, also challenging the verdict itself — and they’re using a two-pronged approach to do so.
For starters, they say Diddy’s “freak off” sex parties don’t meet the narrow definition of “prostitution” under the Mann Act, the century-old federal statute that Diddy was convicted of violating. They say their client was merely “paying for a voyeuristic experience,” rather than engaging in any kind of traditional sex work transaction.
Going even further along that same line, they say the orgies (also known as “hotel nights”) were instead more akin to movie shoots for “amateur pornography,” featuring “highly choreographed” sex, costumes and “staged lighting.” And films, even pornographic ones, are a form of legal free speech.
“These creative and elaborate performances were, as Combs argued at trial, ‘homemade porn,’ that Combs experienced both as a filmmaker and as a consumer — when he was watching them live and with his girlfriends,” his attorneys write. “Either way, Combs was engaged in protected First Amendment activity.”
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Diddy’s Appellate Ace
Diddy was represented at his trial by a fleet of elite criminal defense attorneys, including Marc Agnifilo, his associate Teny Geragos and Brian Steel. But at the Second Circuit, his team has narrowed to appeals specialists, led by veteran appellate litigator Alexandra Shapiro.
Shapiro, who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is no stranger to high-profile cases. She’s representing cryptocurrency exec Sam Bankman-Fried in his pending challenge to his fraud convictions, as well as hedge fund boss Bill Hwang in his appeal following an 18-year prison sentence. She was also recently retained by Justin Baldoni in his messy courtroom battle with Blake Lively. “She has the premier criminal appeals practice in the country,” another defense attorney told Bloomberg last year.
Shapiro has a track record that explains the client list. She’s gotten numerous convictions overturned on appeal, and in 2023 won landmark rulings at the Supreme Court that significantly narrowed federal fraud statutes. Most recently, she won the reversal of a 2017 wire fraud conviction against Mark Johnson, a former HSBC trader accused of manipulating foreign exchange rates.
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What Comes Next?
Diddy’s brief is only the opening shot in a process that will last months — but one that will move faster than usual.
Appellate cases can sometimes take years. After R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in June 2022, it took the Second Circuit until February 2025 to issue a ruling rejecting his appeal.
But Diddy’s lawyers asked for an expedited appeal, saying they feared that he would have served most of his sentence by the time their appeal was resolved (factoring in time served, Combs is currently set for release in June 2028). They warned that such an outcome would rob him of the chance to “meaningfully benefit” from his appeal.
That motion was granted by the court in November, speeding up the case substantially. Prosecutors will file their response brief next month, he will file a final reply in March, and the case will be argued before the judges in April.
Under that schedule, a ruling could be issued by mid-2026. But the odds aren’t great for Diddy, as the vast majority of federal criminal convictions are upheld. If the court sides with prosecutors, he can then take his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, but any such appeal take many additional months and would face even longer odds.
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