{"id":7944,"date":"2025-09-26T14:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/defense-wants-prostitution-conviction-dismissed\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:13:08","slug":"defense-wants-prostitution-conviction-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/defense-wants-prostitution-conviction-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Wants Prostitution Conviction Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tSean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs returned to court on Thursday (Sept. 25) to advocate for his record to be cleared completely after he was acquitted of sex-trafficking but convicted of lesser prostitution charges.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs seemed in good spirits when he appeared in the courtroom, smiling and embracing his team of defense lawyers. It\u2019s not surprising that the rapper has such affection for his legal team; they won a stunning trial victory in July, convincing jurors to acquit Combs of racketeering and sex-trafficking charges that could have subjected him to life in prison.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe jury did convict Combs of transporting Cassie Ventura and another ex-girlfriend referred to as \u201cJane\u201d across state lines for \u201cfreak-off\u201d sex parties with male escorts. Sentencing on these lesser counts is scheduled for Oct. 3, but Combs\u2019 lawyers first got the chance to argue that the conviction should be wiped altogether.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of Combs\u2019 attorneys, appeal specialist Alexandra Shapiro<\/strong>, told Judge Arun Subramanian on Thursday that federal prostitution charges are antiquated and rarely enforced. The Mann Act, originally titled the White-Slave Traffic Act, has ugly origins in criminalizing interracial relationships in the early 1900s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe whole history of the statute is really, I would submit respectfully, an embarrassment to the United States of America,\u201d Shapiro argued.<\/p>\n

\n\tShapiro said it\u2019s Department of Justice policy to only level such charges when prostitution is done in a commercial context or tied to sex trafficking. And since the jury determined in their verdict that Combs\u2019 girlfriends consented to the freak-offs, Shapiro argued, the Mann Act should be off the table.<\/p>\n

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\n\tProsecutor Christy Slavik<\/strong>, meanwhile, countered that there is a legitimate government interest in regulating prostitution. Slavick said that even when prostitution is not strictly defined as sex trafficking, it can lead to other crimes like violence against women and drug use.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll of those things were present here in this case,\u201d said Slavik. \u201cMs. Ventura was getting punched in the face. Jane was getting hit and kicked. Mr. Combs was providing drugs to all parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawyers also sparred over the defense\u2019s creative argument that because Combs videotaped the freak-offs, these events constituted amateur pornography shoots protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

\n\tShapiro noted that these events were \u201chighly choreographed,\u201d with \u201cmood lighting\u201d and \u201ccostumes.\u201d But Slavik said Combs\u2019 videography is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether people were transported across state lines for prostitution. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tJudge Subramanian peppered both sides with technical legal questions throughout the hearing and ultimately said he\u2019ll issue a decision \u201cvery shortly.\u201d He ended the proceeding by declaring that unless the conviction is wiped, he\u2019ll \u201csee everyone back here next Friday\u201d for sentencing.<\/p>\n

\n\tFederal sentencing guidelines suggest Combs will likely receive somewhere between two and five years of prison time next week, though judges have wide discretion to impose whatever punishment they see fit.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs\u2019 legal team has asked that he be sentenced to essentially time served, since he\u2019s already spent more than a year in jail. Prosecutors have not yet submitted their sentencing recommendation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs returned to court on Thursday (Sept. 25) to advocate for his record to be cleared completely after he was acquitted of sex-trafficking but convicted of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[363,2299,2059,6417],"class_list":["post-7944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-conviction","tag-defense","tag-dismissed","tag-prostitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}