Sean “Diddy” Combs will be sentenced Friday in a federal courtroom in New York City after being found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. The 55-year-old hip-hop star has been kept at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his arrest in September 2024 and has been turned down for bail many times.
In July, a jury found Combs guilty of flying people around the country for sex, including his girlfriends and male sex workers. This broke a federal law called the Mann Act. He was found not guilty of more serious charges like racketeering and sex trafficking that could have sent him to prison for life. The trial went on for almost two months and had women talking about how they were beaten, threatened, sexually attacked and blackmailed by Combs.
According to Court TV, one of the main pieces of proof shown many times to the jury was video footage of Combs dragging and beating his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway. In a letter to the court, Ventura wrote that Combs is still an “ongoing danger” to her and others, saying that “he has no interest in changing or becoming better.” She called him “the manipulator, the aggressor, the abuser, the trafficker” and said he “will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is.”
Prosecutors want long prison time while defense asks for short sentence
Federal prosecutors want a sentence of more than 11 years in prison. They say Combs has shown no regret for what he did. In their 164-page recommendation, they asked for 135 months and a $500,000 fine. They said the sentence should show the “substantial psychological, emotional, and physical damage” Combs caused to his victims.
Sean Diddy Combs will be sentenced on Friday.
— Jennifer Coffindaffer (@CoffindafferFBI) October 1, 2025
The judge did not overturn his conviction.
The Prosecution wants 11 years.
Diddy's team wants time served.
Look for the judge to meet in the middle.
May justice be served for the victims of Sean Combs, including those who came… pic.twitter.com/kaJP40PHIR
Combs’ defense team wants a sentence of no more than 14 months, which would be about the time he has already spent in jail. His lawyers sent over 70 letters from family members, music friends and supporters. They describe him as a changed man who has been sober for the first time in 25 years. In a letter to Judge Arun Subramanian, Combs said sorry and wrote that “the old me died in jail and a new version of me was reborn.”
But Ventura said she is scared for her safety if Combs gets out. She wrote that she still has “nightmares and flashbacks on a regular, everyday basis” and worries that Combs or people working for him will “come after me and my family.” A former personal assistant who spoke in court using the fake name “Mia” is also expected to speak at the sentencing. She wants the judge to think about the “ongoing danger my abuser poses to me, and to others.”
Combs could get up to 20 years in prison on the two counts, with each one carrying a 10-year maximum sentence. He is expected to speak to the court on Friday. Ventura filed a lawsuit against Combs in November 2023, saying he abused her for years before settling it the next day. This opened the door for many other claims against the music mogul.
