OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:37 PM – Thursday, July 31, 2025
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ attorneys filed a motion on Wednesday asking for an overturn of his recent conviction, or as a second option, for their client to receive a new trial.
The 62-page motion, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, argued that Combs’ conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution should be dismissed due to “insufficient evidence that Mr. Combs transported anyone with the intention to engage in ‘prostitution,’ even if it includes any sex for money.”
The motion went on to claim that Combs’s conduct was not criminal “because he lacked a commercial motive and did not intend for paid escorts to have sex with him,” while arguing that Combs was rather “paying people to film them in sexual performances.”
Advertisement“This conviction stands alone, but it should not stand at all,” wrote Alexandra Shapiro, Combs’s attorney.
Jurors found Combs not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking in relation to his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura Fine, and a second woman only identified as “Jane.” The jury did, however, convict Combs on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
“Since the government arrested Sean Combs last September, it has painted him as a monster. For months, prosecutors accused him of running a 20-year racketeering enterprise and of sex trafficking multiple women,” the filing read. “But his 2-month trial showed these charges were not supported by credible evidence, and the jury rejected them.”
“Mr. Combs now stands convicted only of two prostitution counts under the Mann Act, which doesn’t require proof of coercion, threats, or fraud. The government told the jury it had to convict so long as Mr. Combs arranged for a long-time girlfriend or a paid male escort or entertainer to travel across state lines to get together and have sex. And that is all the jury convicted him for.”
Federal prosecutors used the Mann Act—a law that prohibits transporting individuals across state lines for prostitution or other illegal sexual activity—to convict Combs.
“At minimum, a new trial is required,” the filing read. “Due to spillover prejudice from evidence that would have been inadmissible had the Mann Act counts been tried alone,” without the evidence surrounding the counts of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, both of which Combs was acquitted on.
“Sean Combs sits in jail based on evidence that he paid adult male escorts and entertainers who engaged in consensual sexual activities with his former girlfriends, which he videotaped and later watched with the girlfriends,” Combs’s legal team argued. “That is not prostitution, and if it is, his conviction is unconstitutional.”
Meanwhile, Combs’ legal team has also attempted to request bail for the convicted music mogul, which has since been denied by presiding trial Judge Arun Subramanian.
He is currently being held in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, where he awaits his October 3rd sentencing.
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