Sean “Diddy” Combs made his first public court appearance since July on Thursday (Sept. 25), arriving with a grey beard and a courtroom full of family — including his sister and six of his children — as he pushed to have his Mann Act convictions overturned.
The music mogul’s legal team argued before Judge Arun Subramanian in Manhattan federal court that either his convictions should be tossed entirely or he should at least be granted a new trial limited to the charges he was found guilty of earlier this year: two counts of transportation for the purpose of engaging in prostitution under the Mann Act.
His lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro, clashed with prosecutors Christy Slavik and Meredith Foster over two main points. First, whether Diddy’s actions qualified as prostitution at all, since he didn’t profit financially from the so-called “freak offs” — sexual encounters between his girlfriends and male escorts that he arranged and paid for. Shapiro claimed that made him more of a participant in “commercial voyeurism” than a trafficker, even if he paid for the escorts and their transportation.
Second, Shapiro argued that because Diddy often filmed these encounters, he should be considered an “amateur porn producer,” which would give him First Amendment protections.
Prosecutors pushed back hard. Foster argued that the charge was about “transporting someone to engage in prostitution,” not whether Combs profited, and emphasized that his staff arranged hotels and payments for the encounters. Slavik dismissed the First Amendment claim entirely, saying the transportation itself was illegal conduct, not protected expression.
Shapiro countered that the Mann Act historically targeted traffickers, child exploitation, and profit-driven sex work — none of which applied to her client. She called the law’s “racist and sexist origins” an embarrassment to the U.S., arguing that courts have long struggled with enforcing it.
But prosecutors insisted the jury’s verdict was sound, with Slavik driving home the point: “Those freak offs, they were about one thing only — the defendant’s sexual gratification.”
Judge Subramanian wrapped the hearing by promising a ruling “very shortly.” If the convictions stand, Diddy is set to be sentenced on Oct. 3.
