Los Angeles, Dec 25 Hollywood actor Disgraced rapper Diddy has pleaded to be released from prison. The rapper reached out to an appeals court through his legal team.
He is currently serving a 4 year sentence after being convicted on prostitution-related charges, reports ‘Mirror.co.uk’.
The lawyers claimed in a filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that Combs was treated harshly at sentencing by a federal judge who left evidence surrounding charges he was acquitted of unjustly influencing the punishment.
As per ‘Mirror.co.uk’, the former music mogul, 56, is currently behind bars at FCI Fort Dix, having been transferred from MDC-Brooklyn in October this year. He's currently in a special drug treatment unit and is only eligible for release in 2028.
Diddy was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking at a trial that ended in July. Combs was convicted under the Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for any sexual crime.
Lawyers for Combs claimed Judge Arun Subramanian acted like a 13th juror in October when he sentenced Combs to four years and two months in prison. They said he erred by letting evidence surrounding the acquitted charges influence the sentence he imposed.
They noted that Combs was convicted of two lesser counts, prostitution offences that didn’t require force, fraud, or coercion. They asked the appeals court, which has not yet heard oral arguments, to acquit Combs, order his immediate release from prison or direct Subramanian to reduce his sentence.
"Defendants typically get sentenced to less than 15 months for these offences, even when coercion, which the jury didn’t find here, is involved”, his lawyers wrote.
"The judge defied the jury's verdict and found Combs 'coerced’, 'exploited’, and 'forced' his girlfriends to have sex and led a criminal conspiracy. These judicial findings trumped the verdict and led to the highest sentence ever imposed for any remotely similar defendant”, they added.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor