The music executive was charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. A jury acquitted him of both in 2025 and convicted him on two counts of transporting people across state lines for prostitution. He is serving a 50-month federal sentence while he appeals.
On Oct. 16, 2026, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed that it was moving Combs from FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey to FCI Allenwood Low, a low-security prison in Pennsylvania, without saying why, the Associated Press and Newsweek reported.45 The move followed a September 2026 NBC News report, based on interviews with inmates, alleging that he had obtained prohibited items and had other prisoners do work for him; his spokesman disputed that account, saying, "The only real news is that Sean continues to serve his sentence within the rules."6 According to the AP, citing a person familiar with the matter, he was then placed in a special housing unit and lost 41 days of good-conduct credit, moving his projected release date to March 2, 2028.4 The Second Circuit had not ruled on his appeal as of Oct. 16, 2026.45
Federal agents searched Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach on March 25, 2024, the Associated Press reported.16 He was arrested in Manhattan on Sept. 16, 2024, and the next day the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed a three-count indictment charging him with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution.1 The office said the first two counts each carried a maximum of life in prison, with a 15-year mandatory minimum for sex trafficking, and the third a maximum of 10 years.1
The indictment alleged that Combs led a criminal enterprise that committed crimes including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, and that he used violence, threats, drugs and his control over women’s careers to make them take part in recorded sexual performances with male sex workers, which he called “Freak Offs.”1 A third superseding indictment, filed April 4, 2025, added a second sex-trafficking count and a second transportation count involving a second woman, for five counts in all.23 As finally charged, Count One was racketeering conspiracy, Counts Two and Four were sex trafficking, and Counts Three and Five were Mann Act transportation counts; Counts Two and Three concerned Casandra Ventura and Counts Four and Five a woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane.”317 Combs pleaded not guilty.23
On May 17, 2024, CNN published surveillance video that it reported was recorded on March 5, 2016, at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.24 The AP described it as showing Combs attacking Ventura in a hotel hallway.16 Two days later Combs posted a video in which he said, “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video,” and “I’m truly sorry.”24 The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said it could not prosecute an assault from 2016 because the time limit had passed, NPR reported.24 The video was shown at trial, and Ventura testified about the incident, according to NPR.22
Jury selection began May 5, 2025, and testimony began May 12 before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian.16 The government called 34 witnesses over about seven weeks, according to the defense’s appellate brief.3
Ventura testified under her own name. According to NPR, she described an on-and-off relationship of about a decade that began after Combs signed her to Bad Boy Records when she was 19; she testified that he began physically abusing her in 2007, that she did not want to take part in the “freak-offs,” and that he threatened to release videos of them when she dated other men.22
The second woman testified as “Jane.” She testified that during a relationship of about three years she took part in what she called “hotel nights” with male sex workers while Combs watched, that she told him she did not want to continue, and that she feared he would take away the house he was paying for if she stopped, the AP reported.21 She testified that she arranged some of the encounters herself, including booking flights for a sex worker from Atlanta.21
The defense rested in under 30 minutes without calling witnesses, and Combs told the judge that not testifying was “solely my decision,” NPR reported.20 His lawyers argued that the relationships were consensual, and acknowledged that he may have committed domestic violence while denying that he sexually coerced or trafficked anyone.2019
The jury of eight men and four women told the judge on the second day of deliberations that it could not agree on the racketeering count; he directed it to keep deliberating.19 On July 2, 2025, it returned its verdicts.17
The jury acquitted Combs of racketeering conspiracy (Count One) and of sex trafficking of Ventura (Count Two) and of Jane (Count Four). It convicted him of transportation to engage in prostitution relating to Ventura (Count Three) and to Jane (Count Five).172 Each conviction carries a maximum of 10 years.18 He has not been convicted of sex trafficking, racketeering, or any of the other crimes alleged as part of the racketeering charge.
Judge Subramanian denied Combs’s request for release on a $1 million bond the same day, writing that the defense had “conceded defendant’s violence,” Bloomberg News reported.18
The Mann Act counts, under 18 U.S.C. § 2421(a), concern transporting people across state lines for prostitution.2 In denying Combs’s motions for acquittal and a new trial on Sept. 30, 2025, Judge Subramanian summarized the evidence on those counts: male escorts were transported to have sex with Ventura and Jane, and Ventura and Jane were transported to have sex with the escorts; Ventura and Jane testified that the men were paid, in some cases thousands of dollars; and hotel records, text messages and emails were also in evidence.2 The court held that “prostitution” in the statute means sex in exchange for money or its equivalent, rejected Combs’s argument that the statute requires a financial motive by the person arranging the travel, and rejected his constitutional challenges, including his argument that the First Amendment protects the conduct.2 It also held that the joined racketeering and sex-trafficking counts had not unfairly influenced the verdict, noting that the jury acquitted on those counts.2
Prosecutors asked for about 11 years and three months; the defense asked for 14 months, which would have meant his release because of time already served.14 According to the defense’s appellate brief, Judge Subramanian calculated a guidelines range of 70 to 87 months, applying increases for fraud or coercion, for a leadership role, and for multiple victims, which counted Ventura, Jane and eight male entertainers; without those increases, the brief says, the range would have been 15 to 21 months.3 The AP reported that the judge said the acquittals did not absolve Combs of the underlying conduct, including violence and coercion.13
On Oct. 3, 2025, he sentenced Combs to 50 months in prison, five years of supervised release and a $500,000 fine, with credit for the time he had spent in custody since September 2024.1214 The judge said the sentence should “send a message to abusers and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability,” NPR reported.12 Combs told the court, “My actions were disgusting, shameful and sick,” and apologized to Ventura and Jane, according to NPR.12
Combs filed a notice of appeal on Oct. 20, 2025, and the appeal was expedited.3 His brief argues that the judge relied on conduct the jury acquitted him of to raise his sentence, in violation of the guidelines and the Constitution, and that he is entitled to acquittal because “prostitution” should be read narrowly and because the First Amendment protects the conduct.3 On April 9, 2026, Judges M. Miller Baker, William Nardini and Sarah Merriam heard arguments.7 Reuters reported that the panel appeared divided: Judge Baker seemed sympathetic to the defense and called the Mann Act charges “just a sideshow” at trial, while Judge Nardini called it “an exceptionally difficult case.”7 As of Oct. 16, 2026, the court had not ruled.45
Ventura sued Combs on Nov. 16, 2023; the suit was settled the next day on undisclosed terms, and Combs denied her allegations.16 His lawyer at the time said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing.24 Dozens of other civil suits followed, and CNN reported in November 2025 that Combs faced about 70, all of which he denies.1610 The allegations in these suits have not been proven in court, and this page does not repeat them.
Combs was born on Nov. 4, 1969, in New York City.25 His father died when he was a small child.15 In a letter to the judge before sentencing, his mother described traumatic experiences in his childhood, including the deaths of his father and an uncle, and wrote that he “has made some terrible mistakes in his life, which I know he recognizes,” People reported.15 He attended Howard University in Washington.16
While a Howard student in 1990, Combs began an internship at Uptown Records; after Uptown fired him in 1993, he founded Bad Boy Records, which released The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die in 1994, according to the AP.16 He won Grammy Awards in 1998 and 2004, founded the Sean John clothing line in 1998, produced and starred in Making the Band and made his Broadway debut in 2004.16 Forbes named him its top-earning celebrity in 2017.16 He has recorded and performed as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and Diddy.16
Nine people died at a 1991 celebrity basketball game he promoted at City College of New York; a mayoral report partly blamed poor planning, the AP reported.16 In 1999 he was charged over an attack on a record executive and sentenced to an anger-management course.16 After a December 1999 nightclub shooting in Manhattan, he was charged with gun possession and with offering his driver money to claim a gun; a jury acquitted him of all charges in 2001.16
Combs has seven children, according to the AP; six of them spoke at his sentencing, and several asked the judge for leniency.13 A son said that jail had forced his father to give up drugs and alcohol, and a daughter spoke of the death of their mother in 2018.13 The mother of three of his children, his former girlfriend, died in 2018.16
No mental-health testimony or court findings about his health appear in the sources reviewed.
Combs was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn from his September 2024 arrest until sentencing, then moved to FCI Fort Dix, a low-security federal prison in New Jersey, where he was accepted into a residential drug-treatment program, CNN reported.10 In a letter to the judge before sentencing, he wrote, “The old me died in jail and a new version of me was reborn,” the AP reported.13 In October 2026 the Bureau of Prisons moved him to FCI Allenwood Low in Pennsylvania (see above).4
President Trump said on Oct. 6, 2025, that Combs had asked him for a pardon, and in January 2026 told the New York Times that he was not considering the request, according to news reports.119
No public statement from Jane appears in the sources reviewed.
Prosecutors charged that Combs led a criminal enterprise that used violence, threats, drugs and his control over women's careers to coerce them into sexual performances with male sex workers, which he called "Freak Offs."1 At sentencing, prosecutor Christy Slavik told the court, "His currency was control," and the government asked for about 11 years and three months.1314 On appeal, the government argues that the judge properly considered how Combs committed the Mann Act offenses, including threats that it says preceded the encounters.78
Combs pleaded not guilty and did not testify.2320 His lawyers told the jury the relationships were unconventional but consensual, and acknowledged that he may have committed domestic violence while denying that he coerced or trafficked anyone.20 After the verdict, lawyer Marc Agnifilo said, "Mr. Combs has been given his life by this jury."18 On appeal he argues that the judge increased his sentence on the basis of conduct the jury acquitted him of, that the Mann Act's term "prostitution" should be read narrowly, and that the First Amendment protects the conduct; he asks for release and resentencing or for acquittal.3
Ventura, who testified under her own name, wrote to the judge before sentencing describing Combs as "the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is," the AP reported.13 After the verdict, her lawyer said that although the jury did not find sex trafficking proven beyond a reasonable doubt, her testimony had "paved the way" for the transportation convictions.17
After being fired by Uptown Records, Combs founds Bad Boy Records.16
Casandra Ventura files a civil suit against Combs; it is settled the next day on undisclosed terms, and Combs denies her allegations.1624
Federal agents search his homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach.16
CNN publishes 2016 hotel surveillance video of Combs and Ventura; two days later he posts a video apology.2416
Combs is arrested in Manhattan; a three-count indictment is unsealed the next day.1
A third superseding indictment raises the charges to five counts.23
A jury is seated and testimony begins.16
The jury acquits Combs of racketeering conspiracy and both sex-trafficking counts and convicts him on the two Mann Act counts; the judge denies bail.1718
Judge Subramanian denies his motions for acquittal and a new trial.2
He is sentenced to 50 months in prison and fined $500,000.12
He files a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit.3
A three-judge Second Circuit panel hears arguments on his appeal.7
The Bureau of Prisons confirms his transfer to FCI Allenwood Low in Pennsylvania; the appeal is still undecided.45
The Second Circuit panel that heard arguments on April 9, 2026, can affirm the convictions and sentence, reverse them, or send the case back for resentencing; it had not ruled as of Oct. 16, 2026.84 His projected release date is March 2, 2028, AP reported on Oct. 16, 2026; the Bureau of Prisons has revised the date several times since his sentencing.410 President Trump said in October 2025 that Combs had asked him for a pardon, and in January 2026 that he was not considering it, according to news reports.119 The sources reviewed report no clemency decision.