NEW YORK (AP) — Attorneys representing the celebrated hip-hop figure, Sean “Diddy” Combs, have made a fervent plea to a federal appeals court in New York. Late Tuesday, they sought the court’s intervention to either overturn Combs’ conviction or mandate a more lenient sentence, arguing for his immediate release from incarceration.

The legal team presented their case to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, contending that Combs received an unduly harsh punishment. They claimed that the federal judge presiding over his case allowed unrelated charges, of which Combs had been acquitted, to unduly influence the sentencing decision.

Currently serving time in a federal prison in New Jersey, Combs, 56, is slated for release in May 2028. His trial earlier this year concluded with an acquittal on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. However, he was found guilty under the Mann Act, legislation that prohibits the interstate transport of individuals for any sexual offenses.

The defense criticized Judge Arun Subramanian, asserting that during Combs’ sentencing in October, the judge acted as a “thirteenth juror.” They argued it was inappropriate for the judge to factor in evidence related to the charges from which Combs had been cleared when determining the four-year and two-month prison sentence.

Highlighting the nature of the convictions, Combs’ lawyers emphasized that he was only found guilty of lesser charges related to prostitution, which did not involve force, fraud, or coercion. In their appeal, they urged the court to exonerate Combs, expedite his release, or instruct Judge Subramanian to impose a reduced sentence. As of now, the appeals court has yet to schedule oral arguments for this case.

“Defendants typically get sentenced to less than 15 months for these offenses — even when coercion, which the jury didn’t find here, is involved,” the 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,” the lawyers wrote.

At sentencing, Subramanian said that when calculating the prison term, he considered Combs’ treatment of two former girlfriends who testified that the Bad Boy Records founder beat them and coerced them into having sex with male sex workers while he watched and filmed the encounters, sometimes masturbating.

At the trial, former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura testified that Combs ordered her to have “disgusting” sex with strangers hundreds of times during their decade-long relationship that ended in 2018. Jurors saw video of him dragging and beating her in a Los Angeles hotel hallway after one such multiday “freak-off.”

The second former girlfriend, who testified under the pseudonym “ Jane,” said she was pressured into sex with male workers during what Combs called “hotel nights,” drug-fueled sexual encounters from 2021 to 2024 that also could last days.

At sentencing, Subramanian said he “rejects the defense’s attempt to characterize what happened here as merely intimate, consensual experiences, or just a sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll story.”

He added: “You abused the power and control that you had over the lives of women you professed to love dearly. You abused them physically, emotionally, and psychologically. And you used that abuse to get your way, especially when it came to freak-offs and hotel nights.”