NEW YORK – Attorneys representing hip-hop icon Sean “Diddy” Combs are pushing a federal appeals court in New York to demand his immediate release from incarceration, challenging his conviction on charges tied to prostitution. They are appealing for either a reversal of his conviction or a reduction of his four-year sentence.

In documents submitted to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Combs’ legal team argued that the sentencing was unduly severe. They claimed that the federal judge unfairly allowed evidence from charges for which Combs was acquitted to impact the final judgment.

Currently serving his sentence in a New Jersey federal prison, Combs, aged 56, is slated for release in May 2028. Despite being cleared of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges in a July trial, he was convicted under the Mann Act, which outlaws the interstate transport of individuals for sexual activities.

The defense contended that Judge Arun Subramanian overstepped by acting as a “thirteenth juror” during the October sentencing, letting evidence from dismissed charges sway the outcome. They argued that this resulted in an unjust sentencing decision.

Highlighting that Combs was only found guilty of minor prostitution-related offenses, which did not involve force, fraud, or coercion, the lawyers urged the appeals court to either overturn his conviction, release him immediately, or compel Judge Subramanian to lessen his sentence. The court has yet to hold oral arguments on the matter.

“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.”