Convicted rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has pleaded with the judge handling his criminal trial to show mercy ahead of his sentencing on Friday, blaming his past behaviour on drug addiction and claiming he has turned his life around.
In a four-page letter submitted on Thursday, just hours before his sentencing hearing scheduled for 10:00 ET (15:00 GMT), Combs apologised “for all of the hurt and pain that I have caused” and said he has been reformed after spending 13 months in a Brooklyn jail.
In July, the 54-year-old was found guilty of two prostitution charges and now faces up to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors are pressing for at least 11 years, while his defence team has urged the court to release him later this month.
Writing to Judge Arun Subramanian, Combs expressed remorse for his violent past, including an assault on his former girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura.
“I literally lost my mind,” he admitted. “I’m sorry for that and always will be. My domestic violence will always be a heavy burden that I will have to forever carry.”
He also apologised to another woman, known in court as “Jane,” who testified against him during the trial, saying he had become “lost in the drugs and the excess.”
“I lost my way,” Combs wrote. “My downfall was rooted in my selfishness. I have been humbled and broken to my core.”
But his accusers have also written to the judge, urging a lengthy sentence and expressing fears of retaliation if he is released. Ventura said she is “so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up.” She added: “He has no interest in changing or becoming better. He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is.”
Combs argued in his letter that he has changed, describing how he now teaches fellow inmates about business and is sober “for the first time in 25 years.”
“The old me died in jail and new version of me was reborn,” he wrote.
He asked Judge Subramanian for leniency “not only for my sake, but for the sake of my children,” noting his seven kids and his 84-year-old mother who recently underwent brain surgery.
He urged the court to see him as “an example of what a person can do if afforded a second chance.”
Combs is also expected to speak directly in court before sentencing.
His lawyers plan to make their case and present a 15-minute video, though its contents remain undisclosed.
In July, a jury acquitted him of the most serious charges: racketeering and sex trafficking — which could have put him in prison for life.
Still, prosecutors maintain he is “unrepentant,” writing in a September filing: “The defendant tries to recast decades of abuse as simply the function of mutually toxic relationships. But there is nothing mutual about a relationship where one person holds all the power and the other ends up bloodied and bruised.”