Sean 'Diddy' Combs back in Brooklyn jail ahead of sentencing
Combs, 55, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center since his September 2024 arrest. The facility, which has also held convicted sex traffickers like British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and rhythm and blues singer R. Kelly, is a far cry from the luxurious Los Angeles and Miami mansions Combs called home until last year.
After the verdict was read on Wednesday, Combs' lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian to release him on $1 million bond ahead of his sentencing, expected to take place by October.
"I understand that you don't, that Mr. Combs does not want to go back to the MDC," the judge said. Combs shook his head.
His hopes of returning to one of those homes and the embrace of his family after being cleared of the more serious charges were soon dashed. The judge denied Combs' request for bail, citing evidence of his violent behavior presented during the trial.
In recent years, MDC has been plagued by persistent staffing shortages, power outages and maggots in inmates' food. Two weeks after Combs' arrest, prosecutors announced criminal charges against nine MDC inmates for crimes including assault, attempted murder and murder at the facility in the months before Combs arrived.
In January of last year, a federal judge in Manhattan declined to order a man charged with drug crimes detained pending trial at the MDC, calling the conditions there an "ongoing tragedy, opens new tab."
Last August, another judge said he would convert an older defendant's nine-month jail term to home incarceration if he were sent to MDC, citing the jail's "dangerous, barbaric conditions, opens new tab."
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which operates MDC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The bureau has said it takes its duty to protect inmates seriously.
During the eight-week trial, U.S. Marshals transported Combs to and from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan each day from the facility in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood, which has also housed former cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried and Luigi Mangione, accused of killing a health insurance executive.
Bankman-Fried has since been moved to a low-security prison in California and is appealing his fraud conviction and 25-year sentence. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
A jury found Combs not guilty on Wednesday on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, sparing him a potential life sentence, but convicted him on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution that could land him in prison for several years. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Combs' defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said in court on Wednesday that Combs had been housed in "a very difficult part of the MDC" where there have been fights. His lawyer Alexandra Shapiro said in a November 2024 court filing that frequent lockdowns at the facility had impaired Combs' ability to prepare for trial.
On Wednesday, Combs' lawyers praised MDC staff, who they said had facilitated their access to him during the trial.
"Despite the terrible conditions at the MDC, I want to thank the good people who work there," defense lawyer Teny Geragos told reporters after the verdict.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Diddy's ‘cosy sweater strategy' and why trial style actually matters
Every morning when we stand in front of our wardrobes choosing what to wear, we make a series of decisions about how we want to present ourselves to the outside world: a tailored suit, for example, is often used to symbolise power. A tracksuit? Not so much. But never does 'a look' convey more than the sum of its parts than when it's worn in the high-stakes environment of a trial. Then it's not fashion, but carefully choreographed 'courtroom strategy' to let your clothes speak before you do. Take Sean 'Diddy' Combs, found guilty on Wednesday of two counts of transporting people for prostitution, but acquitted on the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, after an eight-week trial in Manhattan federal court. Combs, in the face of disturbing and lurid allegations spanning multiple years and several alleged victims, made a concerted effort to distance himself from his blinged-up alpha male hip-hop mogul image of old. Gone were the 'player' silken tracksuits, the confident heavy gold jewellery, the 'cartoon villain' OTT frills and grandeur of the floor-length black embellished coat featuring 600 Swarovski crystals and black pearls which he wore to the 2023 Met Gala – a custom piece from his own fashion label Sean John. Instead, court sketches showed the multi-millionaire music impresario sporting grey hair and a short grey beard (prison rules forbid hair dye), black rimmed studious-looking spectacles and soft sweaters in a range of sensible colours – beige, navy and grey; with the collar of a white shirt worn beneath the only notable feature. One day of his trial he sat patiently reading the Bible, a far cry from the ' freak-off ' swinger lifestyle he confessed to having enjoyed prior to his arrest. Who knows whether this appearance was a hitherto unknown quirk of Diddy's personal brand or part of what's been termed 'the nerd defence' by its originator lawyer Harvey Slovis (who once represented Mr. Combs during his trial on charges of gun possession in 1999). Either way, the phrase refers to the idea that glasses – accessories associated with thought rather than aggression – have a subliminal effect on a jury, predisposing them to assume a lack of guilt. Consider, too, his knitwear which took the 'just a regular guy'-vibe to a whole other level. Quite literally soft and cuddly, jumpers have been employed at several gruesome trials, from that of the Menendez brothers in 1993 (accused of shooting their parents) to those of Combs and Luigi Mangione, on trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In December 2024 Mangione, a case in point of the power of personal image, donned a sensible all-American boy next door uniform of a burgundy crewneck and khakis to face 11 charges including first degree murder and the furtherance of terrorism. Sweaters aside, disgraced former movie mogul and convicted sex abuser Harvey Weinstein has a strategy of his own, appearing a dishevelled shadow of his once-imposing self each time he appears in court on rape charges. Sometimes seen struggling up the courtroom steps stooped over and using a walking aid, in April this year a hospital band indicating he was a 'fall risk' hung out of his suit sleeve in full view of the court. 'Everything in a courtroom serves a symbolic purpose, including the wigs and robes of the legal profession – the use of wigs has been in place since the 17th century and judges robes date from much earlier than that,' explains Dr Liza Betts, senior lecturer in cultural and historical studies at London College of Fashion (UAL). 'They are used to convey formality and to distinguish status and power. As the courtroom is so symbolically loaded it makes sense that the clothing of everyone present will be read in the same way – subject to the level of fluency someone might have in the language of dress being employed.' These men are not, of course, the only people to use the soft power of their appearance to convey a subliminal message in a legal setting. It was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who deftly mastered the art of trial style when, in 1972, the former First Lady sued New York's 'most unrelenting' paparazzo Ron Galella for public harassment, both of her and her children. Appearing in front of the judge, she cut an elegant, dignified figure bedecked in wool coats and button-up jackets. Onassis successfully obtained a restraining order against Galella (which he did not respect, causing the pair to later meet again in court). In 2002, actor Winona Ryder pushed the envelope when it came to courtroom dressing, entering fashion lore. Charged with shoplifting thousands of dollars' worth of goods from Saks Fifth Avenue, including pieces by Marc Jacobs, the star arrived at shoplifting trial dressed in a trompe l'oeil knit dress by none other than Marc Jacobs himself. Throughout proceedings, Ryder sported headbands, buttoned-up jackets over midi skirts and mid-height heels. Instead of three years in jail, the judge handed down a sentence of three years' probation and a fine. Billionaire reality star Kim Kardashian's appearance at a courthouse in central Paris last month is another case in point. There to give evidence in her own robbery trial (more than £7 million of jewellery was stolen from the star during a five-hour armed robbery ordeal in a Paris hotel in 2016) the American socialite turned up in a figure hugging power suit dripping in an estimated £6 million worth of jewellery. Arriving alongside her mother Kris Jenner to testify against the so-called 'grandpa robbers' – a group of nine men and one woman, with an average age of 70 – Kardashian donned a pair of Alaïa sunglasses, a waist-cinching vintage John Galliano black skirt-suit with a peplum and plunging neckline and slingback heels from Saint Laurent. Around her neck she wore a tear-drop diamond necklace containing a reported 52 carats of stones by New York-based rare diamond specialist Samer Halimeh alongside diamond earrings, including a 4.55 carat diamond over the ear cuff from Repossi and a £6,000 white gold and diamond pavé version by Briony Raymond. 'Ultimate power move,' said Raymond on her Instagram account regarding Kim Kardashian's appearance in her wares. 'A nod to jewelry as armour and a defiant statement that proves she will not be robbed of her love of jewelry and the joy it brings her.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Briony Raymond • New York (@brionyraymondnewyork) Not to mention, of course, Kardashian's ability to simply replace stolen gems worth millions of dollars and flex them in front of the accused. 'Clothes do communicate, we use them for this very purpose,' continues Dr Betts. 'To say who we are, who we think we are, who we would like to be, who we are told to be, or who we think others would like us to be.' Earlier this year, rapper A$AP Rocky appeared in a Los Angeles court facing charges of two counts of felony assault. Rocky arrived at his trial looking incredibly chic, as you would if you'd been kitted out in top-to-toe Saint Laurent (some items costing almost £4,000) by the brand themselves. Rocky was latterly found not guilty. Just goes to show, there truly is no such thing as bad publicity. The examples are numerous: Gwyneth Paltrow curated her courtroom image (soft, approachable in cashmere and wool from stealth wealth brands such as her own label Goop, The Row and Celine) after a personal injury claim resulting from a skiing accident saw her in front of a judge in 2023. Then there's fake heiress Anna Delvey – found guilty of grand larceny in 2019 after seducing Manhattan's glossy elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund her make-believe ventures – who employed the services of stylist Anatasia Walker to help create her courtroom 'look', which on day one consisted of a beige sweater, choker necklace and black dress that the New York Post claimed was from Miu Miu. 'Anna and I talked on the phone about what she was interested in wearing,' Walker told at the time. 'I couldn't show her photographs, but as people interested in fashion, we spoke in references about the themes she wanted to come through [in her outfits].' New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman notes that for those who don't regularly wear suits, donning one just to court in a pass notes bid for respectability can often backfire (in a departure from his normal style, R&B singer and now convicted sex abuser R Kelly wore them for his court appearances in 2021, ultimately being found guilty). But then again, so can being your authentic self. Martha Stewart who got it all wrong in 2004, turning up to court toting a £7,500 tan Hermès Birkin bag, multiple long strands of cultured pearls and a fake fur stole to defend herself against charges of insider trading. 'The Birkin did little to promote the image of an approachable woman who has struggled up from humble roots,' wrote the New York Times at the time. 'Instead, it cemented an image of her as a pampered fat cat seemingly willing to snatch money from an Average Joe Stockholder.' Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to investigators and sentenced to five months in prison and two years' probation. Not only did Heather Mills McCartney defend herself during her divorce proceedings in 2008, but she also made her own three-piece suit to wear to court which apparently took inspiration from a court jester. But it seems Mills McCartney – who also threw a glass of water over Paul McCartney's divorce lawyer, the infamous Fiona Shackleton, in court – had the last laugh, walking away from proceedings with a cool £24.3m divorce settlement. The semiotics of courtroom style can sometimes reach the wrong audience. While battling addiction in the Noughties, actor Lindsay Lohan had multiple court appearances for earlier offences of driving under the influence which were heavily followed by the tabloid media. During one, in 2010, the star sat with her lawyer staring down press photographers with nails manicured with the words 'F--k U'. Whether or not the judge also read her not-so-subtle message is not known, but Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Sophia Hutchins accident site shows wrecked ATV in ravine where Caitlyn Jenner's trans manager died
Horrific footage shows the ravine where Caitlyn Jenner 's manager and longtime friend Sophia Hutchins died in a fatal ATV crash. Hutchins tragically died on Wednesday in a quad bike accident after plunging 350ft down a cliff near the reality TV star's Malibu home. Her ATV is believed to have struck the bumper of a moving car and was thrown down a ravine. Aerial footage captured by KCAL shows the vehicle overturned in the brush. The ATV appears to have separated during the incident, with the grill seen on its side and the bottom of the frame seemingly trapped in the ravine. It is not yet known if Jenner witnessed the crash or was at home at the time of the tragedy on Wednesday. Hutchins, like Jenner, was transgender and cited the father-of-six as the inspiration for coming out in college back in 2016. In 2017, she moved into Jenner's $3.5million Malibu mansion and began working as the star's manager, taking over the role from Jenner's ex-wife Kris Jenner, 69, after their 2015 divorce. Hutchins was Jenner's confidant for over a decade after the celebrated Olympian, 75, came out as a transgender woman in 2015. The pair met that year and appeared in multiple episodes of the television documentary series I Am Cait, a spin-off of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
He's the ex-commando who 'suffocated his three kids' and has evaded cops for weeks. But an expert says he knows exactly what his plan is... and where he's hiding
Travis Decker, the veteran accused of murdering his three daughters at a campsite last month, should now be considered an 'international threat', experts warn. The 32-year-old father recently left the army, and several investigators have spoken with the Daily Mail about how he's likely to be using his military skills to evade the law.
