Combs pleads with judge in letter before sentencing, saying he was ‘reborn’ in jail | Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs

Facing up to 11 years in prison at his sentencing on Friday, Sean “Diddy” Combs told a federal judge that he has experienced “a spiritual reset”, and he hoped to be released so that he can return to his children and his mother.

“The old me died in jail and a new version of me was reborn. Prison will change you or kill you – I choose to live,” Combs, 55, wrote in a letter to Judge Arun Subramanian.

“I no longer care about the money or the fame,” he added. “There is nothing more important to me than my family.”

Federal prosecutors have argued the hip-hop superstar should be sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison, calling him “unrepentant” and someone who “engaged in violence and put others in fear”. His lawyers say he should go free this month, arguing his year behind bars has been enough of a penalty.

After seven weeks of explicit and sometimes painful testimony from 34 witnesses, including two former girlfriends who described a pattern of coercive and violent behavior, Combs was acquitted in July of the most serious charges he faced, sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, but convicted on two prostitution-related counts.

At the time, Combs’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo called the verdict “a victory of all victories”.

In his letter to the judge who will sentence him on Friday morning, Combs struck a different tone, combining some apologies with vivid descriptions of his own physical and emotional suffering while in jail.

Rather than make an example out of him with a lengthy sentence, Combs implored Subramanian to “make me an example of what a person can do if afforded a second chance”.

Combs wrote that, now sober, and with his mind clear of drugs and alcohol after a year in jail, he can see how rotten he had become before his September 2024 arrest.

“I lost my way. I got lost in my journey. Lost in the drugs and the excess. My downfall was rooted in my selfishness,” he wrote.

He described “the remorse, the sorrow, the regret, the disappointment, the shame” from his behavior that has made it “so hard for me to forgive myself”.

Combs apologized to Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former girlfriend he had hit, kicked and dragged at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 – an attack captured on security-camera footage shown to jurors repeatedly during his two-month trial.

“The scene and images of me assaulting Cassie play over and over in my head daily,” Combs wrote. “I literally lost my mind. I was dead wrong for putting my hands on the woman that I loved. I’m sorry for that and always will be.”

During the trial, Ventura, who testified while eight months pregnant, described a relationship marked by physical and emotional abuse and control. She alleged that Combs was frequently violent with her, that he raped her after their breakup in 2018, and that he used threats to exert control over her.

Ventura alleged that Combs threatened to release explicit videos of her and cut off financial support or stifle her music career, as she was signed to his label, if she didn’t meet his demands. She said she often used drugs provided by Combs to “dissociate” during the sexual encounters.

Combs also apologized to a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane, saying that “after hearing her testimony, I realized that I hurt her. For this I am deeply sorry.”

Jane, who testified anonymously, said that she initially agreed to group sexual encounters to please Combs, but that she later felt trapped and “obligated” to perform – particularly after he began paying her rent. Combs used the rent payments as leverage and also threatened to leak explicit videos of her, dismissing her when she no longer wanted to participate, she said. She also described a 2024 altercation between her and Combs that left her with a black eye.

Combs wrote that the last two years had been the hardest of his life, “and I have no one to blame for my current reality and situation but myself”.

“In my life, I have made many mistakes, but I am no longer running from them,” he wrote. “I am so sorry for the hurt that I caused, but I understand that the mere words ‘I’m sorry’ will never be good enough as these words alone cannot erase the pain from the past.”

In jail, Combs said, he has been reading, writing, working out and teaching a six-week course to other inmates, Free Game With Diddy, imparting his business wisdom, as well as lessons learned from his mistakes and failures.

He is also involved in therapy, he said, to deal with his past drug abuse and anger issues.

Combs told Subramanian that he was asking for mercy, not only for himself but for his seven children and his 84-year-old mother, for whom he had been the primary caregiver. While locked up, he said, he missed proms and graduations and critical parts of his two-year-old daughter’s development.

“As I write you this letter, I am scared to death. Scared to spend another second away from my mother and my children,” Combs wrote.

He said the conditions of his detention at a Brooklyn federal jail are “inhumane”, writing that he is locked in a room with 25 other inmates, with no windows, no clean air, a broken washing machine and water that has to be boiled before drinking.

“If you allow me to go home to my family, I promise I will not let you down and I will make you proud,” Combs told the judge.

Anna Betts and the Associated Press contributed reporting