October 7, 2025 • 12 mins
Last Friday, rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs was sentenced to just over four years in prison following his conviction on prostitution-related charges earlier this year. The 55-year-old music mogul has spent more than a year in a New York jail after he was arrested in September last year.
So what happens now to Combs? We know he will now be in jail, but what about all the other allegations that were levelled against him? What happens to those? We’ll tell you what you need to know on today’s podcast.
Listen: Diddy's trial begins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we jump into today's deep dive, just a heads
up that we'll be discussing a story that includes themes
of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Please listen with care
already and this this is the Daily Off.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Wednesday,
the eighth of October. I'm Billy fit Simon's.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Last Friday, rapper Sean Diddy Combes was sentenced to just
over four years in prison following his conviction on prostitution
related charges earlier this year. The fifty five year old
music mogul has spent more than a year in New
York jail after he was arrested in September last year.
So what happens now to Cones? We know he will
now be in jail, But what about all the other
(00:53):
allegations that were leveled against him? What happens to those?
We will tell you what you need to know on
today's podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Billy. Let's start with the main character in this story,
Sean Combs. We've spoken about him throughout this case. Give
us a sense of who he is.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, So Cones is a very famous rapper and producer.
I'm sure many of our audience will be very familiar
with him, but what you might not know is that
he also built an actual music media empire. So he
founded the music label bad Boy Records in nineteen ninety three,
which has represented some of the world's most famous rappers,
(01:35):
including Notorious Big and he is a three time Grammy
Award winner who has worked with the likes of Mariah Carey,
He's worked with Usher, He's worked with Faith Evans, and
I think all of that is to kind of set
the scene and give you the context that he is
a very powerful person in the music industry in the US.
(01:57):
I also should say that he also went by the
names of Puff Diddy or just Diddy as well, so
some people might be more familiar with him via those names.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
A really powerful, influential and wealthy figure, kind of a
defining figure in music in the early two thousands, and
all of that came crashing down when these allegations against
him came out, right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, exactly. It was kind of like a third wave
of the me Too movement for the music industry. So
the first allegations to be leveled against coms were in
twenty twenty three. That was by his former partner, Cassandra Ventura,
who is an R and B singer who also goes
by the name of Cassie or who professionally goes by
the name of Cassie, and she accused him of sexual
(02:40):
assault some I don't know if you remember the footage
that came out of Comes kicking and dragging Cassie in
a hotel hallway in twenty sixteen, extremely distressing footage. It
was CCTV footage of the hotel. And despite the fact
that Comes responded to that footage by calling inexcusable behavior,
(03:01):
he did deny the allegations leveled against him by Cassie.
There was a civil lawsuit that was filed against him
by Cassie, but the day after that happened, it was
settled out of court. So that civil lawsuit is not
what we're talking about today, although Cassie was involved in
the one that we are talking about today. But what
(03:24):
I think you need to know about that context is
that was the first civil lawsuit and then it kind
of really snowballed from there, and after that there was
several people who filed different civil lawsuits against Diddy, claiming
sexual abuse.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So there's a really important difference between the civil and
the criminal processes in the US. We're talking first about
these civil cases. Those were the ones that started piling up.
It's different though, when it comes to him being criminally charged.
Which one of these incidents actually led to the arrest
and his entry into the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yes, so it was none of those civil ones. It
was the criminal one, and this was one that was
brought forward by the federal US prosecutors who charged him
with sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction
of justice. Now, we have previously on this podcast covered
(04:21):
those allegations in this federal criminal case quite extensively, and
we also covered the trial, so I'll put a link
to that in the show notes. But for the purposes
of today's conversation, what you need to know is that
a jury acquitted Cones, which means that they found him
not guilty of the most serious charges of sex trafficking
and racketeering, which carried potential life sentences.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So he was found not guilty of those, but he
was still convicted on other charges.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
He was so he was convicted on two prostitution related charges. Specifically,
he was found guilty of two counts of transportation to
engage in institution. So the jury heard that Combs flew
his girlfriends and some male sex workers around the US
to engage in drug fueled sexual encounters. Now, those charges
(05:11):
both carry maximum sentences of ten years each, so if
he was to get the maximum sentences for those, that
would mean twenty years in prison. But as we found
out in the last few days, which is why we
are talking about it today, he did not get that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So what did he get? I mean, the sentence has
been handed down. How long is he facing in prison?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
He is facing fifty months in prison?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Fifteen months, So we're talking then for four years and
two months.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Just great mass, just over four years. And that was
longer than as you can imagine, what his lawyers argued for,
So they said that he should receive no more than
fourteen months. The government, on the other hand, again reminded
that it was federal authorities who brought forward this case.
They argued that he should get eleven years. Judge decided
(06:01):
on four, like we said, and he said in his
judgment that the four years was necessary to and this
is a direct quote to send a message to abuses
and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is
met with real accountability. He was also fined five hundred
thousand US dollars, which was the maximum fine possible for
(06:22):
these charges.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So four and a bit years a five hundred thousand
dollars US fine. That puts it about seven hundred, seven
hundred and fifty thousand Australian But that also includes the
time he's already spent in jail, right.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yes, So what it means is that he will now
be in jail until twenty twenty eight, because, like you said,
he has already spent that one year in jail and
he was denied bail. That's why sometimes you might not
be in jail yet. Sure, he was denied bail. One
thing to note, though, is that his lawyers have said
that he will appeal the judgment.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
One thing I know about the law system, the legal system,
is that appeals can take a long time. So I
think it's fair to say that he will be in
jail for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So he'll stay in jail while those appeals play out.
But you're right, those appeals can take months, if not years,
So what about the other cases against him. There are
some cases. Then if we jump over to the civil system, yes,
there are some lawsuits he's facing that haven't been settled yet.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yes, well there are many. There are actually more than fifty,
which is crazy. That's a large number of civil lawsuits
that he is still facing.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And so he still faces them, right even though he's
in jail on that one criminal case.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yes, I think that we should explain the difference between
civil and criminal because they've kind of said it here
and there, but I think we need a proper explainer.
You are our in house lawyer thanks to your four
year law degree, by the way, I think that you
are best places to explain the difference between those two.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So the way to think about it then in this
context of Diddy would be that federal prosecutors who represent
the interests of the American people. That's why if you
think about like the OJ Simpson case, it was the
people versus OJ Simpson, this would be the people versus Sean.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Combs, the people meaning the government.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, yes, the government who then represent the public. Yes,
you and I if we were Americans, And so they
have the jail system at their disposal and the police
to use and handcuffs and arrests. That's different to the
civil system, which is individuals bringing actions against other individuals,
(08:33):
and you can't go to jail for that, so there
can still be a remedy, and remedies are normally things
like money, but they could also be a public apology.
It could be, you know, an avo that lasts a
certain amount of time, or some sort of restriction on
movement sometimes, but mostly it's money. And there's different burdens
of proof. I don't want to go too legal system
(08:53):
on you, but in the criminal system, it has to
be beyond a reasonable doubt. So the people or the
government or the federal prosecutors had to prove that Shawn
Combs did traffic sex workers beyond the reasonable doubt if
he was sued. In the civil system, it has to
be on the balance of probabilities, So a fifty one
percent chance that that happened. So very different systems, but
(09:15):
ultimately what it leads to is you'd imagine with fifty
civil cases, it's likely that somebody, even with the money
of Shawn Combs would probably file for bankruptcy at a
certain stage.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, and so like I said, he is still facing
more than fifty civil lawsuits which are all accusing him
of sexual abuse pretty much.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So these would be individuals who are saying Shawn Combs
owes me x number of dollars for the loss of
income or the mental distress or the other sort of
impact from his behavior exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And most of these charges are based in New York,
as the criminal one was also, and according to the
New York Times, the allegations date as far back as
to the nineteen nineties, and the alleged victims are both
men and women. To give you an idea of the
kind of allegations we're talking about in these civil lawsuits,
(10:11):
they involve alleged gang rapes, and there are also a
lot of allegations of drugging people before then allegedly raping them. Horrific, Yeah,
and I think the number of allegations is what just
adds to how horrific it is. There are also at
least a dozen of the plaintiffs who say that they
(10:31):
were miners at the time of the alleged assaults, and
many of the lawsuits were also filed anonymously.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And so give me a sense of the strategy of
Kames as legal team. Here so they're fighting these civil
charges at the same time as moving through the criminal case.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Right, yes, So whilst this very public criminal case has
been ongoing, they have also been fighting these civil lawsuits
I guess behind the scenes, or they just haven't been
getting as much media attention as the criminal one. Sure,
and in July this year, one of his lawyers said
to the New York Times this is a quote again,
mister Holmes will not back down. We will fight each
(11:07):
and every civil case for as long as necessary to
win his full vindication. So again they have denied all
of the allegations against him.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I'd say that whilst there's now a resolution in the
criminal case here, the sheer number of cases that still
are floating through the civil system means that this story
won't get out of the headlines for a while now.
We did talk about some really difficult things on today's podcast,
So I just want to remind everybody that you can
reach out to one eight hundred respects anytime on one
eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two. Billy.
(11:39):
Thank you for taking us through that. Thank you, and
we're going to be back this afternoon with the headlines.
Please take care. I'll give you that number one more time.
It's one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two.
We'll chat to you in the afternoon. Until then, have
a great day.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate
island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Before we jump into today's deep dive, just a heads
up that we'll be discussing a story that includes themes
of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Please listen with care
already and this this is the Daily Off.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Wednesday,
the eighth of October. I'm Billy fit Simon's.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Last Friday, rapper Sean Diddy Combes was sentenced to just
over four years in prison following his conviction on prostitution
related charges earlier this year. The fifty five year old
music mogul has spent more than a year in New
York jail after he was arrested in September last year.
So what happens now to Cones? We know he will
now be in jail, But what about all the other
(00:53):
allegations that were leveled against him? What happens to those?
We will tell you what you need to know on
today's podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Billy. Let's start with the main character in this story,
Sean Combs. We've spoken about him throughout this case. Give
us a sense of who he is.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, So Cones is a very famous rapper and producer.
I'm sure many of our audience will be very familiar
with him, but what you might not know is that
he also built an actual music media empire. So he
founded the music label bad Boy Records in nineteen ninety three,
which has represented some of the world's most famous rappers,
(01:35):
including Notorious Big and he is a three time Grammy
Award winner who has worked with the likes of Mariah Carey,
He's worked with Usher, He's worked with Faith Evans, and
I think all of that is to kind of set
the scene and give you the context that he is
a very powerful person in the music industry in the US.
(01:57):
I also should say that he also went by the
names of Puff Diddy or just Diddy as well, so
some people might be more familiar with him via those names.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
A really powerful, influential and wealthy figure, kind of a
defining figure in music in the early two thousands, and
all of that came crashing down when these allegations against
him came out, right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, exactly. It was kind of like a third wave
of the me Too movement for the music industry. So
the first allegations to be leveled against coms were in
twenty twenty three. That was by his former partner, Cassandra Ventura,
who is an R and B singer who also goes
by the name of Cassie or who professionally goes by
the name of Cassie, and she accused him of sexual
(02:40):
assault some I don't know if you remember the footage
that came out of Comes kicking and dragging Cassie in
a hotel hallway in twenty sixteen, extremely distressing footage. It
was CCTV footage of the hotel. And despite the fact
that Comes responded to that footage by calling inexcusable behavior,
(03:01):
he did deny the allegations leveled against him by Cassie.
There was a civil lawsuit that was filed against him
by Cassie, but the day after that happened, it was
settled out of court. So that civil lawsuit is not
what we're talking about today, although Cassie was involved in
the one that we are talking about today. But what
(03:24):
I think you need to know about that context is
that was the first civil lawsuit and then it kind
of really snowballed from there, and after that there was
several people who filed different civil lawsuits against Diddy, claiming
sexual abuse.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So there's a really important difference between the civil and
the criminal processes in the US. We're talking first about
these civil cases. Those were the ones that started piling up.
It's different though, when it comes to him being criminally charged.
Which one of these incidents actually led to the arrest
and his entry into the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yes, so it was none of those civil ones. It
was the criminal one, and this was one that was
brought forward by the federal US prosecutors who charged him
with sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction
of justice. Now, we have previously on this podcast covered
(04:21):
those allegations in this federal criminal case quite extensively, and
we also covered the trial, so I'll put a link
to that in the show notes. But for the purposes
of today's conversation, what you need to know is that
a jury acquitted Cones, which means that they found him
not guilty of the most serious charges of sex trafficking
and racketeering, which carried potential life sentences.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So he was found not guilty of those, but he
was still convicted on other charges.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
He was so he was convicted on two prostitution related charges. Specifically,
he was found guilty of two counts of transportation to
engage in institution. So the jury heard that Combs flew
his girlfriends and some male sex workers around the US
to engage in drug fueled sexual encounters. Now, those charges
(05:11):
both carry maximum sentences of ten years each, so if
he was to get the maximum sentences for those, that
would mean twenty years in prison. But as we found
out in the last few days, which is why we
are talking about it today, he did not get that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So what did he get? I mean, the sentence has
been handed down. How long is he facing in prison?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
He is facing fifty months in prison?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Fifteen months, So we're talking then for four years and
two months.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Just great mass, just over four years. And that was
longer than as you can imagine, what his lawyers argued for,
So they said that he should receive no more than
fourteen months. The government, on the other hand, again reminded
that it was federal authorities who brought forward this case.
They argued that he should get eleven years. Judge decided
(06:01):
on four, like we said, and he said in his
judgment that the four years was necessary to and this
is a direct quote to send a message to abuses
and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is
met with real accountability. He was also fined five hundred
thousand US dollars, which was the maximum fine possible for
(06:22):
these charges.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So four and a bit years a five hundred thousand
dollars US fine. That puts it about seven hundred, seven
hundred and fifty thousand Australian But that also includes the
time he's already spent in jail, right.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yes, So what it means is that he will now
be in jail until twenty twenty eight, because, like you said,
he has already spent that one year in jail and
he was denied bail. That's why sometimes you might not
be in jail yet. Sure, he was denied bail. One
thing to note, though, is that his lawyers have said
that he will appeal the judgment.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
One thing I know about the law system, the legal system,
is that appeals can take a long time. So I
think it's fair to say that he will be in
jail for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So he'll stay in jail while those appeals play out.
But you're right, those appeals can take months, if not years,
So what about the other cases against him. There are
some cases. Then if we jump over to the civil system, yes,
there are some lawsuits he's facing that haven't been settled yet.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yes, well there are many. There are actually more than fifty,
which is crazy. That's a large number of civil lawsuits
that he is still facing.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And so he still faces them, right even though he's
in jail on that one criminal case.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yes, I think that we should explain the difference between
civil and criminal because they've kind of said it here
and there, but I think we need a proper explainer.
You are our in house lawyer thanks to your four
year law degree, by the way, I think that you
are best places to explain the difference between those two.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So the way to think about it then in this
context of Diddy would be that federal prosecutors who represent
the interests of the American people. That's why if you
think about like the OJ Simpson case, it was the
people versus OJ Simpson, this would be the people versus Sean.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Combs, the people meaning the government.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, yes, the government who then represent the public. Yes,
you and I if we were Americans, And so they
have the jail system at their disposal and the police
to use and handcuffs and arrests. That's different to the
civil system, which is individuals bringing actions against other individuals,
(08:33):
and you can't go to jail for that, so there
can still be a remedy, and remedies are normally things
like money, but they could also be a public apology.
It could be, you know, an avo that lasts a
certain amount of time, or some sort of restriction on
movement sometimes, but mostly it's money. And there's different burdens
of proof. I don't want to go too legal system
(08:53):
on you, but in the criminal system, it has to
be beyond a reasonable doubt. So the people or the
government or the federal prosecutors had to prove that Shawn
Combs did traffic sex workers beyond the reasonable doubt if
he was sued. In the civil system, it has to
be on the balance of probabilities, So a fifty one
percent chance that that happened. So very different systems, but
(09:15):
ultimately what it leads to is you'd imagine with fifty
civil cases, it's likely that somebody, even with the money
of Shawn Combs would probably file for bankruptcy at a
certain stage.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, and so like I said, he is still facing
more than fifty civil lawsuits which are all accusing him
of sexual abuse pretty much.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So these would be individuals who are saying Shawn Combs
owes me x number of dollars for the loss of
income or the mental distress or the other sort of
impact from his behavior exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And most of these charges are based in New York,
as the criminal one was also, and according to the
New York Times, the allegations date as far back as
to the nineteen nineties, and the alleged victims are both
men and women. To give you an idea of the
kind of allegations we're talking about in these civil lawsuits,
(10:11):
they involve alleged gang rapes, and there are also a
lot of allegations of drugging people before then allegedly raping them. Horrific, Yeah,
and I think the number of allegations is what just
adds to how horrific it is. There are also at
least a dozen of the plaintiffs who say that they
(10:31):
were miners at the time of the alleged assaults, and
many of the lawsuits were also filed anonymously.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And so give me a sense of the strategy of
Kames as legal team. Here so they're fighting these civil
charges at the same time as moving through the criminal case.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Right, yes, So whilst this very public criminal case has
been ongoing, they have also been fighting these civil lawsuits
I guess behind the scenes, or they just haven't been
getting as much media attention as the criminal one. Sure,
and in July this year, one of his lawyers said
to the New York Times this is a quote again,
mister Holmes will not back down. We will fight each
(11:07):
and every civil case for as long as necessary to
win his full vindication. So again they have denied all
of the allegations against him.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I'd say that whilst there's now a resolution in the
criminal case here, the sheer number of cases that still
are floating through the civil system means that this story
won't get out of the headlines for a while now.
We did talk about some really difficult things on today's podcast,
So I just want to remind everybody that you can
reach out to one eight hundred respects anytime on one
eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two. Billy.
(11:39):
Thank you for taking us through that. Thank you, and
we're going to be back this afternoon with the headlines.
Please take care. I'll give you that number one more time.
It's one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two.
We'll chat to you in the afternoon. Until then, have
a great day.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate
island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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