A New York City jury has found music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, while acquitting him on most serious charges involving racketeering and sex trafficking.

Combs’s partial acquittal allows him to avoid a potential sentence of life in prison. While he faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars, prosecutors said sentencing guidelines suggest a range from 51 to 63 months.

Incarcerated since his arrest in September, Combs had already served nine months. Combs’s lawyers have stated that under federal sentencing guidelines, he would likely face about two years in prison. “We fight on and we’re going to win,” said defense attorney Mark Agnifilo, “And we’re not going to stop until he walks out of prison a free man to his family.”

Arun Subramanian, the judge who presided over the trial, denied Combs’s request for release on bond ahead of sentencing, telling the court it was “impossible” to show Combs posed no danger to the community. The judge set a tentative sentencing date for Oct 3.

The government claimed Combs used his power and wealth, as well as violence and threats of blackmail, to coerce women into complying and participating in what were described as drug-induced sexual marathons called “freak-offs.” The trial exposed Combs’s dysfunctional, toxic, personal relationships, in which he perversely utilized his power and connections as a businessman, hip-hop mogul, and self-described “bad boy” over employees and sexual partners — occasionally engaging in sexual abuse.

From the trial’s outset, Combs’s lawyers conceded their client engaged in domestic violence — segments of wanton physical abuse were witnessed on surveillance video — but insisted he’d never committed sexual abuse of any kind and declared all of his relationships as consensual. However, various accusers, including Combs’s former girlfriend and musician Casandra Ventura, contested that framing in graphic testimony depicting Combs as a violent employer and romantic partner.

Throughout the trial, the defense conceded prior examples of domestic violence but disputed that any coercion or sex trafficking occurred and maintained that all sexual activity was consensual and part of a “swingers lifestyle.” They argued that Combs was being wrongly prosecuted for his private sexual peccadillos and vehemently contested that any criminal conspiracy existed.

Over several weeks, the government called almost three dozen witnesses, including two of Combs’s former girlfriends, multiple former employees and assistants, male escorts, hotel staff, law enforcement agents, and public figures such as rapper Kid Cudi and singer Dawn Richard. Combs did not testify. Both Casandra Ventura and Jane recited raw, searing, and emotional testimony alleging that Combs coerced them into participating in the frequent and sometimes days-long “freak-offs.”

Defense attorneys said Ventura Fine was in essence a gold digger. This has been a common trope pushed in previous notable, high-level sexual abuse case defenses such as those involving Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, Bill Cosby, and Johnny Depp. Ventura filed a civil suit against Combs in November 2023, when the New York Adult Survivors Act gave sexual abuse victims a short window to file civil claims even after the statute of limitations had lapsed. Combs settled the case the next day for $20 million.

The verdict forces Combs to reckon with accountability, though more than a few spokespeople against domestic violence are understandably upset and disappointed with a less than absolute total conviction.

It’s unclear what kind of time Combs will serve. Hopefully, he will recede into the darkest, most remote corners of society. However, as I see it, it is highly unlikely that Sean “Puffy” Combs will be able to return to even a fraction of the mega celebrity he once enjoyed.

This would be the most effective and just verdict of all.

— Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University.