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Sean “Diddy” Combs has joined jail self-improvement programs aimed at curbing drug use and violence against women — a blatant bid to land less prison time at his upcoming sentencing, an expert told The Post.
“It’s a tale as old as time,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Post on Tuesday.
Combs, 55, was convicted earlier this month on prostitution charges while being cleared of sex-trafficking and racketeering counts.
He faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars at his Oct. 3 sentencing, though he’ll likely get a far lighter sentence somewhere in the potential range of 15 months to five years because of more lenient sentencing guidelines.
Either way, the hip-hop mogul has entered the STOP Program while he’s being held at Brooklyn’s MDC lockup to help him work on his history of violence toward women, according to TMZ.
The “I’ll Be Missing You” rapper is also undergoing therapy and in a drug abuse program that Dr. Harry Wexler runs, the outlet said, citing sources.
Combs hopes the treatments will help him to improve himself, sources told the celebrity new site.
But the self-described “cynical” and “jaded” Rahmani said he sees the programs as Combs’ and his defense team’s effort to clinch a lenient penalty on the disgraced music mogul’s day of judgment.
“These are calculated legal and PR moves,” said Rahmani, now a criminal-defense lawyer.
Combs, who also founded the Sean John fashion line, wants to show Judge Arun Subramanian that “he’s accepted responsibility, that he’s willing to change, that he’s not going to re-offend,” Rahmani said, noting one of the mitigating factors for sentencing is if the defendant accepts responsibility.
Combs wants to demonstrate that the crimes he committed were “all drug- and mental-health related,” the lawyer said.
The Bad Boy Records founder wants to show “he’s committed to improving his life,” the lawyer said.
“It’s Lawyering 101,” Rahmani said.
“I’m completely cynical. This is all gamesmanship,” the attorney said. “Combs’ lawyers “are doing their job. They are trying to minimize their client’s [sentencing] exposure.”
Combs’ lawyers have said at prior bail hearings that before the rapper’s September arrest, he was enrolled in a batterers program at the Urban Resource Institute in New York.
“He went to meetings. He participated,” defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said July 2 in arguing for Combs to be released after the mixed verdict.
The judge can choose whether to follow federal sentencing guidelines, which lawyers on both sides will haggle over in the lead-up to the hearing.
Initially, Combs’ lawyers said they believed the guideline range for their client is between 15 to 21 months while prosecutors have argued the range should be at least four to five years. Both sides will give their final estimates in court papers they’ll submit before sentencing.
The federal probation department will also make a determination for where it believes the guidelines lay for Combs when they weigh in factors such as criminal history. The judge will ultimately take the opinions from the prosecution, the defense and probation to determine what he believes the guidelines should be set at.
Rahmani said that since Subramanian is fairly new to overseeing criminal cases and previously presided over civil matters, there isn’t a long track record of sentencings to pull from to see whether the jurist tends to be lenient or harsh.
“I dont think there is ton of sentencing history when it comes to this judge,” Rahmani said. “Some of these [former] civil judges tend to be softer.”
During the two-month-long trial, prosecutors claimed Combs forced women to have sex with male prostitutes during days-long, drugged-up “freak-offs.”
Prosecutors also alleged Combs used his employees to carry out a 20-year criminal enterprise to commit arson, forced labor, kidnapping, sex-trafficking, bribery and other cimes.
Combs lawyers admitted to the jury that Combs had a history of domestic violence and that he liked kinky sex said but none of those things made him guilty of sex-trafficking and racketeering.
Combs’ ex-longtime girlfriend Cassie Ventura testified about repeatedly being beaten up by Combs, including in March 2016 when he was captured on infamous surveillance footage shoving, kicking and dragging Ventura in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel.
The jury found Combs not guilty of the three most serious charges of sex-trafficking and racketeering — which could have seen him face life imprisonment if he’d been convicted.
The panel convicted him of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution — tied to prosecutors claims that Combs flew male escorts and his two girlfriends around the country for the “freak-off” sex-marathons, which he filmed.
Combs’ team did not return a Post request for comment Tuesday.
Additional reporting by Ben Kochman
English (US)