THE BIG STORY: Sean “Diddy” Combs essentially won his criminal case, right? After all, the jury acquitted him on the central racketeering and sex-trafficking charges that could have sent him to prison for life. The feds overreached and the jury slapped them down, the narrative goes — let’s get those White Parties going again.
But the star was convicted, albeit on lesser charges of interstate prostitution. And these weren’t misdemeanors: Prosecutors want at least 11 years in prison, and the probation office says he deserves seven years. Combs’ lawyers, on the other hand, want just 14 months — a sentence that would send him home almost immediately on time served.
When Combs is sentenced by a federal judge on Friday (Oct. 3), how much time will he actually get? Legal experts told me that it will largely depend on one tricky question: How much the judge separates the “acquitted conduct” that was rejected by the jury from the actions on which Combs was actually convicted.
That might seem like common sense, but it’s actually a controversial issue and the key dispute between Combs and prosecutors ahead of sentencing. Experts say it’s also a serious challenge for a federal judge: “It will be hard for the judge to unhear everything he has already heard about Combs,” one former longtime Manhattan federal prosecutor told me.
For more, go read my full story here. And stay tuned at Billboard — we’ll keep you updated when the sentence is issued.
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Other top stories this week…
NO NEW TRIAL – Separately in the Diddy case, Judge Arun Subramanian denied a motion seeking to overturn his prostitution convictions, clearing the way for both sentencing and appeals. The ruling rejected Combs’ various arguments, including his eyebrow-raising claim that the “freak-off” sex parties at the heart of the case were just porn movie shoots protected by the First Amendment. “Illegal activity can’t be laundered into constitutionally protected activity just by the desire to watch it,” the judge wrote.
GET A GOOD LAWYER – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming Taylor Swift stole lyrics for 15 of her songs from a self-published Florida poet, ruling that accuser Kimberly Marasco was trying to claim ownership over “common words” and basic ideas: “Plaintiff’s poems amount at most to ideas, metaphors, contexts, and themes — none of which is a proper subject of copyright protection,” the judge wrote.
PROTECT YA SECRETS – A federal judge said that Martin Shkreli must face a lawsuit over Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album that he once owned. The judge refused to dismiss the case because she said the ultra-rare album might be considered a “trade secret” — and that Shkreli potentially broke the law by retaining copies after he forfeited it to prosecutors. But she acknowledged that such a ruling was “uncharted territory” for trade secrets law.
NIRVANA COVER CASE – The iconic grunge band won a court ruling dismissing a long-running lawsuit filed by Spencer Elden, the man who appeared as a nude baby on the iconic cover of Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind. Elden claimed the image amounted to child pornography, but the judge ruled it was not the kind of sexualized photo that would break the law: “This image … is most analogous to a family photo of a nude child bathing.”
KIM K SUES RAY J – Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner filed a defamation lawsuit against Ray J over allegations that he falsely claimed during a podcast that federal authorities are investigating the mother and daughter pair for criminal racketeering. The case, filed by lawyer Alex Spiro, said the singer had waged a “malicious campaign of harassment” against the Kardashians because he was intent on “reviving his own fading notoriety.” Ouch.
METRO BOOMIN VERDICT – The superstar producer won a jury verdict clearing him of wrongdoing in a civil lawsuit filed by Vanessa LeMaistre, who claimed that he sexually assaulted and impregnated her in 2016. It took only a short deliberation for the jury to reject those accusations, which Metro’s lawyers repeatedly told them had been conjured up while LeMaistre was high on the psychoactive drug ayahuasca during a trip to Peru.
“COMPLETE BOONDOGGLE” – Thomas St. John, a former longtime business manager to Calvin Harris, fired back against the DJ’s recent allegations of fraud, calling the accusations “categorically false.” In a response statement, St. John said he did not steal money from anybody and that Harris had willingly agreed to invest in the Los Angeles real estate plan at the center of the dispute — a project Harris says was a “complete boondoggle.”
MJ ABUSE CASES – Michael Jackson’s estate revealed in court filings that Wade Robson and James Safechuck — two men who have long accused the late pop star of sexually assaulting them as children — are seeking a whopping $400 million in their court cases. The revelation came amid an intra-estate dispute with Jackson’s daughter, Paris Jackson, who claims the estate executors have paid too much in legal bills to certain law firms.
NOT AGAIN – Tekashi 6ix9ine pled guilty yet again to breaching the plea deal he secured by testifying against his former Brooklyn gangmates, marking his third violation of supervised release in less than a year. At a court hearing, Tekashi admitted that he attacked a man in a Florida mall last month after the man taunted him for flipping on his crew.
RAP ON TRIAL – A New York appeals court ruled that Brooklyn prosecutors shouldn’t have used a rap song as evidence in a murder trial, saying the lyrics had “inherent ambiguity” and that the defendant was “deprived of a fair trial.” The decision, which centered on a prosecution expert witness who merely “guessed” when explaining what the lyrics meant to jurors, came amid a nationwide debate about rap in criminal cases.
GRACELAND SCAMMER – Lisa Jeanine Findley, the woman who tried to sell off Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion for millions of dollars in a bizarre scheme, was sentenced last week to more than four years in prison. Last year, Findley used a fake company and forged documents to try to conduct a foreclosure sale of the legendary Memphis home – an outlandish scam that befuddled media outlets and officials alike.
CLUB CLASH – A trio of Miami club operators who run the city’s famed Club Space venue fired back at a lawsuit brought by dance music giant Insomniac Events by filing a countersuit accusing Insomniac and its CEO Pasquale Rotella of “predatory tactics and greed.”
AI BATTLE IN GERMANY – One of the first major AI music cases in the European Union went before a Munich court this week. The case — pitting German music royalties group GEMA against OpenAI — raises the same question at play in the billion-dollar U.S. lawsuits: Do AI companies need to pay for the vast numbers of copyrighted works they use to train their machines? Billboard’s Rob Levine has a breakdown of the case and its implications.
ROYALTY ROW – T.I. was hit with a new lawsuit from veteran hip hop producer Sir Jinx over accusations that the rapper has failed to pay proper royalties for his 2016 Dr. Dre collaboration “Dope.” Jinx — Dre’s cousin who rose to fame with Ice Cube in the 1980s — has become a prolific litigant in recent years, filing lawsuits seeking more compensation for his work with Cube, Yo-Yo and others.
BAND BREAKUP BATTLE – The metalcore band Hatebreed and its frontman Jamey Jasta fired back at a lawsuit filed by bassist Chris Beattie over his ouster — calling it a “garden variety band break-up case” filed by a “disgruntled” former member who is improperly claiming a legal right “to remain a permanent member” of the band.
