New York, NY, October 3, 2025 – On Friday afternoon, the music and entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to 50 months in prison for two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution in violation of the Mann Act. The sentence is well short of the recommended 11 years recommended by the government, and significantly less than the maximum penalty of 20 years (10 years for each count of violating the Mann Act).

In his remarks ahead of sentencing, U.S. Southern District Court Judge Arun Subramanian stressed his consideration of the weeks of testimonies from Combs’ former girlfriends Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and “Jane Doe” detailing years of brutal physical, sexual, and psychological abuse suffered at the hands of Combs, which included “gashes, bruises, broken doors […] savage beating[s] and subjugation.”

Directly addressing the survivors who took the stand, the judge said, “You were speaking to the millions of women out there who have been victims but feel invisible and powerless and had to suffer in silence. You told those women and the world that violence behind closed doors doesn’t have to stay hidden forever. The number of people who you reached is incalculable.”

The judge rejected the defense’s attempt to characterize the ‘Freak Offs’ and hotel nights to which Combs subjected the women “as intimate consensual experiences or just a ‘sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ story.”

In a letter to the judge prior to Combs’ sentencing, Cassie Ventura wrote, “While the jury did not seem to understand or believe that I engaged in freak offs because of the force and coercion the defendant used against me, I know that is the truth, and his sentence should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim.”

The jury’s verdict in July, declining to convict Combs of sex trafficking, made clear that our culture continues to reflexively sympathize with men who enjoy power and influence while applying rigorous scrutiny and skepticism to those who bravely step forward with accounts of abuse committed by these men. Indeed, much of the conversation – in and outside the courtroom – focused on a debate over Cassie’s and Jane’s supposed consent, ignoring that in the context of sexual violence and exploitation, consent is irrelevant.

The Combs’ case shows how difficult it remains for the public to understand the mechanics of sex trafficking; how exploiters use coercion, manipulation, threats, and abuse of power and vulnerability.

“As long as our laws and culture tolerate violence against women, labeling cycles of abuse as ‘passionate relationships’ or defining sexual exploitation by a woman’s perceived ‘consent’,” says Taina Bien-Aimé, CATW’s executive director, “we will not only continue to fail survivors but will be complicit in the future victimization of countless women and girls.”

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