Sean Combs Claims He’s Being ‘Singled Out’ Because He’s a ‘Powerful Black Man’
Sean “Diddy” Combs has filed a motion to dismiss one of the criminal charges against him, claiming prosecutors have “singled [him] out because he is a powerful Black man” and claiming that “no white person has ever been the target of a remotely similar prosecution.”
The extraordinary defense came in a 13-page filing from Combs’ attorneys on Tuesday evening. His attorneys are seeking for U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian to dismiss the charge of transportation to engage in prostitution, also known as the Mann Act. (The 55-year-old is also charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy and has pleaded not guilty. He is currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he awaits his trial in May.)
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Prosecutors alleged that between 2009 and 2024, Combs would hire male sex workers to have sexual relations with his girlfriends, known as “freak offs.” Combs and his team members allegedly arranged for the male sex workers to travel to various locations across the country in order to participate in these highly organized sexual encounters.
While Combs does not seem to dispute that he hired male escorts from a known “legal escort service” during two of his relationships, his attorneys argue that he’s being unfairly prosecuted for a practice that is “widely accepted in American culture today.”
“It is not uncommon for couples using such services to bring a third person — including as alleged here, a man — across State lines and into their intimate relations,” his attorneys claim in court documents obtained by Rolling Stone. “Yet no other person, and certainly no white person, has ever previously been prosecuted under the White-Slave Traffic Act for hiring male escorts from another State. Mr. Combs has been singled out because he is a powerful black man, and he is being prosecuted for conduct that regularly goes unpunished.”
Established in 1910, the Mann Act is also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act. Named after Illinois Congressman James Robert Mann, the statute prohibited transporting people for prostitution, as well as “debauchery, or any other immoral purpose.” It was introduced during a period of moral purity movements during the United States’ progressive era. The act was “born out of hysteria that ‘white slavers’ were preying upon young women” — particularly young white women as they moved from rural areas into cities — and were being coerced into “prostitution through threats, intimidation, and force,” according to a 2022 court opinion.
Combs’ attorneys argue the act was “racist in its inception [and] has often been racist in its operation,” claiming that Mann’s argument for the act was that “white-slave trafficking was worse than this country’s history of chattel slavery.”
They pointed to the racially motivated prosecution of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, who was arrested twice for transporting two white women, one whom he’d later marry, across state lines during his relationships with them. (Jackson was convicted in 1913 and sentenced to a year in prison. President Donald Trump posthumously pardoned Jackson in 2018.) Rock and roll legend Chuck Berry was also convicted under the act in 1959 after he took a 14-year-old Native American girl across state lines.
“The statute’s target was black male sexuality, and from Jack Johnson to Chuck Berry, the statute’s most notorious prosecutions targeted famous black men accused of deviant sexual behavior,” Combs’ attorneys claim. “This case continues the trend.”
Combs claims the male escort service he used over the years was “not some secretive underground operation that was previously unknown.” Instead, the company has a website, 10,000 social media followers, write-ups in Cosmopolitan and Esquire and its CEO even participated in a Showtime TV show over the course of six seasons. (While the name of the service is redacted in court filings, it appears Combs is referring to the escort service Cowboys4Angels, which was featured on the Showtime series Gigolos.)
“As far as the defense is aware, prior to this case, no one has every [sic] previously been prosecuted for using [the service],” Combs’ attorneys argue. “No federal prosecutor, in this district or any other, has targeted the company, its CEO, or its escorts. Nor has any prosecutor previously targeted any customer who purchased escort services from [the service.]”
“Mr. Combs — a successful Black musician and businessman — is the first and only defendant ever to be charged under [the statute] for hiring male escorts,” Combs’ attorney added. “This is a clear case where the defendant has been ‘singled out for prosecution.’”
Combs’ team argues that he’s the lone person being prosecuted for hiring male sex workers under the Mann Act. While there’s been a range of other high-profile names arrested and/or convicted under the act, including Ghislaine Maxwell, R. Kelly, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Manson and megachurch pastor Jack Schaap, several of their cases involved minors.
“There is no accusation that any of the girlfriends were minors, or that Mr. Combs raped anyone,” his attorneys added.
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