Judge Arun Subramanian sentenced Sean “Diddy” Combs in the Southern District of New York on October 3, 2025. Combs’s sentencing is one of the most high-profile applications of the complicated Federal Sentencing Guidelines in years. This post concisely unpacks the sentencing proceeding for non-experts.
At trial, the jury acquitted Combs on the most severe Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and sex-trafficking charges, but convicted him on the lesser Mann Act counts, which criminalizes transporting any individual across state or international lines for immoral or sexual purposes.
Acquitted Conduct.
The first major dispute was over “acquitted conduct.” Even though a jury found Combs not guilty of certain counts, can Judge Subramanian still consider Combs’s conduct related to those RICO and sex-trafficking counts when sentencing Combs for the Mann Act convictions? Isn’t a jury of your peers supposed to determine that you committed conduct that leads to time behind bars, not a single judge? After United States v. Watts (1997), judges can ignore the jury’s acquittal and can consider acquitted conduct at sentencing, notwithstanding the obvious Fifth and Sixth Amendment concerns. But Watts has always been controversial. Just last year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to prohibit the use of acquitted conduct for the technical purposes of calculating the Guideline range, though judges can still consider acquitted conduct for the more general purpose of fashioning an appropriate sentence under the considerations Congress has set forth in 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a) and 3661. At some point (probably soon), the U.S. Supreme Court will reconsider this issue.
In this case, there was no reason for Judge Subramanian to wade into that constitutional morass. There were plenty of alternative ways to impose a wide range of sentences without considering acquitted conduct and risking reversal on appeal. Predictably, he sidestepped the issue. “At the outset I want you to understand, Mr. Combs, you are not being sentenced for acquitted conduct,” he said at the sentencing hearing.
Calculating the Guideline Range.
With acquitted conduct out of the way, the next sentencing issue was where to begin within the 600-page U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, based on the counts of conviction (Mann Act counts). Because so many criminal cases are resolved through plea agreement, this starting place is often agreed upon. But where, as here, the parties did not agree, each party zealously advocates for the application of harsh or lenient sentencing guidelines, and the U.S. Probation Office independently calculates its own range and provides it to the judge. Data (and probably common sense) suggest that the Probation Office’s independent calculation carries substantial weight with many judges. That happened here.
In his Sentencing Memorandum, Combs’s lawyers urged the judge to hyperfocus on the offenses of conviction—not any acquitted conduct or arguably relevant conduct that Combs may have committed, like domestic abuse and other troubling conduct that would support sentencing enhancements. The defense suggested that a sentence of time served (10–16 months) was appropriate. Federal Prosecutors wanted Judge Subramanian to cross reference to much harsher guidelines and then apply an array of enhancements (resulting in a sentence of “at least 135 months” in prison), which the Judge seemed to have had little difficulty rejecting at the hearing.
Not surprisingly, the Judge agreed with the independent calculations of the Probation Office in its confidential Presentence Investigation Report (PSR). The Sentencing Guidelines try to quantify the severity of an offense and the dangerousness of an offender. Doing so here, the PSR reflected that the base offense level should be 14, and that the following enhancements should apply:
- +4 levels: “the offense involved fraud and coercion” (§2G1.1(b)(1))
- +4 levels: Combs “was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive” (§3B1.1(a))
- +5 levels: grouping based on multiple victims (§3D1.4)
This resulted in a Total Offense Level of 27. Given Combs’s lack of criminal history, his criminal history category was “I.” Under the Sentencing Table within the Guidelines, this resulted in an imprisonment range of 70–87 months.
. . .
The parties provided the judge with comparator sentences for other offenders sentenced under the Mann Act, and the Probation Office recommended a sentence of 60 months—below the bottom of the Guideline range. (Most sentences in federal court are at or below the Guideline range, so this was not surprising.) Judge Subramanian ultimately varied downward even further and imposed a sentence of 50 months in prison, plus three years of supervised release (this is common) and a $500,000 fine. (This $500,000 fine is unusual in federal sentencing—judges often waive fines for offenders based on a finding of their inability to ever pay them. Not so with Combs.) Combs will get credit for around a year in prison he has already served, and he might be eligible for other credits while in prison, meaning he will likely serve at least another three years in prison for his Mann Act convictions.
Appeals and Next Steps.
While Combs may have substantive, legal bases to appeal the charges or the trial, this post focuses on sentencing. Prosecutors might appeal the sentence, and Combs will certainly appeal, but his chances on appeal are bleak. The “preponderance of the evidence” standard applies to the Judge’s sentencing determinations, making challenges difficult (particularly in a case like this, with a substantial record for the Judge to mine). And even if Combs wins on a particular enhancement, it could be a Pyrrhic victory. Judge Subramanian’s downward variance gives the sentence appellate cover. If Combs successfully gets the grouping enhancement reversed, his guideline range would be 41–51 months; if he wins on one of the other enhancements, the resulting range would be 46–57 months. His sentence of 50 months falls squarely within either range. Combs would need to prevail on multiple sentencing issues to warrant a meaningful resentencing hearing. His more promising avenues are probably in challenging the charges or trial (or soliciting a presidential pardon), not sentencing.
Any case involving a celebrity will grab headlines, but for all of the drama, what stands out the most is how unremarkable the sentence ended up being. The Judge considered the advocates’ positions, but neither the prosecution’s push for a sentence of over ten years nor the defense’s plea for leniency carried the day. Judge Subramanian did not increase the sentence based on Combs’s race or gender. No “slap on the wrist” based on his wealth or fame. He imposed a relatively common sentence of a bit below the Guideline range. In the late 1980s, Congress mandated the creation of sentencing guidelines to advance “certainty and fairness in sentencing and reducing unwarranted sentence disparities” by remaining “neutral as to the race, sex, national origin, creed, and socioeconomic status of offenders.” The Sentencing Guidelines are far from perfect, but in this high-profile test, they might have made sentencing the least complicated part of the case for Judge Subramanian.
Further reading:
USA v. Combs, Docket No. 1:24-cr-00542 (S.D.N.Y.)
Jonathan Wroblewski, An AI Experiment, Part 2 – Diddy, Sentencing Matters Substack (Sept. 30, 2025) (A.I. analysis of the sentencing memoranda in the case and imposition of 36 months in prison)
New York Times: What to Know Before Sean Combs’s Sentencing (my prior comments about the Combs sentencing)
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