Sean 'Diddy' Combs sentencing live updates: Combs gets 50 months in prison

After federal prosecutors expressed skepticism about Sean Combs' sincerity, defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland insisted he is remorseful.

"He gets it," Westmoreland said during her emotional attestation to Combs' character and impact.

She singled out "Free Game with Diddy," the six-week course about entrepreneurship that Combs taught to fellow inmates at MDC-Brooklyn.

"Mr. Combs can reach so many more on the outside than he can on the inside. It is of no benefit to anyone to warehouse him in a prison," Westmoreland said.

Combs' children then clustered around the podium to address the court.

"I ask you to give my father a second chance. A second chance at life, a second chance to right his wrongs, a second chance to be the man he truly is," Justin Combs said. "I humbly ask you to see my father the way I do, the way his family does, the way he truly is."

Christian Combs called his father his "superhero" who taught him to treat women with respect.

"He has changed," Christian Combs said. "Please let my father out."

Jessi Combs, 18, immediately broke down in tears as she introduced herself to the judge.

"Your honor he is still our dad," she said with a quivering voice.

In a tearful speech, defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland made an emotional appeal to the judge about Sean Combs' business success and impact on the Black community.

"Our community finally had a seat at the table. A voice -- a real voice. After Mr. Combs figured out how to move within that industry, he moved on to help others," Westmoreland said, as her voice occasionally cracked.

Compared to the defense attorney Jason Driscoll's legalistic speech -- which offered a breakdown of what the defense team says are comparable criminal cases to argue for a lighter sentence -- Westmoreland focused solely on Combs' character and impact.

"I want to speak with the court about how he used his success to help others," she said. "Mr. Combs touched many more lives than the court has heard about this last year."

Westmoreland argued that Combs' success as a musician and record label executive showed others what they can accomplish "no matter what race you are."

"By Mr. Combs wearing all of those hats and pouring himself into that label like he did, it sent a message. It sent a message that you can do it. You don't have to be signed to the label, you can be the label," she said. "If Mr. Combs could do it, they could do it, too."

She also spoke at length about Combs' clothing line and his work helping support charter schools in New York.

"Mr. Combs has touched the lives of so many," Westmoreland said. "He has given opportunity to inner city individuals who never had real corporate opportunities."

"He has really inspired a community," she said. "Mr. Combs has inspired generations and generations to follow."

Defense attorneys began their push for a light sentence by underscoring that Sean Combs lacked a financial motive for transporting male escorts across state lines.

Combs hired escorts to have sex with girlfriends so he could watch, often while masturbating, and film.

"For 75 years, long before Sean Combs was even born, the Department of Justice has said, 'As a general rule prosecution should not be instituted in non-commercial cases,'" defense attorney Jason Driscoll said. "Profit motive is essential."

Driscoll argued the law Combs was convicted of violating, the Mann Act, most often involves brothels, sex trafficking rings, pimps and vulnerable victims like minors or undocumented immigrants.

"They're trying to equate Sean Combs to a pimp. He is not," Driscoll said. "He did not commit this Mann Act offense conduct in any way for any type of personal gain."

Instead, the defense compared Combs to a John and argued clients of prostitutes often receive minimal sentences.

Driscoll is the first of four defense attorneys expected to speak on Combs' behalf. Nicole Westmoreland is up next.

Prosecutors accused Sean Combs of downplaying his alleged violence, despite his lawyers openly conceding during trial that he was violent with two of his exes.

"He owned that violence only insofar as it benefited him," prosecutor Christy Slavik said.

"The violence in this case was uncontested," Slavik said. "The evidence of what the defendant did was overwhelming."

Slavik emphasized what she said was "life-altering" violence that Combs' girlfriends Cassie Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym "Jane" testified at trial, as well as Combs' allegedly abusive behavior towards his employees.

"He hit her, he kicked her, he threw her into walls, he stomped on her face, he dragged her by the hair," Slavik said of Ventura, who she said was "treated like an animal."

"Once is bad enough," she said. "Dozens and dozens of times is something the public must be defended from."

"This is not a person who has accepted responsibility," she said.

Slavik also pushed back against the defense argument that Combs' relationships with "Jane" and Ventura were mutually harmful.

"The court heard Cassie engaging in a 'freak-off' while he was overdosing on drugs. What is mutual about that?" Slavik said. "There is nothing mutual about that."

Even if the judge removed the alleged violence, Slavik argued that a significant sentence would still be justified. Prosecutors argued that the most comparable case for Combs' conduct is a 2023 conviction of a movie producer who ran an international prostitution business. The defendant in that case received a five-year prison sentence.

"Even prostitution cases that don't involve violence get significant sentences in this district," she said.