(File Photo: Source for Photo: Sean Combs arrives at the Pre-Grammy Gala And Salute To Industry Icons at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyers want the hip-hop mogul sent to a low-security federal prison in New Jersey to serve his four-year, two-month prison sentence, telling a judge Monday that the facility’s drug treatment program will help him stay clean.
In a letter, Combs’ lawyers urged the judge presiding over his case, Arun Subramanian, to “strongly recommend” that the federal Bureau of Prisons place Combs at FCI Fort Dix, a massive prison located on the grounds of the joint military base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
FCI Fort Dix, one of several dozen federal prisons with a residential drug treatment program, will best allow Combs “to address drug abuse issues and to maximize family visitation and rehabilitative efforts,” Combs lawyer Teny Geragos wrote.
Also Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters that Combs had asked him for a pardon. Trump, referring to Combs by the nickname “Puff Daddy,” did not say if he would grant the request. Messages seeking comment on Trump’s remarks was left for Combs’ lawyers and his publicity team.
Combs’ sentencing Friday on charges he transported people across state lines for sexual encounters capped a federal case that featured harrowing testimony about violence, drugs and so-called “freak-offs,” and exposed the sordid private life of one of the most influential figures in music.
The “I’ll Be Missing You” singer was convicted in July under the federal Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for any sexual crime. His trial ended in a split verdict, with acquittals on sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life.
Combs has been locked up at a federal jail in Brooklyn, the Metropolitan Detention Center, since his September 2024 arrest. His time there will be subtracted from his sentence, meaning he could get out in about three years.
In a letter to Subramanian on the eve of sentencing, Combs said he has gone through a “spiritual reset” in jail and is “committed to the journey of remaining a drug free, non-violent and peaceful person.”
“I thank God that I’m stronger, wiser, clean, clear and sober,” he wrote.
Subramanian has not yet acted on the request to recommend placement at FCI Fort Dix.
Judges often make recommendations about where inmates should serve time, but it’s up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide. Those decisions, the agency has said, are based on a variety of factors, including the severity of the offense, the required security level and an inmate’s programming needs.
FCI Fort Dix, the largest single federal prison by population with just under 3,900 inmates, is about 64 miles (103 kilometers) southwest of New York City, where Combs was born and rose to fame as a rapper and entrepreneur in an array of businesses, including fashion, television and liquor. An adjacent minimum-security prison camp has 210 inmates.
Combs once owned a home in New Jersey, selling it nearly a decade ago.
His primary residence, according to court papers, has been a $48 million mansion on an island near Miami. That home and a mansion he owns in Los Angeles were raided by federal agents last year during the investigation that led to his arrest.
FCI Fort Dix has been home to a number of high-profile inmates over the years, including reputed mobsters, drug traffickers, corrupt politicians and “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli. For a time, it was run by the warden who had been in charge of a Manhattan federal jail when financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself at the jail in 2019. That warden, Lamine N’Diaye, has since retired.
In 2021, a 27-year-old Fort Dix inmate was stabbed in the eyeball by a fellow prisoner.
In 2019, a Fort Dix inmate, a former inmate and two other people were arrested for using a drone to smuggle in contraband including cellphones, tobacco, weight-loss supplements and eyeglasses. The same year, a Fort Dix correctional officer pleaded guilty in a separate case to pocketing bribes to smuggle in contraband.
During his time at Fort Dix, Shkreli ended up in solitary confinement amid allegations he was using a contraband smartphone to run his drug company from behind bars. Inmates are forbidden from conducting business and possessing cellphones.
