On December 23, 2025, Shapiro Arato Bach filed the opening brief for Sean Combs’s criminal appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, challenging his sentence and two convictions under the Mann Act for transportation to engage in prostitution.
The brief argues that Combs’s 50-month sentence violated the sentencing guidelines, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and was fundamentally unfair and unjust because the sentencing judge heavily relied on acquitted conduct—by finding facts that conflicted with the jury’s rejection of the RICO conspiracy and sex trafficking charges of which Combs was acquitted at trial. Notably, both the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as well as several criminal and sentencing law professors, including a former member of the Sentencing Commission, filed amicus curiae briefs supporting Combs’s arguments on acquitted conduct.
Combs’s brief also argues that his Mann Act convictions should be reversed because the statute’s definition of “prostitution” must be construed to exclude voyeurs like Combs to avoid due process, First Amendment, and federalism problems. The brief further argues that the convictions violate Combs’s free speech rights because the sexual activity at issue was amateur pornography that Combs had a First Amendment right to film, direct, and view with his girlfriends.
Alexandra Shapiro authored Combs’s brief along with Ted Sampsell-Jones and Christopher Johnson. Combs’s brief can be found here, the NACDL’s amicus brief can be found here, and the criminal/sentencing law professors’ amicus brief can be found here.