He facilitated prostitution, rapper Diddy sentenced to more than four years in prison

During a two-month trial earlier this year, prosecutors from the Manhattan US Attorney's Office alleged that Combs forced two of his ex-girlfriends - rhythm and blues singer Casandra Ventura and a woman he met in court under the pseudonym Jane - to attend performances with violence and under the threat of cutting off their financial support.

Jurors saw security camera footage of Combs kicking and dragging Ventura in a hotel hallway in 2016, an incident that reportedly occurred after a Freak Offs. Jane testified that Combs last year assaulted her and forced her to have sex against her will. Combs' lawyers acknowledged that the man abused his girlfriends, but argued that they voluntarily participated in the sexual performance. Both Ventura and Jane testified that they sometimes participated consensually because they loved Combs and wanted to please him.

Prosecutors had insisted that Combs be sentenced to spend 11 years and three months in prison. Defence lawyers were seeking a sentence of 14 months and Combs' release by the end of the year. In seeking clemency, Combs' lawyers had shown how Combs had helped his fellow inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn by holding a six-week course on business management and personal development called Free Game with Diddy. "The scene and images of me assaulting Cassie come back to me every day," Combs had written in his letter to the judge, expressing remorse and "shame".

Defendants for prostitution offences involving violence are regularly subject to severe penalties. "The defendant should be no exception," the prosecutors had written in a document last week, "especially when his history and characteristics show years of violence."

In the scandal that led to Combs' conviction, hundreds of women and men accused him of sexual assault and abuse: all of them described the rapper and record producer as a violent sexual predator who stunned his victims with alcohol and drugs before abusing them, forcing them to remain silent with threats and exploiting his position of power.

Combs - also known as P. Diddy and formerly Puff Daddy - has been one of the most influential figures in American music and the star system for years, so much so that he has amassed a fortune that Forbes estimates to be close to $1 billion.

The testimonies and evidence against him immediately seemed unequivocal: photographs, videos and recordings of what went on during the famous Freak Offs, or the abuses behind the so-called White Parties: the white parties for the super-rich in the Hamptons in New York, at which, at Combs' invitation, actors, music stars and celebrities of all kinds attended. People like Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber or Leonardo DiCaprio had long since distanced themselves from those parties.