NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Combs “Diddy” Combs 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 the letter, Combs' lawyers urged the judge presiding over his case, Arun Subramanian, to “strongly recommend” that the Federal Bureau of Prisons house Combs at FCI Fort Dix, a massive prison located on the grounds of Joint Military Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
FCI Fort Dix, one of several dozen federal prisons with a residential drug treatment program, would best allow Combs to “address drug abuse problems and maximize family visitation and rehabilitation efforts,” wrote COMBS attorney Teni Geragos.
Also on Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters that Combs had asked for his forgiveness. Trump, referring to Combs by the nickname “Puff Daddy,” did not say whether he would grant the request. A message seeking comment on Trump's remarks was left with Combs' lawyers and his publicity team.
Combs' sentencing Friday on charges he transported people across government lines for sexual encounters, limited a federal case that featured harrowing testimony about violence, drugs and so-called “freak coverage” and exposed the sordid personal life of one of music's most powerful figures.
The “I'll Miss You” singer was convicted in July under the federal Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across government lines for any sex 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 in the Brooklyn federal prison at the Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest in September 2024. That time will be deducted from his sentence, meaning he could be out in about three years.
Subramanian has not yet acted on the request to be posted at FCI Fort Dix.
Judges often make recommendations about where inmates should serve time, but it is ultimately up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide. Those decisions, the agency says, are based on a variety of factors, including the seriousness of the crime, the level of security required and the inmate's programming needs.
FCI Fort Dix, the largest freestanding federal prison by population of 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 a variety of ventures, including fashion, television and liquor. The adjacent minimum security prison camp houses 210 inmates.
The facility has been home to a number of high-profile inmates over the years, including mobsters, corrupt politicians and “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli. It was run for a time by the warden who was in charge of the Manhattan federal prison when financier Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in prison in 2019. That supervisor, Lamine N'Dia, has since resigned.
In 2021, a 27-year-old inmate at Fort Dix was stabbed in the eyeball by a fellow inmate.
In 2019, a Fort Dix inmate, a former inmate and two other people were arrested for using a drone to smuggle contraband including cellphones, tobacco, weight loss supplements and eyeglasses. That same year, a corrections officer at Fort Dix pleaded guilty in a separate case to pocket bribes to smuggle contraband.
During his time at Fort Dix, Shkreli found himself in solitary confinement amid allegations that he used a contraband smartphone to run his pharmaceutical company from behind bars. Prisoners are prohibited from running a business or possessing mobile phones.
