Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs reportedly woke up with a knife pressed against his throat by a fellow inmate in prison.
The music mogul’s lifelong friend Charlucci Finney claims that a con armed with a makeshift blade could have murdered the 55-year-old in his New York jail cell.
He said that Combs was seconds away from serious harm, or death inside the notoriously violent Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
‘If this guy had wanted to harm him, Sean would have been harmed. It would only take a second to cut his throat with a weapon and kill him,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘It was probably a way to say: “Next time you ain’t gonna be so lucky”. Everything is intimidation. But with Sean it won’t work. Sean is from Harlem.’
This comes after Combs was sentenced to four years and two months in jail after his sex trafficking trial.
He was also hit with a $500,000 (£371,000) fine.
The rapper was accused of running a sex trafficking operation and was convicted on two counts of transportation for prostitution of his former girlfriend, singer Ventura, and another woman, known as Jane, who had testified in the trial.
In July, he was found not guilty of the most serious charge of racketeering conspiracy, as well as two charges of sex trafficking in relation to Ventura and Jane.
The music mogul denied all allegations against him.
Ahead of his sentencing, Judge Subramanian denied Combs’ legal team’s request for a new trial or acquittal, ruling that the government ‘presented overwhelming evidence of Combs’ guilt’ during the trial.
‘The government proved its case many times over. That by itself might be enough to dispose of Combs’s challenge,’ he wrote in the document.
‘Had the prejudice indeed been so great, one would expect a jury to convict on the most relevant counts before it could spill over and infect the others. A new trial is not warranted.’
Ventura, who was a key witness during the trial, also submitted a victim impact statement in which she revealed she had moved out of the New York area because she fears retaliation if the musician walks free.
‘I am so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about his abuse at trial,’ the singer said.
‘As much progress as I have made in recovering from his abuse, I remain very much afraid of what he is capable of and the malice he undoubtedly harbours towards me for having the bravery to tell the truth.’
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