Sean Combs says in letter to court before judgment he was 'shattered completely'

On the eve of his sentencing, Sean "Diddy" Combs addressed a court official on Thursday that he is a changed person after understanding that he was "broken to my core" and contemplating at times if he was preferable not living.

The 55-year-old Combs, expressed in a correspondence to the judicial officer saying that with his mind clear of drugs and alcohol after a year in jail, he can see how rotten he had become before his September 2024 arrest in a court proceeding that led to his judicial determination on two prostitution-related counts. His sentencing hearing will start on Friday morning.

"Over the past year there have been so many times that I wanted to quit. There have been some days I thought I would be advantageous not living. The former identity died in jail and a transformed individual of me was revived. Detention will change you or destroy you – I elect survival," he said.

A legal tribunal in midsummer found not guilty Combs on human trafficking and organized crime charges, meaning he won't face a life sentence. The sex trade offenses each carry a severest sentence of 10 years in prison.

His legal team say he should gain liberty this thirty-day period, arguing his annual imprisonment has been adequate sanction, while state lawyers want at least over a decade imprisonment.

Combs expressed that the recent biennial period had been the most challenging of his life, "and I have no one to blame for my current reality and situation but myself."

"In my life, I have made many errors, but I am no longer escaping them," he wrote. "I deeply regret the pain I inflicted, but I understand that the basic expressions 'I'm sorry' will never be adequate as these words alone cannot erase the pain from the past."

Combs expressed regret for beating, striking with feet and dragging his previous romantic interest Casandra "Cassie" Ventura at a Southern California lodging in the mid-2010s – an violent incident captured on surveillance video shown to court members repeatedly during his sixty-day proceeding.

"The scene and images of me harming Cassie play over and over in my head each day," Combs wrote. "I completely lost control. I was completely mistaken for laying hands upon the woman that I loved. I'm sorry for that and always will be."

Combs also apologized to a woman who gave evidence under the pseudonym Jane, saying that "post her evidentiary account, I realized that I hurt her. For this I am deeply sorry."

Combs wrote that "the regret, the sorrow, the remorse, the disillusionment, the shame" from his behavior has made it "extremely difficult for self-forgiveness."

"It compares to a serious hurt that leaves an unattractive mark," he said. "I lost my way. I got lost in my journey. Lost in the drugs and the excess. My downfall was rooted in my selfishness."

In detention, Combs said, he has been reading, composing, exercising and educating a month-and-a-half program to other inmates, Free Game With Diddy, imparting his entrepreneurial insight, as well as lessons learned from his errors and unsuccessful attempts.

He is also involved in therapy, he said, to address his former narcotics dependency and temper problems. He is sober for the premier instance in two-and-a-half decades and is committed to working "to ensure that I never make the same mistakes again," he wrote.

Combs told the judge that he was asking for mercy, not only for his individual self but for his numerous descendants and his 84-year-old mother, for whom he had been the primary caregiver. While incarcerated, he said, he missed formal dances and graduations and important phases of his two-year-old daughter's development.

"As I write you this letter, I am extremely frightened. Fearful of additional separation from family," Combs wrote. "Financial success and recognition are unimportant. My family represents ultimate priority."

He said the conditions of his detention at a Brooklyn federal jail are "inhumane," writing that he is detained in an area with two dozen fellow prisoners, with windowless, no clean air, a malfunctioning laundry equipment and liquid requiring purification.

Combs vowed to never engage in illegal activities, telling the judge that since he has been in jail he has gone through a "personal transformation."

Rather than use him as a deterrent with a extended imprisonment, Combs begged the judge to "make me an example of what a person can do if afforded a second chance."

"Should you permit my return to relatives, I promise I will not let you down and I will make you proud," he wrote.