Attorneys for rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs have asked a court to dismiss one of the counts in his criminal trial, arguing that the charge is based on a racist statute that was originally used to target Black men. Combs was charged in September with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution for allegedly forcing women to participate in days-long sex parties he called “freak offs.” Transportation to engage in prostitution was outlawed under the 1910 Mann Act, which was passed in response to a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment and fears about “white slavery”—a muckraking term for prostitution, according to PBS .
“What was racist and its inception has often been racist in its operation,” Combs’ attorneys wrote in a filing submitted on Tuesday night, arguing that the statute had only been used to prosecute people of color. The law was used to “target Black men and supposedly protect White women from them,” they wrote. According to PBS, the law’s wording was so vague that prosecutors successfully used it to target Black men in interracial relationships.
But prosecutors also went after White men—particularly political “undesirables”—who were having extramarital affairs. The statute was updated in 1978 and 1986. “This case is unprecedented in many ways, but perhaps most notably, and most disturbingly, no White person has ever been the target of a remotely similar prosecution,” Diddy’s lawyers wrote in .
