Diddy Calls for Mann Act Charge Dismissal

Bad Boy Entertainment CEO, Sean 'Diddy' Combs, is currently being held without bond while awaiting trial on human trafficking charges based on claims made by his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in the $30 million civil suit she filed against him [click here if you missed that]. 

Now Diddy is demanding the case be tossed out on the grounds that the Mann Act used to charge him is inherently racist...

From TMZ

Diddy says the feds are trying to take him down purely because he's a successful Black man, and they're using a law that's been "racist" since its inception to do it ... according to new documents.

Diddy's attorneys filed docs Tuesday asking the judge to dismiss count 3 of the U.S. Attorney's case against him, which accuses him of "transportation to engage in prxstitution" -- also known as the Mann Act.

It's been on the books as a federal statute since 1910, and Diddy points out it's the same thing the government used to take down rock 'n roll legend Chuck Berry and boxer Jack Johnson ... who were both -- not coincidentally, Diddy says -- Black men.

In the docs, Diddy says he's being "selectively prosecuted" because of his race. As his lawyers put it ... "No other person, and certainly no white person, has ever been prosecuted under the White-Slave Traffic Act (the Mann Act) for hiring male escorts from another State."

As we've reported, the feds allege Diddy hired male six workers to attend his so-called "freak off" parties -- but Diddy believes "he is being prosecuted for conduct that regularly goes unpunished."

Diddy's attorneys say prosecutors have built their case "based primarily on allegations that Mr. Combs and two of his longtime girlfriends sometimes brought a third party -- a male escort -- into their sixual relationship."

He goes so far as to say the hiring of escorts is "common and indeed widely accepted in American culture today." Diddy claims the escort service related to his case is a legit business operating "out in the open."

It's interesting ... Diddy's essentially copping to the crime, but accusing the government of only charging him because he's Black. According to the docs, his legal team believes the whole indictment is singling out Diddy due to race, but especially the Mann Act portion in count 3.

As for white people who've gotten away with this kinda thing ... Diddy holds up former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer, who was forced to resign in 2008 following his involvement in a escort scandal.

To Diddy's point, 4 people running the escort service in Spitzer's case were charged under the Mann Act, but Spitzer himself was not.