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Sean "Diddy" Combs appeared clasping his hands and seeming stunned when the magistrate handed down a 50-month sentence in a New York courtroom on Friday for prostitution-related offenses.

Even though this term was far less than the life term he potentially faced when his conspiracy case commenced in spring, Combs looked taken aback by the result. The judgment came just a short time after he had begged with the presiding judge, stating he took full "answerability and duty" for his actions and affirming he was a reformed man who would, if released, dedicate himself to his family and community.

The ruling was announced with scarcely any reaction in the courtroom. His relatives and advocates had been counseled by a clerk to control any expression of their feelings in restraint.

After the judgment was delivered, Diddy looked taken aback to notice two court officers positioned close, set to escort him back to the detention center in the borough, where he has been held since his apprehension more than a year before.

Beyond the courtroom, there was a evident sense of disappointment as neither government lawyers nor defense attorneys had gotten the result they hoped for. A trial that had included graphic accounts of misconduct, which the accused had stated was willing, finished in a kind of anticlimax. The sentence delivered – over four years – was 10 months less than a advisory group had recommended and under half of the 11 years the prosecution had asked for.

Diddy is likely to serve only 36 more months behind bars, with the period he has already served removed. But the sentence was also, clearly, far longer than the accused and his backers had desired, and maybe even foreseen.

The music executive was adjudicated of two counts of arranging prostitution in mid-summer, charges arising from compelling partners to participate in elaborate "freak-offs" involving escorts. But on the weightier allegations – of operating a criminal enterprise that government lawyers asserted were intended to satisfy a need for authority and control – he was adjudged not guilty.

"Irrespective of whatever anyone claims, I know that I’m truly sorry," Combs informed Subramanian. "I strayed in extremes, I became迷失 in my ego. Due to my decisions, I forfeited my liberty. I beg your excellency for leniency."

Combs's lawyer had used a significant portion of the day asserting that his client was a committed parent who had lost grasp of his life after an operation in 2000 that left him addicted to medication as his circumstances plummeted into chaos. His six grown kids addressed the court on his part.

However the judge was unmoved by the legal pleas that the defendant should be let go, practically, on prior detention. His lawyers exhausted all options in that attempt, making pleas rooted in social fairness, childhood trauma, and his former role as a business and community advocate.

The judge appeared unconvinced by Diddy's testimony that he was a changed man, noting that he had participated in an hurtful "incident" with "a witness", a participant in the trial, following he posted an social media statement after the publication of recording depicting him beating another past companion, Cassie Ventura.

Subramanian pointed to statements given by the influencer, an online personality, in which the defendant had commanded her to "ingest this expletive pill, proceed, suck his dick [pointing to an escort]. Do not spoil my night."

"You harmed them, bodily, psychologically and mentally," the judge told Diddy. "Why did it occur for so long? As you had the authority and resources to keep it going, and because you evaded capture."

He lavished accolades on Cassie and Jane for speaking out, describing them "courageous persons".

"Not one thing about this trial is good," the magistrate stated, "except for the affected individuals who came forward."

However even in its denouement, the case of Sean Combs had an air of a spectacle. Inside the courtroom, family members came attired extravagantly, while beyond the judicial building in the city, supporters and influencers each seemed to yell more vociferously than the other into recording devices, each propelled by excitement spurred by nearness to his star status.

Nonetheless Combs's trial will be viewed – as an overextension by prosecutors who speculated on transforming a prostitution-related trial into a organized crime allegation, or as an episode in prolonged account about harsh manipulation involving wealth, relations and authority – Diddy himself may have stated it most accurately: he declared the court his behavior had been "revolting, embarrassing and sick".