What is the White-Slave Traffic Act? Diddy's lawyers reportedly fight back against one of his charges, accusing prosecution of being racially biased

Sean "Diddy" Combs' attorneys have now accused the prosecution of being racially biased against the mogul in one of the charges. According to the lawyers, the charges were based on the White-Slave Traffic Act, now known as the Mann Act.

For the unversed, the Mann Act criminalizes the transportation of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." Passed in June 1910, the act was aimed at prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking.

As per the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School, this act was criticized as well. As per critics, the act had "racial undertones" and criminalized consensual s*xual activities in many cases.

On February 18, Diddy's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss Count Three of the Superseding Indictment. They claimed that the indictment was a selective endorsement against Combs due to his race and status. AllHipHop obtained the motion which read:

"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."

The attorneys further argued that no white person was prosecuted under the aforementioned act for hiring male escorts from another state. They then cited the Mann Act claiming that it had "a long and troubling history as a statute with racist origins, used to target Black men and supposedly protect White women from them."

The lawyers continued that the prosecution allegedly targeted Diddy since he was a "powerful Black man." They added that most allegations against the mogul were established based on the claims that he and two of his girlfriends hired male escorts on an occasional basis. The lawyers also accused the government of "humiliating Mr. Combs and prejudicing the jury pool." The motion added:

"It has gone out of its way to humiliate Mr. Combs and to prejudice the jury pool with pretrial publicity that plays on racist tropes. It has leaked damaging (and oftentimes false) material to the press."

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Diddy's attorneys had previously accused the government of being biased and racist towards him

While the attorneys have recently filed a motion claiming that the prosecution was racist concerning some charges against Diddy, this wasn't the first time the defense team made such claims. Last year, his attorney Marc Agnifilo told TMZ that the allegations were only to ensure the "takedown of a successful Black man."

In October, one of the prosecutors addressed the claims made by Agnifilo and stated that this could affect a fair trial. The prosecutor added:

"He baselessly accused the government of engaging in a racist prosecution."

As for the latest claims by the defense team, they cited Chuck Berry and Jack Johnson, two Black personalities who were convicted under the Mann Act in 1959 and 1913 respectively. The team further criticized the act and said:

"The statute’s target was black male s*xuality, and from Jack Johnson to Chuck Berry, the statute’s most notorious prosecutions targeted famous black men accused of deviant s*xual behavior."

As for the rapper, he is currently facing three federal charges including racketeering conspiracy and s*x trafficking, as per reports by CNN. Authorities have detained Diddy in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.