Rapper Pooh Shiesty received a five-year prison sentence for his conviction on a gun conspiracy charge outside a hotel in Florida in 2020. That incident resulted in a man being shot in the buttocks.
The 22-year-old whose real name is Lontrell Williams, was pleased with the decisions in Miami federal court, in light of the fact that he and his attorneys made a plea deal with prosecutors that could have gotten him a sentence of up to eight years.
Defense lawyer Bradford Cohen said that while Williams wasn’t happy to go to prison, he was pleased the judge heard his argument and gave him a lighter sentence.
The judge gave Williams credit for the time he already has spent in jail. If he receives credit for good behavior, the rapper could be free in only 36 months.
Williams Pleaded Guilty To 1 Count Of Firearms Conspiracy in January
Williams pleaded guilty to a firearms conspiracy charge in January 2022. At the federal sentencing hearing last week, his attorney told the court that Williams wasn’t the only one who fired the gun in the Florida drug deal gone bad outside a hotel in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, in October 2020.
Cohen also disputed the theory by federal prosecutors that Williams was involved in robbing a local store at the time. He told the court that Williams was attempting to buy a small quantity of liquid codeine for personal use.
The attorney argued that it doesn’t make sense that Williams, with a net worth of $3.4 million, planned a robbery, did a robbery and shot a drug dealer who knew who he was and could point him out to police. And the amount in question was only a few hundred dollars, and Williams was driving an expensive McLaren at the time of the incident.
The lawyer added that his client had over $40,000 in cash on him and was driving a car worth $200,000. It isn’t logical, he said for Williams to try to rob someone over a small bottle of liquid codeine with a value of $300. And the damages to the McClaren during the commission of the robbery would have totaled thousands of dollars.
Defense Attorney Argued For Lighter Sentence Given Williams’ Rough Background
Cohen told the court that Williams should receive a more lenient sentence in light of the fact that he is only 22 and had a difficult upbringing. The attorney said Williams accepted responsibility for the gun conspiracy offense and said he wants to change.
Williams also wants to get back to his music career as soon as he can, never take drugs and offer financial help to his family and help young people in his area.
Cohen wrote a memo to the court, detailing how Williams’ father was in prison for most of his client’s childhood. Williams told the court that he remembers visiting his father in prison when he was 10 and he found the experience scary.
Williams also saw his mother being beaten up by a boyfriend and lost several friends to gun violence. He also was shot twice in his teen years; one of them was a drive-by shooting when he was 13. Williams also was shot in the arm when he was at a basketball game at 17.
Cohen told the judge that Williams had few positive role models during his formative years, and he started smoking marijuana when he was 12.
However, his transition from poverty to music success was fast and changed his life. After he graduated from high school, he began to make his name as a rapper with Facebook and YouTube videos of his work.
When Williams was 20, he signed his first record deal with Gucci Mane, and then Atlantic Records six months later. This level of success made him a millionaire almost overnight, and he wasn’t even old enough to drink alcohol yet.
Williams Has Been In Jail Since June 2022
Williams has been in police custody in Miami since his arrest on June 9, 2022, involving a shooting at a strip club. Those charges have been dropped. But he was indicted on the Landon Hotel gun charges a few weeks later and has been held without bail.
Prosecutors say that Williams, who made the Back in Blood album with Lil Durk that went platinum, drove his rented McLaren to the hotel before the alleged shooting to buy marijuana and codeine.
They say he bought a bag of marijuana and looked at a pair of expensive sneakers before he pulled out a pistol and shot the victims in the buttocks. The victim was taken to a local hospital and was released a day later.
As he drove away, a backpack full of $40,000 in cash fell out of the McLaren. Police said they connected the lost cash to the rapper by matching the serial number on one of the bills to a $100 bill that Williams showed on his Instagram account a few days before the alleged crime.
Williams is considered a rising talent in the rap world. He has worked with several famous rappers since he hit it big in 2019. Some of the people he has worked with include Lil Baby, 21 Savage, Big30, and G Herbo.
The Back in Blood album with Lil Durk has sold at least 200 million streams on Spotify.