Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has pleaded guilty to violating his supervised release by possessing cocaine and MDMA, his second such breach of a plea deal he struck with prosecutors in 2018 to testify against his former Brooklyn gangmates.
The new charges stem from a raid on the rapper’s Miami home in March. In public statements at the time, the rapper (real name Daniel Hernandez) said that officers had seized firearms and drugs during the incident, but he denied any wrongdoing.
According to court records, the 29-year-old rapper appeared Wednesday in Paul A. Engelmayer’s federal courtroom, where he admitted to two counts of drug possession in violation of his supervised release. Those charges are linked to cocaine and MDMA — the party drug known as Molly or ecstasy — found during the raid.
In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop two additional counts Tekashi was facing. He’ll be sentenced in September, when the punishment could range from a few months to years of new prison time.
Once a rising star in the world of hip-hop and social media, Tekashi was charged in November 2018 with helping the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods gang as they “wreaked havoc on New York City.” But just a day after being arrested, Tekashi cut a deal with federal prosecutors to flip on his crew in return for lenience.
Under the terms of that deal, Tekashi was sentenced to just two years in prison and five years of supervised release. He was released even earlier, in April 2020, after his lawyers argued that the COVID-19 pandemic posed health risks due to his asthma.
With just months left on his five-year supervised release, Tekashi was charged in November with violating the terms of the deal by taking methamphetamine, failing to appear for drug tests, traveling to Las Vegas without permission and other wrongdoing.
After admitting to those violations in a new deal with prosecutors, the judge ordered Tekashi into prison for 45 days and extended his term of supervised release to a year after his release from jail. At the time, Judge Engelmayer sharply scolded the rapper, saying Tekashi apparently doesn’t “believe the rules apply” to him: “Your breach of the court’s trust is profound.”
It will be the same Judge Engelmayer sentencing Tekashi for the new violations in September. At Wednesday’s appearance, per AP, the judge warned the rapper that the “consequences will be severe” if there are additional violations before that sentencing hearing.
