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Tekashi 6ix9ine doesn’t want to end up like Roland “Ro Murda” Martin, one of his co-defendants in his federal gang racketeering case: Martin was stabbed nine times in prison for renouncing his association with the violent Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods street gang.
Luckily Martin survived, but Tekashi fears he won’t be so lucky, according to newly filed court documents. The once flamboyant 23-year-old rapper not only renounced his ties to the Nine Trey organization, he named names to federal authorities and testified against two of his former gang associates at a high-profile trial in September.
For that reason, Tekashi’s attorney has filed a request in federal court, asking that the rapper be allowed to finish out the remainder of his two-year sentence under home confinement or in a community-based facility, arguing that either option would be safer than prison. Either option also would allow Tekashi to adjust to life outside prison and to successfully re-enter the community.
Tekashi, whose legal name is Daniel Hernandez, pleaded guilty to nine charges last year, including racketeering. After he informed on his Nine Trey associates and testified against two of them, he was sentenced in December to 24 months. But with the 13 months he already served after his arrest, and credit for good behavior, he could be released by summer, his attorney Lance Lazzaro earlier told TMZ.
But that’s apparently not soon enough because of “the significant and ongoing risk” to his safety, Lazzaro explained. Tekashi is currently incarnated in an unspecified private prison for security reasons, yet Lazzaro said that even this facility has a variety of Blood members in its population. Some might seek retaliation for Tekashi’s “past and future cooperation” with the government, the attorney said.
“As the court is well aware, Roland Martin, a co-conspirator convicted in Hernandez’s case, was almost killed in a (U.S.) Bureau of Prisons facility, not for cooperating with the government, but for merely renouncing his membership in the gang,” Lazzaro said,
According to Lazzarro, Tekashi would somehow be safer at home, even though it’s expected he will have “to take extreme measures” — and likely costly ones — “for the rest of his life” to ensure the safety of himself and his family.
But Lazzaro also brought up another argument for why Tekashi should be allowed home confinement. Federal law says that inmates should spend a portion of their final months in a community-based setting, like a half-way house or home confinement, which allows them “to adjust to and prepare for re-entry into the community.”
Lazzarro argues that Tekashi’s private prison can’t arrange for him to go to a community-based facility or to be under home confinement. That’s because it falls outside the scope of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
“Given Hernandez’s safety classification and the government’s actions which have forced Hernandez’s continuous incarceration at the private jail, Hernandez has effectively been denied that which every other sentenced prisoner receives,” Lazzaro said.
The attorney also argued that Tekashi’s cooperation makes it imperative for him to be considered for a halfway house or home confinement.
“It would be a grave injustice for Hernandez to be denied the reasonable opportunity to adjust to and prepare for his re-entry into the community due to his cooperation with the government and placement in a private facility by the government for safety reasons,” Lazzaro said.
For any prisoner, re-entering the community is “inherently challenging,” Lazzaro said. But it will be even more challenging for Tekashi, because of his celebrity, his role as a government witness and his “distinctive characteristics and appearance” — no doubt references to his heavily tattooed face and to his famously rainbow-dyed hair, which has reportedly since faded.
“His transition back into the community will be both difficult and high-risk,” Lazzaro said. At the same time, Tekashi’s celebrity status, along with “his immaculate disciplinary record,” make him a “more than satisfactory candidate” for home confident or placement in a community-based facility, the attorney said.