Plea’s withdrawal sought in gun case
The Memphis rapper who was performing when a shootout occurred July 2017 inside Power Ultra Lounge in Little Rock entered a motion Monday to withdraw his guilty plea to federal firearm charges related to a separate incident.
Ricky Hampton, 25, entered a motion for a hearing on his request to withdraw his plea for a June 2017 incident outside a Forrest City nightclub, and to have substitute counsel appointed, according to court documents.
The filing Monday by defense attorney Nicole Lybrand of the federal public defender’s office states that Hampton doesn’t believe an irreconcilable conflict has arisen, but asks the court to hold a hearing on both issues. The defender’s office requested the hearing be set before the sentencing hearing.
Lybrand told an Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette reporter that she represented Hampton when he originally pleaded guilty, and it’s unclear at this point if he wants a private attorney to represent him.
“I just asked for the court to make a ruling,” Lybrand said. “I can’t really comment on this any more than that.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens said he couldn’t comment on the motion or the merits of it because it is pending litigation, but he said his office wouldn’t join Hampton’s motion for withdrawal.
Hampton, who performs under the name Finese2Tymes, was on stage when gunfire broke out July 1, 2017, inside the downtown Little Rock nightclub. Twenty-five people were wounded in the shooting and three others suffered injuries trying to escape from the second-story nightclub at 220 W. Sixth St., which has since closed. No one was killed.
Hampton and a former bodyguard, Kentrell Dominique Gwynn, were arrested the next day in Birmingham, Ala., where Hampton was scheduled to perform. Hampton was not charged in the Little Rock shooting.
Hampton pleaded guilty in March to charges stemming from the June 25, 2017, incident that occurred outside Club Envy in Forrest City, where Hampton had just finished performing. A motorist’s back windshield was shattered by gunfire and her neck was grazed by a bullet as she sped away from a traffic jam while trying to leave the club, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
The woman told authorities that Hampton was standing in a doorway of a car, holding an AK47 style pistol and screaming at her to get out of the way as his entourage moved toward her car about 2:45 a.m. The windshield shattered just after she had turned the car around and started to drive off, the woman said.
She told police she saw Hampton point the gun at her and that she believed he fired the shot. Hampton denied pulling the trigger. Hampton, a convicted felon, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possession of a firearm by certain persons.
Givens told U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes that the gun Hampton was pictured holding up in cellphone videos taken by witnesses appears to be the same one the rapper is shown holding or standing near in other videos made and posted on social media that year.
Marshals seized the gun, known as a Draco, and a .40-caliber pistol when Hampton and Gwynn were arrested in Birmingham on July 2, 2017, after the club shooting in Little Rock.
Hampton has two aggravated robbery convictions from Tennessee and served time in prison for those convictions before his release Aug. 23, 2016, according to authorities.