Judge keeps Meek jailed as a ‘danger’
A PHILADELPHIA judge has denied rapper Meek Mill’s request to be released on bail, saying the entertainer is “a danger to the community.”
Judge Genece Brinkley told Mill’s attorneys the 30-year-old entertainer was a flight risk and should stay right where he is — in a Pennsylvania prison. Brinkley filed her order on Friday and it was made public Monday.
Mill’s lawyers argued that Brinkley should recuse herself since the FBI over the past year has been investigating her handling of the singer’s probation hearings.
Mill’s legal battle dates to his 2008 gun and drug convictions — for which he served time — and a series of “technical” probation violations in recent years.
Brinkley sentenced Mill, whose given name is Robert Williams, on Nov. 6 to a two- to four-year prison term after he was arrested in Manhattan in August — for popping wheelies on a dirt bike.
He also was arrested in March in St. Louis after an altercation with two airport employees.
The charges in both cases were dropped — but Brinkley threw the book at him anyway.
Last week, Mill’s attorneys asked the Pennsylvania Superior Court to overturn Brinkley’s decision to lock him up, but the case was referred back to the Court of Common Pleas.
The prison sentence triggered fury among Mill’s supporters — including the Rev. Al Sharpton and JAY-Z.