Rapper to serve almost 4 years
Judge: ‘Young people do stupid things ... you’ve been doing stupid things since you were 15’
Kodak Black, a South Florida rapper who became a nationwide sensation, will serve more than three years in prison for lying about his criminal record to buy guns.
The Pompano Beach native, whose 2018 album “Dying to Live” debuted at No. 1 on the billboard charts, listened Wednesday as a federal judge admonished him for having a lengthy record of criminal misdeeds.
“Young people do stupid things,” U.S. District Court Judge Federico Moreno told the 23-year-old rapper. “But the problem is that you’ve been doing stupid things since you were 15.”
The judge sentenced Black for lying about his record while purchasing or trying to purchase six pistols on two separate occasions at Lou’s Police and Security Equipment in Hialeah. One of the guns later was found at the site of a Pompano Beach shooting in March.
Before his sentence was handed
down, Black accepted responsibility for his crimes. “I’m sorry for the actions that led me for where I’m standing,” said the artist, who grew up in Pompano Beach’s Golden Acres housing development. “I do take full responsibility for my mishap.”
The rapper, dressed in a khaki inmate’s uniform, was flanked by his two lawyers and two U.S. marshals in the courtroom.
Black has been in custody at the federal detention center in Miami since his arrest before the Rolling Loud music festival last May. On Wednesday, he shuffled back and forth on his feet before the judge while waiting for the penalty.
Before the sentence was handed down, prosecutors revealed that Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, had recently been in a nasty prison fight.
“Kapri displayed disruptive behavior,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Brown. “He was involved in a fight on Oct. 29, with another inmate.” A corrections officer stepped in, spraying mace on both inmates.
Prosecutors said Black was visibly under the influence of an unknown substance when he viciously assaulted the officer who intervened, beating the officer in the face and groin so badly that the guard ended up in the hospital with a hernia.
Black’s lawyers disputed the facts of the melee, suggesting that he was drugged and tricked into the altercation by a gang member.
The judge ultimately decided that the violent dispute couldn’t be factored into the sentence Black was to be given. But the judge did factor in the fact that one of the guns Black purchased from the weapons shop was found at the scene of a Pompano shooting last March.
Court documents state that the gun was jammed, loaded with live ammunition, and bore Black’s fingerprints. Court documents also allege that the intended target of the shooting was a rival rap artist, though the documents do not reveal the target’s identity.
The documents state that a Porsche Panamera rented by Black was at the scene at the time of the altercation. Authorities didn’t charge Black in the shooting.
Black purchased that weapon, a Sig MPXK9 automatic pistol, and two others at the Hialeah gun shop on Feb. 1. While buying the guns, he wrote down an incorrect Social Security number and marked “no” on the sections of a federal form that asked if he was ineligible to buy a gun.
But Black was already under indictment and out on bond in a separate criminal case in South Carolina when he bought the handguns. He would not have been allowed to buy the weapons had he been truthful on the form.
He then returned to the gun store a month later and tried to buy three more weapons. This time, he put in his correct Social Security number but still stated that he was eligible to purchase the guns on the required federal form.
Black’s lawyers had asked the judge for a threeyear sentence, while prosecutors were asking that the rapper be given over eight years in prison, given the recent violent altercation.
Black also has other pending criminal cases. One involves the 2016 alleged sexual assault of a female high-school student in Florence, South Carolina, which made him ineligible to purchase the weapons in the first place.
Another case involves drugs and guns and that were found in Black’s car as he and his entourage crossed into Canada for a show last April.
“This is going to be the longest sentence that he’s going to get in his career, hopefully his life,” noted Brad Cohen, Black’s defense attorney.
Prosecutors indicated that they intend to bring Black’s prison fight before a grand jury. An indictment against Black for his alleged assault of a prison guard would only add to his significant legal troubles.