Shiesty to plead guilty in Florida case
Memphis-born rapper Pooh Shiesty agreed this week to plead guilty in connection with a Florida armed-robbery case.
Jailed since July, Shiesty — who was born Lontrell Williams — and a codefendant appeared at a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Miami and “stated in court that they both wish to change their plea from not guilty to guilty,” according to Florida Southern District Court documents. The hearing lasted only 5 minutes, according to documents.
The agreement means that a jury trial set to start Monday will not take place. Shiesty — who turns 22 on Nov. 8 — faced a possible maximum sentence of life in prison if he had been convicted of using a firearm “in furtherance of another federal crime of violence,” the most serious of the charges against him in a four-count federal indictment.
Raised around South Memphis’ Cane Creek Apartments, Shiesty is a second-generation Memphis rapper. His father founded the Bluff City label Mob Ties Records and rapped under the name Mob Boss.
As part of the local “Choppa Gang” collective, Shiesty’s recordings began attracting underground attention in 2018. His career continued to grow, and this year he had been poised to be one of the rap world’s hot new artists, after being named one of Spotify’ “10 Artists to Watch in 2021” and being signed to rapper-mogul Gucci Mane’s The New 1017 label, with distribution via venerable Atlantic Records.
Shiesty’s legal woes began in October 2020, when, according to the FBI, he was involved in the robbery and shooting outside a hotel in Miami-dade County, Florida.
According to a Miami-dade FBI criminal complaint, Shiesty and Bobby Brown — the other man who on Thursday changed his plea to “not guilty” — shot and injured two other men in a parking lot deal-gone-wrong, while attempting to purchase “high-end athletic sneakers” and marijuana from the men.
Shiesty’s case now will be referred to a magistrate judge, for a change-of-plea hearing.