A$AP Rocky guilty but won’t face prison time
STOCKHOLM » It looked like a small-time assault case, but, somehow, it swept up Kim Kardashian West, President Donald Trump and the United States’ top hostage negotiator. And Wednesday it finally reached its conclusion when judges in Stockholm found rapper A$AP Rocky guilty of assault.
But he will not serve any more jail time, having already spent over a month in a Swedish detention center.
Swedish prosecutors had sought a six-month prison sentence for Rocky for his part in a street brawl in Stockholm on June 30 that left a 19-year-old man bleeding and needing medical treatment.
But a panel of four judges, led by Senior Judge Per Lennerbrant, found the assault was not of such a “serious nature that a prison sentence must be chosen.”
Rocky, 30, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, said this month during the trial that he had acted in self-defense when he threw the man, Mustafa Jafari, to the ground, and then, along with two members of his entourage, punched and kicked him.
Jafari had repeatedly harassed the rapper’s entourage and had thrown a punch at his bodyguard just before the attack, Rocky said.
The judges found his defense unconvincing.
“Based on two witness statements, the court finds the defendants were not subject to imminent attack,” the judgment said. “Therefore, the defendants were not entitled to use violence in self-defense.”
Rocky’s co-defendants, Bladimir Emilio Corniel and David Tyrone Rispers, received the same verdict and sentence. All three also were ordered to pay Jafari damages. The court awarded 12,500 Swedish kronor, about $1,300, for pain, insult and injuries.
Trump became a close watcher of the case after rap superstar Kanye West asked his wife, Kardashian West, to seek help in winning Rocky’s release from jail. The president ramped up the pressure on Sweden.
Lennerbrant said after the verdict that Trump’s intervention had no effect on the decision.
On Aug. 2, at the end of the trial, the judge allowed Rocky and his two co-defendants to be released while they awaited the verdict. They were not required to stay in Sweden and quickly returned to the United States.