Lil’ help, please
Thug hits up rap’s Kim for $ to hire law big
HE CAN’T BE that crazy if he wants high-powered lawyer Benjamin Brafman to represent him.
Federal prosecutors revealed that accused drug kingpin Damion (World) Hardy has been hitting on a couple of sexy woman rappers — his ex-girlfriend Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown — for money so he can hire Brafman.
Hardy, who has been plagued by mental illness since he was arrested in 2004 for running a murderous Brooklyn crew called Cash Money Brothers, goes on trial next week for six murders.
At the same time that he’s been dialing up the musicians from prison, Hardy’s current lawyer, David Ruhnke, has been arguing in Brooklyn Federal Court that the schizo druglord is not competent to stand trial.
There is no dispute that Hardy is a paranoid schizophrenic. Judge Frederic Block previously signed an order allowing prison officials to forcibly medicate Hardy back to reality and the meds have apparently worked.
A government shrink testified Tuesday that Hardy no longer refers to himself as a prophet or the President of the United States. He told the shrink he wants to cut a deal with the government and would be willing to accept a deal for 15 years in prison, but Ruhnke has not set up a meeting.
To get a deal like that, Hardy may need a magician — but he’ll settle for Brafman, a high-end lawyer who has represented Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, NFL
star Plaxico Burress and former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, among others.
“We don’t got no millionaires in the family, huh?” Hardy lamented to his mother in a recent prison call.
Richard Dudley, a psychiatrist hired by the defense, testified that Hardy’s desire to cut a deal is proof that he is still delusional.
“If you had heard a discussion of the defendant wanting to hire Ben Brafman to represent him (and) asking different people he knew for money so he could hire a lawyer, would that have made any impact on your opinion?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney James Loonam.
Dudley replied that it would not.