Rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again, 22, born Kentrell D. Gaulden, was acquitted Friday of possessing a firearm and ammunition as a criminal, and concluded one of two federal gun trials he had faced .
A Los Angeles jury reached its verdict after about two hours on its second day of deliberations. Mr. Gaulden, known to fans as NBA YoungBoy or YB, faced up to 10 years in prison in the case.
The charge of possession of a weapon in California resulted in the arrest of YoungBoy in March 2021 in the Los Angeles area with a federal order of possession of a weapon from a previous incident in the rapper’s home state, Louisiana . In September 2020, YoungBoy was among 16 people accused of possessing weapons and drugs in a video shoot in Baton Rouge. His lawyers have said none of the contraband was in his possession.
Prosecutors in the Central District of California said that in trying to execute the order in this case, YoungBoy initially appeared to cooperate, pulling his Mercedes Maybach before taking off again and directing officers on a “high-speed hunt.” After the rapper fled on foot, police found an .45-caliber FNX pistol and ammunition behind the front passenger seat, along with cash and jewelry.
YoungBoy’s lawyers argued that the rapper was unaware of his pending federal order at the time and panicked when gunmen approached his vehicle, prompting him to take off. I didn’t know the gun was going in the car, they said, and no useful fingerprints or DNA tied YoungBoy to the gun.
Prosecutors had tried to link the rapper to the gun using a photo and video from YoungBoy’s social media site of manipulating “a gold and tan gun that looked identical to the gun recovered from his car,” according to records judicial. The photo was taken at the same Philadelphia store that had sold YoungBoy the jewelry they also found in the car, they argued. The rapper’s lawyers said the weapon was identical to an airsoft replica and could not be confirmed to be the same weapon.
“We believe the evidence presented in this case supported the charges filed by the grand jury,” Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, said in a statement. “Although we are disappointed with the verdict, we respect the jury’s decision.”
When the trial began Tuesday, the judge in the case, R. Gary Klausner, decided to exclude the lyrics of three YoungBoy songs from use in court. Prosecutors had said the clues – “Gunsmoke,” “Life Support” and “Lonely Child” – referred “to a person related to the gun buyer, the gun model found in his car and the manufacturer of jewelry of the jewels found. next to the weapon “.
But the rapper’s lawyers successfully argued that the “hardcore” and “highly inflammatory” rap lyrics would be harmful and not directly relevant, noting that the song mentioning an FN gun was released before the purchase was made. FN weapon confiscated from Maybach.
“It’s for entertainment,” they wrote in a court document. “It’s not an admission of other bad acts, but it paints the rappers in a bad light and the jury can infer from the song that Mr. Gaulden is a violent person and bring those feelings with them to the deliberation room.”
The rapper’s lawyers added: “The real problems are: 1) if he knew the weapon was inside the car and 2) if he intended to own it. It’s a relatively simple case.”
Known for his raw reality rap, prolific production, and obsessive online fan base, YoungBoy is among the most played artists in the United States so far this year, competing with Drake and Taylor Swift. Since signing a $ 2 million deal with Atlantic Records in 2016, he has often topped the Billboard album chart, reaching No. 1 with four releases in less than two years, but he still exists largely out of business. of mainstream entertainment, in part because of its ongoing legal issues.
In 2017, YoungBoy pleaded guilty to grievous assault with a firearm and received a 10-year suspended prison sentence, plus parole, as a result of his role in a non-lethal shooting for which he was initially charged with attempted first-degree homicide. In 2019, following subsequent arrests, including for an incident of domestic violence in which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor felony of assault, the rapper was sentenced to 90 days in prison.
Since October, when he was granted a $ 500,000 bail in federal gun cases, YoungBoy has been living with house confinement in Utah, where he has continued to record and release music.
The additional case of YoungBoy’s federal weapons in Louisiana is ongoing. His lawyers have argued that it was an unfair goal, highlighting the name of law enforcement for one of his operations: Never Free Again, “an obvious take-off of Gaulden’s highly successful marketing and music brand “. The rapper’s legal team has successfully suppressed video evidence in the case it said had been obtained unconstitutionally.
The rapper’s arrest in Los Angeles last year, his lawyers said, was a “massive and unnecessary militaristic display of strength and intimidation.”