YNW Melly Hit With Witness Tampering Charge In Murder Case
Written by djfrosty on October 6, 2023
Source: Handout / Getty
YNW Melly has been given a charge of witness tampering by Florida prosecutors as he’s approaching a retrial for double murder.
According to reports, Broward County prosecutors charged YNW Melly with witness tampering on Wednesday (October 4) ahead of his retrial for double murder. They allege that the rapper, who is affiliated with the Bloods street gang, used phone calls by other jail inmates at his request as well as letters passed between them to get messages out to other Blood members on the street. Those gang members then made sure a key witness in the case didn’t testify, said prosecutors.
YNW Melly, also known as Jamell Demons, remains incarcerated without bond. He and Cortlen “YNW Bortlen” Henry are accused of shooting and killing Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas and Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams inside of an SUV after a late-night recording session in 2018 and then staging it to look like a drive-by shooting. If convicted, YNW Melly faces a potential death sentence. The first trial ended in July with a hung jury which voted 9-3 to convict.
YNW Bortlen was arrested on Monday (October 2) in Miami-Dade County for witness tampering. A co-defendant in the double murder trial, YNW Bortlen was on house arrest when detained with documents detailing the charge as “misleading conduct toward another person with the intent to cause or induce (that person) to withhold testimony”.
The rapper’s legal team is set to appear in court on Friday and plans to present a case before Broward County Circuit Judge John J. Murphy that Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor and lead prosecutor Kristine Bradley conspired to cover up information about the lead detective, Mark Moretti of the Miramar Police Department, in the case. They aim to call for Bradley’s dismissal.
“This is a transparent and desperate attempt by the State Attorney’s office to distract the public from the deposition of an Assistant State Attorney who accused this case’s lead detective and lead prosecutor of felonies by falsifying and covering up evidence damaging to the state’s case,” Raven Liberty, YNW Melly’s attorney, said of the additional charge.