Kodak Black has secured a win.
On Friday (June 5), the rapper’s lawyer Bradford Cohen revealed that his client’s weapons charges against him were dismissed in Florida. In a statement to XXL, Cohen explained that Black’s case was discussed in terms of fairness.
“We both felt we had positive things on each side of the case, but we didn’t even discuss that,” Cohen wrote. “More just discussed in terms of fairness and what we thought was fair because he [Kodak] was charged federally with these same…well, it wasn’t the same weapons because it wasn’t a weapons charge in federal court, but it was the same nucleus of facts. Meaning, in federal court, he was charged with filling out a false form to obtain firearms and in the state case he was charged with the firearms. Because he wasn’t a convicted felon, so they couldn’t charge him federally for a convicted felon.”
He added, “I just explained all those things to the state attorney and she was cool. She was like, ‘Listen, I wanna do the right thing. I wanna do what’s fair and I think it’s fair to dismiss the charges. He’s already taken a plea to the federal charges. I don’t want to hold him up in terms of getting help for any kind of treatment he may need.’”
The legal victory came a month after Cohen filed a motion to have his client relocated to a safer prison. In several tweets, Cohen alleged that Black was assaulted in the Kentucky facility by several prison guards.
“We have filed a motion on Bill’s Federal case to correct an error that should lower his classification in the federal system,” Cohen wrote on Instagram. “In the federal system you are scored on an offense level and a criminal history category. Bill’s criminal history category was a 3, I argued at sentencing that this category was overstated as one of his priors was a misdemeanor Marijuana case, that added significant points. The judge accepted that argument and sentenced as if he was a 2. BOP however is still scoring him for placement as a 3.”
Despite being in prison, Black is using his platform to speak out against racial injustices. The “ZEZE” rapper posted about protests happening across America in support of George Floyd. “Why does it take the death of George Floyd for people to recognize the inequality when it comes to treatment and reform,” he wrote. “Fairness has been missing for decades. I want to help anyway I can even while incarcerated.”