Bobby Shmurda’s Attorney Howard Greenberg: “The Government Hates Rap”
Bobby Shmurda and 14 other members of GS9 were arrested Wednesday (Dec. 17) Outside at Quad Studios in New York City, while 21 weapons were found and seized. The arrests were part of a long-term investigation by the agency and the New York Police Department’s newly created Brooklyn South Violence Reduction Task Force that dates back at least to July, if not longer. Kati Cornell, director of public information for New York’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor stated that “a number of violent incidents as well as narcotics trafficking” were taken into account.
The details from the intensive investigation were detailed in a press release sent out by the office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the city of New York. The 15 individuals were indicted on 69 charges in total, including murder, attempted murder, assault, attempted assault, weapons possession, criminal use of a firearm, reckless endangerment, narcotics sales and criminally using drug paraphernalia. Shmurda himself was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, criminally using drug paraphernalia, reckless endangerment and conspiracy in the 2nd and 4th degree. But Howard Greenberg, Bobby Shmurda’s Attorney, thinks his client is being targeted because he’s a young, successful African American rapper.
“Let me give you some context,” Greenberg told XXL over the phone. “The government hates rap and the government hates rappers. They target these guys and construct a narrative around them and then they rationalize the narrative in order to get an indictment. I had said previously, it’s a bunch of bullshit. What they do is they recruit guiltless, loveless people who are truthless that are jealous of brothers on the way up and they get them to implicate them.”
Greenberg argues that the charges are fabricated and the conspiracy charges on Shmurda are baseless.
“I gave the indictment a close read and the first 41 pages [are] just talk,” Greenberg said “It’s street lingo that isn’t even English, which is susceptible to interpretation that’s so broad, it’s unduly vague. In the argument yesterday they said that there were guns in his car; what they didn’t say is that two guns were in a closed container in the possession of somebody else, not Bobby. They misspoke about that to the Supreme Court. In the defense bar we style conspiracy charges as one of the darlings of the prosecutor’s nursery. People of color should be very afraid of these kind of prosecutions. They are selective. They start by aiming at a guy’s lyrics to begin.”
Greenberg continues on to state that the government hates rappers and will even go so far as to break the First Amendment to get an indictment. He adds that the conspiracy charges to his clients—both the Brooklyn MC and Shmurda’s brother Javase Pollard—are “insidious.” Mr. Greenberg expounded that he’s not sure if the “Hot Nigga” rapper is in jail or not but that Epic Records should “stand behind their artist. But then again it is a subdivision of Sony, so you tell me if the have the balls to stand up for their people.”
“My guy is rich, he’s busy, he’s always on tour,” Greenberg added. “He doesn’t have time for this bullshit; it makes no sense. He’s making more money legit than it’s possible to make, it’s crazy. My guys are legit, end of story. Give me a fuckin’ break. But he’s a target.”
Justice James Burke set bail at $2 million for Shmurda and as of Thursday night he hasn’t posted bail. Other defendants named in the indictment were arraigned and sent to
Rikers Island,
according to The New York Times. All of the defendants pleaded not guilty.
An infographic detailing the need-to-know information on Bobby Shmurda's recent arrest, along with GS9 crew members.
Yesterday, after their arraignment,
the full list of charges was released, and it did not look good for the phenom rapper. Apparently the charges were accumulated after "a long-term investigation," which is never a good sign. While these things can get a bit complicated, we've broken down the most important bits in a graphic below.
Bobby Shmurda's lawyer has maintained his innocence (as did the rest of the crew), saying, "Does it make sense that he would resort to committing crimes when he has the world in the palm of his hand? It's ridiculous." Nonetheless, how this will affect him or his rap career remains unknown.
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