Rapper Fetty Wap has been sentenced to six years in prison for drug dealing.
The rapper, whose real name is Willie Junior Maxwell II, has been in custody since last August when his bail was revoked.
The rapper was convicted of distributing more than 100 kilograms of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crack cocaine across Long Island and New Jersey.
As part of the investigation, police seized $1.5 million in cash and multiple weapons from a series of homes.
Fetty Wap was today sentenced to six years in prison for dealing cocaine and heroin across New Jersey and Long Island
Wap appeared before Judge Joanna Seybert at the federal court in Central Islip, New York, on Wednesday, where he received a sentence one year longer than the minimum.
Prosecutors argued for a longer term for the rapper in a letter to the judge last week, claiming that he used his celebrity status and his song ‘Trap Queen’ to push and glamorize selling drugs to young people.
‘Trap Queen,’ released in 2015, used children as extras in the song’s music video, the prosecutors claimed.
‘Young people who admire the defendant and are considering selling drugs need to be sent a message that selling drugs is not a glamorous lifestyle and, if they participate in that trade, they will receive lengthy prison sentences,’ Breon Peace, US attorney for the Eastern District, asking for a sentence between seven and nine years, according to the New York Times.
Some of the drugs that were seized as part of the investigation
The rapper was arrested at the Rolling Loud music festival at Citi Field in October 2021 moments before he was due to go on stage.
Prosecutors say he was part of a large Long Island drug ring that supplied drugs across the state.
The group used the US Postal Service to distribute the drugs, according to the original indictment.
In court, he admitted to conspiring to distribute cocaine, telling the judge: ‘I agreed with other people to distribute cocaine.
‘I knew the conduct was illegal.’
He pleaded guilty August 2022 and had been facing up to 40 years in prison.
Defense attorney Elizabeth Macedonio asked the judge to recommend to the Bureau of Prisons that he serve his sentence at a prison in the Northeast, but she did not specify a particular prison.
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Fetty’s lawyer blamed the pandemic for the rapper’s “bicoastal drug distribution organization” that led to his arrest, in a memorandum sent last week on behalf of the New Jersey rapper.
Macedonio filed the memorandum in federal court arguing for Wap to receive the mandatory minimum of five years rather than the 87 to 108 months that the prosecutor is pushing for, according to XXL.
The rapper’s attorney claimed the pandemic is what jumpstarted Fetty’s life of crime, the letter.
‘In or about 2020, with the coming of the worldwide pandemic, things began to change for Mr. Maxwell. There were no opportunities to perform, thus his income was severely limited,’ Macedonio’s letter to the sentencing judge wrote, according to XXL.
‘He was sued personally, was going through a divorce, and was involved with a tour manager who was stealing from him. While the bills kept coming in, the money to pay them was running out. At or about the same time, Mr. Maxwell lost his grandparents and several other people who were close to him.
The ‘Trap Queen’ rapper, who is blind in one eye due to glaucoma, hit number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014 with his ballad about strippers, money and dealing crack on the gritty streets of Paterson.
The rapper has said he owned 37 cars, 10 houses, 14 apartments and had $2.5 million in jewelry by 2021, according to NJ.com. His net worth is reportedly between $1 and $10million.
His lawyer said he struggled to keep up his lifestyle and became depressed.
‘His judgment became impaired. Desperate to keep up with his financial obligations, Mr. Maxwell became involved in the instant offense for a few months in the spring of 2020,’ Macedonio said.
Fetty’s success took off in 2014, when he released his debut single Trap Queen which went viral shortly after it came out. The song had over 130 million plays on SoundCloud and became a platinum record.
In September 2015, Fetty released his debut album called Fetty Wap which made it to the top spot on the Billboard 200 that year. In 2015, he became the first rapper to have three top 20 songs on Billboard since Eminem in 2013.
Throughout his career, he has earned five awards and two Grammy nominations.
He quickly rose to fame, collaborating with big-name artists including Drake and Nicki Minaj.
Fetty’s earnings come from his music sales, YouTube, investments, and tours.
Fetty’s recent arrest is not his first run-in with the law.
The New Jersey rapper has been sued many times for copyright infringement, defamation and assault. He was arrested in 2017 for drunk driving, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and reckless endangerment after being caught drag racing on a Brooklyn highway.
His first federal drug charges came as part of a coast-to-coast operation. The feds claim that the group would buy cocaine, heroin and fentanyl in California and mail or drive it in vehicles with hidden compartments across the country.
Fetty was arrested for ‘threatening to kill a man over Facetime and brandishing a gun at him’ after accusing him of being a rat – as prosecutors claim he’s broken his $500k bail conditions on drugs charges