YNW Melly Lawyers Blast ‘Cruel Treatment’ as Judge Denies Bond Again in Long-Delayed Murder Case
Categoria: Musica
The rapper has been sitting in jail since 2019 while awaiting a verdict on accusations that he shot and killed two close friends.
Por Billboard | 07/05/2026
YNW Melly has been denied release on bond yet again as he awaits trial in Florida in a long-running double murder case — a decision that his lawyers say deserves “disbelief and outrage.” In a ruling on Wednesday (May 6), Judge Martin Fein refused to revisit earlier rulings that the rapper (Jamell Demons) must stay locked up ahead of trial. Melly has already been in jail for more than seven years while awaiting a verdict in the long-delayed case . Related YNW Melly Seeks Bail in Murder Case After 7 Years of ‘Dehumanizing’ Jail Conditions Fugees' Pras Michel Surrenders to Authorities to Begin 14-Year Prison Sentence, Vows to Appeal Ahead of New Orleans Jazz Fest, Former Police Officer Arrested for Plan to Kill Black People in a Mass Shooting “This court continues to find the proof of guilt is evident and the presumption of guilt is great,” the Broward County judge wrote in the court order, obtained by Billboard . Melly was arrested in 2019 on accusations that he and another man shot and killed his close friends Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas, Jr. in 2018. But the case has been repeatedly delayed, and the trial is currently not scheduled until January 2027. The rapper recently hired new lawyers , Drew Findling and Carey Haughwout , who quickly moved to revisit the issue of bond . In court filings and at a closely watched hearing last month, they argued he had been subjected to “dehumanizing conditions,” including solitary confinement since 2021. In a statement to Billboard on Thursday (May 7), Findling and Haughwout sharply criticized the judge for having “allowed those conditions to continue without even acknowledging the shocking circumstances under which he has been forced to live.” “In the collective decades of experience shared by this defense team, we have never encountered such cruel treatment comparable to what Mr. Demons has endured,” the rapper’s lawyers say. “Mr. Demons remains an innocent man in the eyes of the law.” A spokesperson for the Broward State Attorney’s Office declined to comment on a pending case. Related YNW Melly’s Endless Murder Case: What’s Taking So Long? Is That Legal? In technical terms, Melly’s lawyers were asking the judge to reevaluate the strength of the evidence. They argued the case had been weakened since Melly’s initial arrest, citing a 2025 appellate court order that suppressed evidence obtained from an overbroad search warrant. But in Wednesday’s decision, the judge said he remained unmoved — even after he “reviewed the entire electronic court file in the present case” and considered new witness testimony at a closely-watched hearing last month. “This court continues to find that the state’s evidence is arguably sufficient to convict and is not contradicted in a material respect such that there is a substantial question of fact as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant,” the judge wrote. On