Tekashi 6ix9ine Pleads Guilty and Agrees to Cooperate With Prosecutors
Mr. Hernandez remained incarcerated, and it was unclear Friday when he will be sentenced or how his cooperation might affect his prison sentence.
At the plea hearing, a prosecutor said that Mr. Hernandez’s cooperation was likely to reveal the criminal activities of other people and that he may eventually need to be placed in the witness protection program.
Mr. Hernandez, 22, was charged in November along with several other alleged members and associates of the Nine Trey gang on racketeering conspiracy and firearms charges, a federal indictment shows.
The gang “wreaked havoc on New York City, engaging in brazen acts of violence,” Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said when charges were announced.
In one case last April, prosecutors said, the gang’s members held up a rival gang member at gunpoint near Times Square. Mr. Hernandez helped to plan and direct the robbery, and filmed it from a car, prosecutors said.
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Later that month, the government said, a member of the gang shot at a rival inside Barclays Center, where Mr. Hernandez was scheduled to perform. Though no one was hit, he later posted a video of himself and co-defendants bragging about the shooting, the prosecutors said.
At the time, Lance Lazzaro, a lawyer for Mr. Hernandez, pronounced him “completely innocent” of the charges, portraying him as a victim and noting that the F.B.I. had warned his client of threats made against him.
On Friday, Dawn M. Florio, another of Mr. Hernandez’s lawyers, declined to comment on his decision to plead guilty and cooperate, but added that “every effort” was being made “to protect him and his family and his loved ones, for their safety.”
Prosecutors declined to comment on the case.
In court last week, Mr. Hernandez pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and eight other charges, for which he could face a minimum of 47 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
If he cooperates successfully, the government has agreed to write to the judge, seeking a sentence below the minimum, a prosecutor said.
Mr. Hernandez has spent the better part of his adult life crafting a viral internet personality. His brash stunts — which included dying his hair rainbow colors and wearing clothing emblazoned with obscenities — made him a near-instant superstar on Instagram and other platforms.
[Read more about the rapid rise and sudden fall of Tekashi 6ix9ine.]
But his meteoric career trajectory as a rapper was unusual. Mr. Hernandez only began pivoting to music after he had become well-known on the internet for his obnoxious antics. He appears to have sought gang affiliation to bolster his credibility among some hip-hop fans.
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