6ix9ine Pleads Guilty To Nine Counts
Imprisoned rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine (born Daniel Hernandez) reportedly pleaded guilty on Saturday to nine counts in his criminal case and will cooperate with the government into their probe of a violent street gang, according to New York’s NBC4.
The network reported that the guilty plea was entered over the weekend, but the records were sealed until prosecutors applied to unseal them on Thursday, a motion that was granted on Friday (Feb. 1).
As part of the plea, Hernandez will reportedly cooperate with federal officials to provide information “against multiple violent people associated with the same criminal enterprise of which he admits, or will soon apparently admit, being a member,” read the court records.
The rapper was arrested in November along with five others, all of whom were charged in a wide-ranging indictiment containing charges of racketeering and firearms violations related to a July shooting of a bystander in Brooklyn and the gunpoint robbery of one of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods’ rivals last spring. According to the Associated Press, during the plea, Hernandez said he joined the Nine Trey Bloods in the fall of 2017 and helped gang members try to kill a rival member last March.
In November, Hernandez was charged with three counts of firearms offense, one count of racketeering conspiracy, three counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering, one count of narcotics trafficking and another count of firearms offense; a judge denied multiple requests for bail. Hernandez’s lawyer, Lance Lazzaro, has previously said his client is “completely innocent of all charges.” Hernandez originally pleaded not guilty to the federal racketeering and firearms charges and was headed to trial on Sept. 4.
At press time, an attorney for Hernandez had not returned Billboard’s request for comment on the reported plea deal, which could help the rapper get leniency at his sentencing from what the AP reported would otherwise have been a mandatory minimum 47 years in prison if he admits to all the crimes and testifies truthfully in court.
This article originally appeared on Billboard.