December 15 looks to be a big day in entertainment, as a plethora of albums and movies will make it an early preview of Christmas, but at least one person will not be looking forward it. XXXtentacion, who faces charges of battery of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and witness tampering for trying to intimidate her into recusing her testimony of his grisly abuse, now faces two trials, with the trial for witness tampering set for the 15th and the second trial to follow, according to a report from Pitchfork.
The reason for the prosecution filing the motion to sever the cases is an affidavit filed in the abused woman’s name that she wanted the charges dropped. The prosecutors are suspicious of the sudden about-face, and so are pursuing witness tampering charges against XXXtentacion — charges which actually carry a much more severe sentence upon conviction. A first-degree felony in the state of Florida, a conviction could result in life in prison. According to the witness’s deposition, XXX threatened her via cell, telling authorities, “They offered me to drop charges, right, but me knowing that you can’t drop charges like that, I was like, ‘Yeah, you can offer me money,’” she said. “They were like, ‘How much do you want?’ And I was like ‘3k.’
A spokesperson for the prosecution offered a statement from assistant state attorney Philip Harte explaining the new terms of the trials.
In court today I advised the Judge and defense that the State has reasons to doubt the authenticity of the affidavit. Moreover, the affidavit is not a legally binding document, and has no bearing on whether the State will or will not proceed.
The case was reset for 12/15 for the State to sever the charges, creating two separate felony cases (one for the tampering with victim charge, and one for the original charges).
Once the cases have severed, the State will proceed on the tampering with victim case first.
