The case against Bobby Shmurda has been full of strange twists and turns, and that didn’t change when he was officially sentenced to seven years in prison on October 19, nearly two years after his arrest. According to Billboard, the rapper born Ackquille Pollard told the court that he was railroaded into accepting a plea deal that would put him in prison for seven years, and that the architects of the deal lied to him about what it would mean.
“I was forced to take this sentence, I did not want to take this sentence,” Shmurda said, while requesting an adjournment in a Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday morning. “I was forced by my attorney to take this plea.”
The judge denied his request and sentenced Shmurda to seven years for 4th-degree conspiracy to criminally possess a weapon and 2nd-degree criminal weapons possession. The sentence camed under a “global plea deal” that would also reduce the sentences of his GS9 affiliates Chad Marshall (a.k.a. Rowdy Rebel) and Nicholas McCoy. As part of the deal, Shmurda waived his right to an appeal, and cited his plea’s caveat of shortening Rowdy’s sentence as his primary motivation for taking the deal.
The sentencing ends a strange saga, where Shmurda received an exceptionally high bail and accused the courts of racism and bias.
“If we made bail, I would’ve beat the case. We look guilty in these orange jump suits. If you put Al Sharpton in a orange jumpsuit and accuse him of having a gun, he’s going to be found guilty,” he told Complex. “They just look at our skin color, and look at where we’re from. I didn’t get caught with anything on me and the cops lied, saying they seen me with a gun in my hand. I explained the whole situation to Epic and they were behind me all the way. We had big-money lawyers and they still couldn’t do nothing because of the judge, who looked at us like black thugs.”
It was a sentiment echoed on Wednesday by Shmurda’s mother, Leslie Pollard.
“You don’t have any rights in that courtroom,” she told Billboard. “It’s heartbreaking. It’s disappointing.”
Should Shmurda serve his whole sentence, he’ll be released some time in 2021.
