Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine gets 3 months in prison for violating probation in gang case

Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine watches a baseball game between the Miami Marlins and New York Mets, Aug. 3, 2021, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

NEW YORK — Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was sentenced to three more months in prison Friday for violating the terms of his supervised release in a New York gang case by assaulting a man and possessing drugs.

The 29-year-old artist from Brooklyn, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, admitted to the violations during a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, where Judge Paul Engelmayer expressed frustration that Hernandez keeps getting into trouble. The rapper got a 45-day sentence late last year for breaking the supervised release terms.

“From time to time your actions suggest that you believe that ordinary rules don’t apply to you,” said the judge, who said another prison sentence was needed to send a message to Hernandez.

Hernandez, who shot to fame with the 2017 release of his song “Gummo,” gave a lengthy speech in court, describing several episodes where he and his relatives were harassed and threatened because of his cooperation with authorities in the gang case.

“Unknown individuals left a coffin in front of my house with an animal in it to send me a message,” he said. “Three masked gunmen held my mom at gunpoint.”

Hernandez pleaded guilty in 2018 to his involvement with a violent New York-based gang, the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods. He was handed a lenient sentence of two years in prison in 2019 followed by five years of supervised release for his cooperation in the racketeering case against gang members.

He was even released from federal prison several months early during the height of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Friday’s sentence was related to small amounts of cocaine and ecstasy being found at the rapper’s Miami home during a police raid in March, and his punching a man who taunted him at a Florida mall in August over his cooperation against gang members. His lawyer had requested six months of home confinement for the violations.

The Associated Press