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Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine Cops to Heroin and Violence Charges

The rapper’s first mixtape debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Now, after pleading guilty to gangland violence and heroin-trafficking, Tekashi 6ix9ine is looking at a possible 47-year minimum sentence.

MANHATTAN (CN) – The rapper’s first mixtape debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Now, after pleading guilty to gangland violence and heroin-trafficking, Tekashi 6ix9ine is looking at a possible 47-year minimum sentence.

Daniel Hernandez, known as Tekashi 6ix9ine, performs during the Philipp Plein women's 2019 Spring-Summer collection on Sept. 21, 2018, unveiled during the Fashion Week in Milan, Italy. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

“I apologize to the court, to anyone who was hurt, to my family, friends and fans for what I have done and who I have let down,” 6ix9ine, whose legal name is Daniel Hernandez, had said as part of his guilty plea.

Prosecutors unsealed the transcript of that Jan. 23 hearing on Friday, a day after rolling out charges against three other members of Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, the Brooklyn subset of the national Bloods syndicate that the rapper joined in 2017.

They are Anthony Ellison (“Harv”), Denard Butler (“Drama”) and Kintea McKenzie (“Kooda B”).

“As a member of Nine Trey, the enterprise engaged in such activities including shooting at people, robbing people, and at times drug trafficking,” Hernandez said last month.

In his allocution before U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmeyer, the 22-year-old confessed to helping kill a rival gang member and paying someone to shoot another to scare him.

“I did this to maintain or increase my own standing in Nine Trey,” he said.  

The six guilty pleas for a racketeering conspiracy, attempted murder, assault, firearm possession and distributing a kilo of heroin could carry a life sentence, but Hernandez hopes to avoid the minimum sentence by testifying against the other members.

By successfully fulfilling his cooperation agreement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Longyear said, Hernandez could avoid prosecution on any of those charges “as additional crimes that the defendant has told the government about.”

The day after Hernandez’s plea, prosecutors leveled additional firearms and racketeering charges against record executive Kifano “Shotti” Jordan, the millionaire Tr3yway Entertainment CEO who defiantly shouted out in court after the last November hearing.

“We don’t fall; we don’t bend, and we don’t break,” yelled Jordan, who allegedly authorized a hit on 6ix9ine after their public falling out last year.

Tekashi 6ix9ine shared some of his own stories of survival at the hearing for his guilty plea, opening up about being hospitalized for mental illness in his early teens.

“It was depression and post-traumatic stress for the murder of my father – stepfather,” he said.

“I'm very sorry to hear about that,” Judge Engelmayer replied.

After his father’s death, Hernandez said: “I started becoming just rebelling and not showering, like depression stuff.”

In October 2015, 6ix9ine pleaded guilty to the use of a child in a sexual performance after videos surfaced of him sexually engaging with an underage girl. Hernandez was 18 at the time and the victim was 13.

Categories / Criminal, Entertainment

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