Underground rappers who held Florida couple hostage push 11th Circuit for new trial

(CN) — Three underground rappers asked an 11th Circuit panel for a new trial Tuesday, claiming a lack of evidence to support their convictions for kidnapping and bank robbery.

Kejuan Brandon Campbell, also known as “SplashZanotti,” Antonio Charles James Jr. aka “YungFokiss,” and Dionte Alexander-Wilcox or “TrapSavage,” also argued their sentences weren’t reasonable.

At issue for the 11th Circuit panel was whether the men were properly convicted of armed bank robbery under the language of the federal statute. Neither man robbed a bank, their attorneys Philip Horowitz, Sheryl Lowenthal and Ken Swartz told the panel.

Instead, the indictment accused them of forcing a woman at gunpoint to use her debit card and withdraw money from an ATM during a federal holiday when the banks were closed.

“If you break into an empty bank, that is not a bank robbery. But here there was another present,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom said.

The Donald Trump appointee noted that under the law, bank robbery is defined as taking or attempting to take by force and violence, or by intimidation, from the person or presence of another.

The Seventh and Tenth Circuits have held that when a bank robber forces a bank customer to withdraw money, the customer becomes the unwilling agent of the robber and the bank is robbed. However, the Fifth Circuit has found that those facts do not support a conviction.

U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, another Trump appointee, appeared unpersuaded by the defendants’ arguments.

“What is the difference between the victim going to a bank teller and saying ‘give me the money,’ versus here, having the money withdrawn from the ATM? How is that not a bank robbery?” Lagoa said.

The defendants also argued the three related firearm counts against them should be dropped, because the predicate bank robbery offenses should be vacated.

Defendant James also claimed the government’s search warrant for information contained in his Apple iCloud accounts violated the Fourth Amendment due a lack of probable cause and a connection to the crimes. He argued the magistrate judge should have reviewed the warrant to justify any good-faith exception to the evidence obtained.

“I don’t know if we can really say that the magistrate judge didn’t read the search warrant,” U.S. Circuit Judge Embry Kidd, a Joe Biden appointee, said.

During a nine-day jury trial, evidence revealed that on Oct. 11, 2020, Campbell, James and Alexander-Wilcox conspired to invade the home of a husband and wife, both over the age of 60. The couple’s estranged nephew had stolen $20,000 from Campbell hours earlier.

Wearing masks and gloves and carrying firearms, the three men forced their way into the couple’s home, physically assaulted the husband, and forced both victims to lie on the floor at gunpoint.

The defendants ransacked the couples’ home, took their wallets and tried using CashApp on the wife’s phone to transfer $20,000 to themselves. When the transactions were declined, Campbell then forced the wife to travel with him to multiple stores to try to cash $20,000 in checks. The other two defendants kept the husband at home, holding him at gunpoint.

After the stores declined to process the checks, the defendants stayed overnight at the victims’ home, kept a gun pointed at them and did not allow them to speak to one another. At one point, with gun in hand, Alexander-Wilcox forced the wife into the master bedroom and raped her.

The next morning, Campbell forced the wife to withdraw $20,000 from various ATMs. After returning the wife home, the defendants filled a couple of suitcases with the victims’ jewelry as well as items on which the defendants might have left their DNA. The defendants threatened to kill the victims if they called the police, locked the victims in a bathroom, took their house key, and left with the cash.

In 2023, Alexander-Wilcox was sentenced to life in prison. James was sentenced to 41 years in prison and Campbell was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

The three-judge 11th Circuit panel did not signal how or when they will rule.

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