YoungBoy Never Broke Again

YoungBoy Never Broke Again — aka NBA YoungBoy — is soon to go on trial on federal gun charges. The Baton Rouge artist was arrested along with 15 others in 2020 on suspicion of possession of stolen firearms and distributing drugs, and today, Rolling Stone reports that the trial date has been set for May 16 in Louisiana’s Middle District. The rapper entered a preliminary plea of “not guilty” to charges of possession of an unregistered firearm by a felon and has been on house arrest since October.

However, he’s got reason to be optimistic about the outcome of the trial. At the end of February, US District Court Chief Judge Shelly Dick ruled that video evidence of YoungBoy brandishing the firearms in question was invalid due to an unlawful search of the SD card containing it. While an anonymous 911 call about men brandishing guns prompted police to break up what was reported as a rap video shoot in September 2020, the warrant only mentioned the video, while the warrant made no mentions of the SD cards or video equipment.

YoungBoy’s defense filed a motion to have the evidence suppressed, which Dick granted after deeming the warrant — and the resulting search that turned up the would-be incriminating evidence — invalid. The rapper’s defense lawyer Drew Findling said of the upcoming trial, “We’re 100 percent convinced of his innocence, and now we have to continue to evaluate our strategy. The unconstitutionality of law enforcement was clearly evident to the court and resulted in a slew of evidence being thrown out. We’re looking forward to going to court.”

YoungBoy Never Broke Again is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.