Fetty Wap’s lawyer wrote a letter to the judge explaining why the rapper resorted to selling drugs. Fetty, who’s real name is Willie Maxwell II, is staring at 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges. FBI agents arrested him prior to his performance at Rolling Loud New York in October 2021. Now Fetty’s lawyer claims he had no choice but to commit crime due to the pandemic.
Officials say Fetty Wap used private jets and tour buses to transport 100 kilos of cocaine from California for distribution on the East Coast. According to the feds. He was released on a $500,000 bond on November 5, 2021, but was arrested once again on August 8, 2022, for making threats to a federal witness during a FaceTime call
The rapper was accused of driving to Long Island roughly six times and buying cocaine by the kilogram and then reselling it in both the Garden State and in New York in the spring of 2020.
He was arrested on Oct. 29, 2021, and had been free on bail until he was accused of violating conditions of his release by waiving a gun at a person during a Dec. 11, 2021, FaceTime call — calling the person “a rat” and threatening to kill him.
In a Thursday letter to the judge, prosecutors say Maxwell took part “in a massive drug trafficking organization that flooded Long Island, as well as the surrounding areas, with a tremendous amount of controlled substances.”
The feds claim Maxwell has admitted selling crack cocaine before — in 2014 in New Jersey — and that he “continues to use his fame, sizable platform and influence to glamorize the drug trade,” the court papers say.
But in papers filed Wednesday, Maxwell’s lawyer Elizabeth Macedonia asked the judge to sentence her client to the minimum of five years, claiming he’s accepted “full responsibility for his crimes” and that “his conduct here should not define him.”
Macedonia said Maxwell had a hard life — between getting bullied for having only one eye and growing up poor in his crime-plagued hometown — that led to him do drugs and live out of a car before he hit it big.
Macedonia said Maxwell is now a devoted father to his nine children — by seven different women — and that when he became financially successful, he helped to support all of his friends, family and kids.
When the pandemic hit and his income dropped amid a halt in performances, Maxwell turned to selling drugs to maintain his lifestyle and everyone he financially supported, Macedonia wrote.
Around this time, Maxwell was also going through a divorce and his manager was allegedly stealing money from him.
“While the bills kept coming in, the money to pay them was running out,” Macedonia wrote. “Suddenly it felt like life was going in reverse and he became ashamed when he began to struggle to keep up the lifestyle that he created for so many.”
Before Maxwell was arrested, his close friend was fatally shot and his 4-year-old daughter died, Macedonia wrote.
At an August hearing, Macedonia explained Maxwell made the threatening FaceTime call after someone posted a photo of his late daughter with the caption, “I”m happy she’s dead because her father is a rat.”
Since his arrest, he has “worked extremely hard to set money aside for his child support obligations,” Macedonia said, adding he’s taken all the gigs he could to save and prepare for time in jail.
During his incarceration, she wrote, Maxwell has been “subjected to the harshest of conditions brought on as a result of institutional incompetence, corruption and the coronavirus pandemic.”
The prison has refused to put Maxwell with the general population, or provide him with a CPAP machine to help his sleep apnea, Macedonia claims.
“Three years has passed since this crime was committed and Mr. Maxwell realizes the terrible mistake he made,” Macedonia said. “He is truly sorry for the loss and hurt he has caused.”
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