Less-Than-Sympathetic Judge Sends Meek Mill to Prison

Judge Genece Brinkley went against prosecutor's recommendation
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 7, 2017 10:02 AM CST
Less-Than-Sympathetic Judge Sends Meek Mill to Prison
Rapper Meek Mill arrives at court in Philadelphia on Monday.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Rapper Meek Mill was sentenced to two to four years in prison on probation violations Monday by a Philadelphia judge who said the musician had wasted several chances to clean up his act following a 2009 gun and drug case. The sentence rounded out a roughly decade-long back-and-forth between the 30-year-old musician and Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley that has dogged Mill's career as he'd been jailed and called to court multiple times on various infractions, reports the AP. "I've been trying to help you since 2009," Brinkley said, citing a failed drug test, failure to comply with a court order restricting his travel, and two other arrests for reckless driving and assault. "You basically thumbed your nose at me."

The sentence came after a prosecutor recommended that Mill not be imprisoned for the violations, saying he has been clean since January and has grown as a person since his original conviction on gun and drug possession charges. Brinkley said the prosecutor was too new to the case to understand how Mill just "does what he wants." Mill owned up to the violations and said that jailing him would likely end his musical career. He said that he has battled addiction to the prescription painkiller Percocet and only tried to escape a life of crime. "I may have made a mistake, but I never had the intention of disrespecting you," he said. His lawyer vowed to appeal as Jay-Z, Kevin Hart, and rapper TI expressed their support for Mill, per People.

(More Meek Mill stories.)

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