Tekashi 6ix9ine changes tune, pleads guilty; will cooperate with investigation
After months of loudly proclaiming in interviews and through his attorney that he would neither plead guilty nor cooperate in his federal trial, rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has done just that.
Tekashi, real name Daniel Hernandez, pleaded guilty last Saturday to nine counts in his Federal RICO case and will cooperate with government officials, according to court records.
Those court records were initially sealed, according to NBC New York. Prosecutors applied to unseal the documents on Thursday and the motion was granted Friday.
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Tekashi, 24, was arrested last November, along with five others and charged in a nine-count federal indictment containing racketeering and firearms charges. The indictment alleges that he participated in the July shooting of a bystander in Brooklyn and the gunpoint robbery of one of his gang’s rivals last spring.
The rapper has, at times, defiantly said he would never take a plea deal and would never cooperate with federal prosecutors — “A plea deal is simply off the table, even if the feds offer one,” his attorney Lance Lazzaro said in November. Faced with potentially 30 years in prison, reality apparently set in.
According to court records, Tekashi will now fully cooperate with federal officials “against multiple violent people associated with the same criminal enterprise of which he admits, or will soon apparently admit, being a member.”
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Tekashi admitted, according to TMZ, that he joined the Nine Trey Bloods in the fall of 2017 and he admitted to helping members of the gang attempt to kill a rival on March 20, 2018. He also admits to robbing another rival at gunpoint two weeks later.
He also admitted to shooting at rival rapper Chief Keef: “I paid a person to shoot at a rival member of Nine Trey to scare him. The shooting took place in Manhattan. I did this to maintain or increase my own standing in Nine Trey.” He admits knowing a fellow gang member was the trigger man.
Tekashi also admitted to selling a kilo of heroin in 2017. He apologized to the court following his plea.
“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,” he said.
There has been no word on what his sentence would be following the deal.
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