A jury returned a verdict Monday in the trial of three men accused of murdering rapper XXXTentacion in Florida in 2018.
The 20-year-old artist, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, was shot to death on June 18, 2018, outside of a motorcycle shop in Deerfield Beach, north of Miami.
In the attack, the rapper was in a car leaving Riva Motorsports when an SUV blocked his vehicle and two masked gunmen came out of it, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said at the time. One repeatedly shot at the rapper, and the assailants grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag from the car with $50,000 inside and escaped in the SUV, authorities said.
The trial of Dedrick Williams, 26; Trayvon Newsome, 24; and Michael Boatwright, 28 — each charged with armed robbery and murder — kicked off last month in Broward County.
The trio had pleaded not guilty. A fourth person, Robert Allen, 25, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year and testified for the prosecution against the other three.
Prosecutors said that Boatwright was the gunman who opened fire, that Newsome was the other gunman and that Williams was the driver of the SUV. Surveillance video played in court showed the attack that unfolded in a parking lot, depicting the moment two masked gunmen target the rapper’s car with guns drawn and one appears to shoot through the driver’s side window.
The defense tried to cast doubt on Allen’s testimony and pointed to the failure of detectives to investigate XXXTentacion’s feud with rapper Drake, but prosecutors said there was no evidence linking Drake to the shooting.
They could all receive life sentences if convicted of first-degree murder.
Jury deliberations started March 8.
Onfroy vaulted to stardom in 2017 after he uploaded the song “Look at Me” on SoundCloud, which climbed to No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. A few months later, he reportedly secured a $6 million record deal with a Capitol Music Group subsidiary. He gained a massive fan base for his music that spoke on depression and loneliness.
But the young star wasn’t without controversy. He was arrested in 2016 on multiple charges including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, false imprisonment and witness tampering in Miami-Dade County, court records show.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
