Rapper Kodak Black pleads guilty to lying to gun seller, faces decade in prison
Rapper Kodak Black, accused of lying on documents while purchasing weapons at a Hialeah distribution center earlier this year, pleaded guilty in federal court in Miami on Thursday.
Black, a 22-year-old Pompano Beach songwriter whose real name is Dieuson Octave, was arrested prior to a performance at the Rolling Loud Music Festival in Miami Gardens in May. He faces up to 10 years in prison on the charge. His hearing is scheduled for November.
Black appeared in federal court Thursday after federal prosecutors accused him of intentionally misleading Lou’s Police Distribution in Hialeah during two visits earlier this year in which he purchased three pistols. Federal prosecutors said during visits to the outlet in January and again in March, Black wrote “no” on forms that asked if he was under indictment or information for any felony.
Prosecutors said that Black transposed several digits of his Social Security number during a visit to the outlet in January, which permitted him to pick up the three firearms a few days later. When the rapper used his real Social Security number a month later, he was denied a fourth pistol, prosecutors said.
Black was charged with submitting falsified documents with false information when he purchased the firearms.
Prosecutors say that one of the pistols purchased by Black was found at the scene of a shooting in Pompano Beach less than a week after he visited the outlet in March.
U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno denied Black’s request for bond on Thursday, calling the rapper a danger to the community and citing his criminal past. Since being convicted of armed robbery in 2015, Black has been charged with several offenses, including firearm and narcotics possession.
“The defendant’s pattern is to be arrested, get released, get arrested, get released, get arrested, get released, and so on and so on,” a prosecutor stated during his arrest in May, according to court documents.
The Pompano Beach rapper was out on bond from an unrelated sexual assault case when he bought the guns in Hialeah.
This story was originally published August 22, 2019 at 2:47 PM.
