YNW Melly kept in ‘debilitating isolation’ while in jail, lawsuit says. He seeks release
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The double murder trial of rapper YNW Melly
The double murder trial of rapper YNW Melly, whose legal name is Jamell Demons, has had many twists and turns since the South Florida artist was accused of killing his childhood best friends Anthony Williams and Christopher Thomas Jr. in 2019.
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Rapper YNW Melly — who has been behind bars in Broward County since 2019 — is suing the Broward Sheriff’s Office in a bid to be immediately released from jail, citing “egregious violations” of his constitutional rights.
The 12-page lawsuit, filed by attorney Michael Pizzi on Saturday in Miami federal court, says the rapper has been kept in total isolation with no way to contact the outside world and has also been barred from meeting with his legal team on several occasions. The conditions Melly is living in, the document alleges, “shock the conscience and could not even be imagined ... even in a third-world country that has no guard rails protecting human decency and dignity.”
“It is utterly disgraceful that in this day and age, a young Black male has been placed in debilitating isolation and deprived of seeing his own mother for years,” Pizzi told the Miami Herald.
READ MORE: Nearly a year after hung jury, YNW Melly’s retrial still looms. Where does case stand?
Melly, whose real name is Jamell Demons, is accused of gunning down his childhood friends Anthony Williams and Christopher Thomas Jr. in an alleged drive-by cover-up after spending the early morning hours of Oct. 26, 2018, at a Fort Lauderdale recording studio. Williams and Thomas, both aspiring rappers with the YNW collective, were known as YNW Sakchaser and YNW Juvy, respectively.
In a statement Monday, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation but clarified that the jail doesn’t use solitary confinement.
“Rather, Mr. Demons has been placed on administrative segregation, which is a classification resulting in an alternate living assignment for an inmate whose placement in the general population poses a serious threat to the safety of staff or inmates, or life and property,” BSO said.
‘Debilitating isolation’
For three years, Melly hasn’t been allowed to make phone calls or have visits with his family, including his mother Jamie King, according to the filing.
“[Melly] has and continues to be subjected to the type of debilitating isolation that renders his conditions of incarceration cruel, unusual and beyond belief in a civilized society governed by Constitutional safeguards,” the lawsuit says.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office, the filing alleges, placed “unreasonable” restrictions on visits with his attorneys. The rapper’s legal team has had to wait hours to see him at the jail — and was once also forced into a room where anyone standing outside could overhear them, the lawsuit says.
Defense attorney Raven Liberty told the Herald she’s shown up to the jail and has been left waiting for substantial periods of time on several occasions.
Conditions there have restricted her ability to prepare her defense with Melly, she said. The current setup is Plexiglas with a phone connection, and she’s concerned about having to talk about privileged information over it rather than face to face.
When Melly was transferred to the Paul Rein Detention Facility earlier this year, “He was being treated like Hannibal Lecter, like in that movie [Silence of the Lambs],” she said. “[All we’re seeking is] fair treatment of my client and his defense team.”
The circumstances of Melly’s detention stem from a 2022 grievance report a fellow inmate filed against the rapper, in which the inmate claimed that Melly was planning an escape by having one of his attorneys bring in handcuff keys, according to the lawsuit. Detention officers, in response to the complaint, searched Melly’s cell, seizing commissary items and jail-issued clothes.
A further investigation, the lawsuit says, concluded no wrongdoing. The rapper’s attorneys raised the issue to lawyers for the Broward Sheriff’s Office, but Melly was still moved into solitary confinement, where he has remained for years.
At one point, the rapper was transferred to a unit where he was only allowed outside his cell for an hour and had no contact with other inmates, according to the filing. While at another Broward jail earlier this year, Melly was housed on a floor by himself, in a cell without a door. A member of the sheriff’s office emergency response team guarded him around the clock, and jail staff was instructed not to speak to him, the lawsuit says.
“This isolation has inflicted enormous emotional impact on him and is designed to deteriorate his mental health and his ability to prepare for a trial that is now scheduled in September 2025,” the filing read.
In July 2023, a deadlocked jury caused a mistrial, setting off a whirlwind that ended with a prosecutor ousted, key evidence thrown out and new charges being filed. Since then, the case has remained at a standstill due to an ongoing appeal over the evidence excluded from the trial.
The rapper is facing the death penalty. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death by an 8-4 jury vote, the lowest threshold in the country for a death sentence. His retrial is set to begin in early 2025.
“Mr. Demons’ cruel and punitive treatment and the interference in his legal defense by government officials is a throwback to the worst of the chain-gang days where inmates who are presumed innocent were given no rights and no protections,” Pizzi told the Herald. “This is even worse in a case where he was not convicted at trial and where the assigned prosecutor was disqualified by the judge.”
Miami Herald reporter Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 2, 2024 at 6:01 PM.
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