NEW YORK – Apologetic rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was sentenced Tuesday to 45 days in prison by a federal judge who said repeated violations of his probation after his cooperation against a violent gang won him leniency in a criminal case show that he doesn't have sufficient respect for judicial system rules.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ordered the additional time be spent behind bars five years after giving the performer whose real name is Daniel Hernandez a two-year prison sentence that likely would have been decades behind bars if he had not testified at trial against the violent gang known as the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods.
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The Manhattan judge said that five violations of probation rules including failing to show up for drug tests, traveling to Las Vegas from his Florida home without permission and lying to his probation officer “say to me loud and clear that you don't believe the rules apply to you.”
He questioned whether Tekashi 6ix9ine, 28, thought he was above the law “maybe because you’re a famous and wealthy rapper.”
“But the same rules do apply to you,” Englemayer said.
Before the judge announced the jail time, Tekashi 6ix9ine asked for mercy, saying he was disappointed in himself for having to face him again just a half year before his probation would have expired.
“I'm very sorry,” he said. “I'm not minimizing my actions. I fully take responsibility. I let myself down. I let my family down. Give me an opportunity to clean things up.”
He said he didn't want the judge to “think of me as ill mannered or I'm a bad person," and he insisted that “I don't go out of my way to break the law.”
After his jail stint is finished, Tekashi 6ix9ine will be subject to a month of home incarceration, a month of home detention and a month of curfews as apart of an extension of his probation period by one year. He also will not be allowed to travel internationally and will face electronic monitoring.
In April 2020, Tekashi 6ix9ine was granted compassionate release from prison several months before his sentence was finished because asthma made him susceptible to the coronavirus, which was spreading through the nation’s jails and prisons.
He was arrested on Oct. 29 and has spent the past two weeks in solitary confinement, a particularly harsh detainment that the judge described as a reason why he didn't impose a three-month jail term.
In 2018, Tekashi 6ix9ine was arrested on charges accusing him of joining Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods before trying to get others to commit violence against his perceived enemies.
Engelmayer said the singer's parole violations weren't “gravely serious,” but they were “profound” breaches of the court's trust.
He also said Tekashi 6ix9ine has “repeatedly flown very close to the flame” as he cited two instances in which he was arrested in the Dominican Republic and a speeding violation for allegedly going 136 mph in a 65 mph zone.
“Your repeated brushes with the law underscore the need to get this message across to you,” the judge said.