Three men have been sentenced to life in prison for the robbery death of US rapper XXXTentacion, real name Jahseh Onfroy. In 2018, the rapper was shot outside a Florida motorcycle shop while being robbed of $50,000 in cash.
Last month, Michael Boatwright, 28, Dedrick Williams, 26, and Trayvon Newsome, 24, were convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery. They will not be eligible for parole or early release.
“You’ll spend every hour, every day, every week, and every year of your life in that cell,” Broward County Judge Michael Usan told them.
“And one day, they’ll come and open up that cell in the morning and you will have passed on, and only on that day you would’ve served your sentence.”
Prosecutors used surveillance video and phone footage of the men flashing handfuls of $100 bills hours after the ambush to link the rapper’s killers to the shooting.
XXXTentacion was leaving Riva Motorsports with a companion when an SUV swerved in front of them, blocking his BMW. Two masked gunmen were spotted confronting the rapper at the driver’s window, with one repeatedly shooting him. They then climbed back into the SUV and rushed away, clutching a Louis Vuitton bag containing cash XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank. The rapper was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead.
Boatwright was recognised as the primary shooter, with Newsome accused of being the secondary shooter. Williams was accused of driving the SUV, and Robert Allen, a former acquaintance of the rapper, was accused of being inside.
Allen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year, but his sentence was postponed pending the outcome of his accomplices’ trials. His sentencing date has yet to be determined.
During the sentencing, the late rapper’s manager, Soloman Sabande in a statement read on behalf of the star’s family said that he was slain “senselessly” and that his killers showed no remorse. He said, “He was a beam of hope for all that knew him and his music. But Jahseh’s life was not only robbed from us and his family, it was robbed from his extended family of millions of people across the globe. Due to the actions of these killers, Jahseh will never get to meet his son let alone raise him.”
With two successive hit albums, the controversial chart-topping 20-year-old rapper, XXXTentacion quickly soared to popularity.
