Defense in XXXTentacion murder trial suggests Drake may be tied to rapper’s slaying
The defense lawyers for the three men accused of murdering rapper XXXTentacion floated the possibility that rap superstar Drake might have actually been behind
Suspects Michael Boatwright, Trayvon Newsome and Dedrick Williams are outside a Florida motorcycle store in what prosecutors alleged was a robbery that escalated to a cold-blooded killing.
Each suspect is facing a first-degree murder charge.
But the legal team for the three defendants argued that investigators did not probe XXXTentacion’s simmering feud with Drake in the aftermath of the 20-year-old’s untimely death.
The rapper, whose real name is Jahseh Onfroy, once claimed on social media that if he ever ended up dead, Drake was the reason, though he later retracted that bold statement.
The rapper’s death came four months after , which the defense argued put the highly scrutinized Broward County Sheriff’s Office under pressure to solve XXXTentacion’s murder quickly without fully exploring the other suspects, including a celebrity.
“For Broward County, for everyone involved, this was a nightmare,” one of the lawyers, Mauricio Padilla, told jurors.
Prosecutors say the shooting was the result of a robbery gone wrong, and there is no evidence linking Drake to the deadly gunfire.
Boatwright, Trayvon and Williams are accused of going to Riva Motorsports on June 18, 2018, to buy masks with plans to commit armed robberies, but decided to target XXXTentacion when they saw him inside the store, prosecutors said.
As the rapper left the store in his BMW, Williams cut off the sports car with his SUV as Boatwright and Newsome rushed XXXTentacion’s car to rob him, prosecutor Pascale Achille said in court.
The trio grabbed about $50,000 that XXXTentacion had in a Louis Vuitton bag before Boatwright shot him multiple times “without any provocation,” she said.
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