Meek Mill has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge in a deal that will spare him additional prison time, resolving a case that followed the rapper most of his adult life and turned him into a high-profile activist for criminal justice reform.
The negotiated plea came after an appeals court threw out the 2008 conviction of the 32-year-old rapper, born Robert Williams, last month.
He had already served about two years in prison in the case, and a judge decided he won’t have to spend any additional time behind bars or on probation.
“I know this has been a long road for you and hopefully this will be the end of it,” Judge Leon Tucker told the rapper, who pleaded guilty to carrying a firearm on a public street.
The plea came after both sides questioned the credibility of the arresting officer. The defense also accused the trial judge of bias for sending the entertainer back to prison over minor probation violations.
Assistant district attorney Paul George noted in court Tuesday that Williams had no criminal record before or since his original arrest a dozen years ago but added that “even though he was a young man at the time, he was adult enough to admit he had a gun”.
Williams, who had called his ordeal “mentally and emotionally challenging”, became an activist for criminal justice reform after he was sent back to prison in 2017 for technical probation violations he blamed on his erratic travel schedule. He spent five months behind bars before an appeals court granted him bail.
His conviction was overturned last month after an appeals court found that new evidence undermined the credibility of the officer who testified against the rapper at his trial, making it likely he would be acquitted if the case were retried.
District attorney Larry Krasner’s office had supported Williams’ appeal and said it could not call the former officer to testify after an internal investigation found he had stolen money on duty and lied about it.
The state “cannot call a witness whose credibility it mistrusts”, prosecutors wrote in a legal brief this year. The officer, Reginald Graham, has denied the allegations.
Williams served an initial prison term of about a year and several later stints over travel violations and painkiller use.
“The past 11 years have been mentally and emotionally challenging, but I’m ecstatic that justice prevailed,” Williams said last month after his conviction was overturned. “Unfortunately, millions of people are dealing with similar issues in our country and don’t have the resources to fight back like I did. We need to continue supporting them.”
