Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine is being held in New York for a parole violation

NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Tekashi6ix9ine tried unsuccessfully Tuesday to convince a federal judge not to send him to prison, calling him “bro” and insisting he never intended to violate the terms of his probation because of a felony conviction.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer in Manhattan ordered him held for at least two weeks, citing alleged misconduct such as failing drug tests and refusing required permission to travel — actions he said showed a lack of respect for the reflect the law.

The judge also noted that the artist left the Dominican Republic this year in violation of a court order to remain there after being arrested in January on domestic violence charges and detained in October 2023 after being accused of being a local music producer to have attacked. His lawyers say he is being treated unfairly in a corrupt legal system.

FILE - Rapper Daniel Hernandez, known as Tekashi 6ix9ine, performs at the Philipp Plein... — FILE – Rapper Daniel Hernandez, known as Tekashi 6ix9ine, performs at the Philipp Plein Women’s 2019 Spring-Summer Collection during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, September 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)(AP)

In 2019, Engelmayer sentenced him to two years in prison in a racketeering case. The musician, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges of participating in and directing violence by the gang known as Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods.

Tekashi 6ix9ine was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning. When he didn’t, Engelmayer signed an arrest warrant. When the rapper showed up later that morning, he was arrested and accused of repeatedly violating his probation through what a prosecutor described as a “pattern of non-compliance.”

Engelmayer, who had released Tekashi for months in early April 2020 by granting a compassionate release request due to the dangers the coronavirus posed to him, was stern when the rapper sat before him.

He seemed to soften a bit after Tekashi 6ix9ine insisted on addressing him directly.

The rapper apologized for arriving late to court.

“I’m not a bad person,” he said, noting that he served four and a half years of a five-year term of supervised release but ran into trouble after his supervision switched in July from court officials in New York. York to court officials in the Southern District of Florida, where he now lives.

He disputed a prosecutor’s claims that he did not seek permission as required to go to Las Vegas for a show in front of 20,000 people in early September, and said he skipped two drug testing appointments because he thought they would not be needed afterward. were. a previous positive test for marijuana use turned out to be false.

“I don’t feel like I did anything wrong,” he said, but quickly added that he knew he had done a few things that were “technically” wrong.

Otherwise, he said, it would have been “squeaky clean.”

He also said his life has been hard and that the “last four years have been bad, man.”

He added: “Freedom is everything to me.”

Later, Tekashi 6ix9ine addressed the judge in a more typical manner, saying that failing a few drug tests was “just a misunderstanding, your honor.” He insisted he has never used drugs and that a drug test that found methamphetame was the result of prescription drugs containing traces of the substance.

At another point, he told Engelmayer, “I’m not a part of it,” before pausing, apparently to choose the right words, before saying, “I’m not a bad person.”

The judge conceded that there may have been a justification for some of his behavior, but he said he felt the rapper was “cutting corners.”

After the hearing, the rapper’s attorney, Lance Lazzaro, said in an email that his client was charged with three “technical violations” of his supervised release and that he was “confident that each specification will be dismissed.”

The musician’s next hearing is scheduled for November 12.