Kodak Black pleads not guilty to latest drug possession, evidence tampering charges
Kodak Black has run into more legal trouble in Florida, again involving his car and alleged drug possession.
The “Angel Pt. 1” rapper — legal name Bill Kahan Kapri — was jailed Thursday in South Florida and pleaded not guilty to four charges against him, according to online records from the Broward County clerk’s office.
After being taken into custody, Kapri was charged with improperly stopping or parking his vehicle, cocaine possession and tampering with evidence. The rapper posted bond Thursday and was released Friday, clerk records showed.
Kapri’s attorney, Bradford M. Cohen, did not immediately respond Friday to The Times’ request for comment.
“I’m so proud of myself and how far I’ve come,” rapper Kodak Black says on “Last Day In,” his first new song since Trump commuted his federal prison sentence.
The 26-year-old was arrested last year in South Florida on charges of trafficking oxycodone and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. He was freed on a $75,000 bond and, as a condition of his release, would have to undergo regular drug testing.
In March, while he was awaiting trial on the drug trafficking case, a judge ordered him into a month of rehab after he allegedly tested positive for fentanyl. His attorney said in an email to The Times that Kapri “actually volunteered to enter and the court agreed,” and that he would begin his rehab stint after playing at the Rolling Loud California music festival that month.
Last June, a warrant for his arrest was issued after authorities said he didn’t show up for a drug test that month, the Associated Press reported. He was then placed under house arrest in July after being pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol because his window tints were too dark. After allegedly smelling marijuana, police said they searched the SUV and found a bag with 31 oxycodone tablets and almost $75,000 in cash. (Regular drug tests were a part of the house-arrest order.)
His attorney told XXL magazine that the rapper’s doctor had prescribed oxycodone so he could manage chronic pain after being shot in the foot outside a party following a Justin Bieber concert during the 2022 Super Bowl weekend in Los Angeles.
Kodak Black, who is awaiting trial in Florida on charges of drug possession and trafficking, was ordered Tuesday to start a month of rehab next week.
The “No Flockin” and “Tunnel Vision” rapper was famously freed from federal prison by former President Trump, who in January 2021 commuted Kapri’s 46-month sentence for lying on background-check paperwork related to firearms purchases in 2019. Kapri had a separate one-year term for gun possession running concurrently and was serving out his sentence at a high-security federal prison in Kentucky. Those charges stemmed from a mid-2019 arrest at the Canadian border near Niagara Falls.
Trump’s commutation noted that the rapper had paid for children’s school notebooks, supplies for daycare centers and food for the hungry, and that he also donated $50,000 to restaurants in his hometown of Pompano Beach, Fla.
In a song celebrating his release, the musician rapped: “Trump just freed me, but my favorite president is on the money / All the hate and prejudice has become evident to me.”
In April 2021, Kapri was sentenced to 18 months’ probation in South Carolina after pleading guilty to first-degree assault of a teen. The girl said the rapper attacked her in a hotel room after the show, biting her on the neck and breast and continuing even after she told him to stop, authorities said.
Times assistant editor Christie D’Zurilla contributed to this report.
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