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Tekashi 6ix9ine’s Request To Finish Out Prison Sentence At Home Due To Coronavirus Fears Denied, For Now
The judge in the case said he doesn't have the power to grant the request, but acknowledged that had he known the pandemic was on the horizon, he would've altered the rapper's sentence.
A judge this week denied Tekashi 6ix9ine’s request to serve out the rest of his sentence at home due to coronavirus fears, but he did admit that he would have allowed it had he known about the outbreak when initially handing out the sentence.
Lawyers for Daniel Hernandez asked that a judge allow him to return home for the remaining four months of his sentence for his own safety — the fact that the 23-year-old has asthma leaves him at an increased risk of developing complications should he contract the coronavirus, they claimed — but U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer denied the request Wednesday, the Associated Press reports. Engelmayer said in a written order that he doesn't have the authority to grant Hernandez’s request, but said that he would have considered Hernandez’s health issues when sentencing him in December if he’d had knowledge of the pandemic that would follow.
Engelmayer said that he “could not have known that the final four months of Mr. Hernandez's sentence would be served at a time of a worldwide pandemic to which persons with asthma, like Mr. Hernandez, have heightened vulnerability,” according to the Associated Press.
“Had the Court known that sentencing Mr. Hernandez to serve the final four months of his term in a federal prison would have exposed him to a heightened health risk, the Court would have directed that these four months be served instead in home confinement,” he continued.
Hernandez has been struggling with shortness of breath, but authorities did not allow him to go to a hospital, despite the medical director at the private jail where Hernandez resides suggesting that he do so, according to the Associated Press. His lawyers have also reportedly claimed that Hernandez was diagnosed in October with both bronchitis and sinusitis.
However, the judge did state that he would be issuing an “instructive guidance” that can be considered by the Bureau of Prisons — the entity that has the power to change the conditions of Hernandez’s sentence — should the rapper decide to file an application with them, the Associated Press reports.
Hernandez’s attorney, Lance Lazzaro, has stated that he considers Judge Engelmayer’s response to be a “strong recommendation to the BOP to release him immediately,” according to TMZ.
Faced with numerous charges, including racketeering, and the prospect of decades in prison, the “FEFE” rapper decided to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against his former associates in the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods gang, earning himself a lesser sentence of two years. He is scheduled to be released from custody on July 31.
