Fla. — Rapper YNW Melly’s defense team claims that by withholding the fact that the primary detective in the rapper’s double-murder case had previously been suspected of being inclined to lie while he gathered evidence, South Florida prosecutors committed felony obstruction of justice.
The Sun Sentinel said that attorneys for Melly, whose real name is Jamell Demons, sought Broward Circuit Judge John J. Murphy on Friday to dismiss the case outright and to remove the Broward State Attorney’s Office from it. The 24-year-old rapper’s retrial was scheduled to begin with jury selection the next week, but the judge postponed it by a week on Friday and scheduled hearings for the following week to address the obstruction claims.
The demand from the defense lawyers comes after Assistant State Attorney Michelle Boutros, who works for the Broward office, testified Friday that she overheard Miramar Police Detective Mark Moretti, the case’s lead investigator, ask a Broward County deputy to fabricate being present when Moretti executed a search warrant outside his jurisdiction last October and forcibly took a phone from Demons’ mother as part of a witness tampering investigation.
The evidence may have been used by the defense to undermine Moretti during Demons’ most recent murder trial, which ended in July with a hung jury, according to defense attorney Jamie Benjamin.
Because a lawyer for Demons’ mother was present when her phone was stolen and would have known the deputy wasn’t there, the prosecution claims the discussion between Moretti and the deputy was a joke.
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When questioned about being there when the warrant was executed, the deputy provided a flippant reaction, according to lead prosecutor on the Demons case and assistant state attorney Kristine Bradley, who testified Friday.
Demons were found guilty 9-3 in their first murder trial.
If Melly is found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2018 killings of two childhood friends, Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas and Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams, she might receive the death penalty. They all had “YNW” in their stage names because they were members of the same hip-hop group. It is an acronym for “Young New Wave” or another expression containing a racial epithet.
After a late-night recording session, according to the prosecution, Melly shot Thomas and Williams inside an SUV and then attempted to make it appear as though a drive-by shooting with Cortlen “YNW Bortlen” Henry. Jamell Demons, also known as Melly, is still incarcerated and has no bond. “Murder on My Mind,” Melly’s best success, peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2019.
