The three men charged in the 2018 slaying of Jahseh Onfroy, a.k.a. rising rapper XXXTentacion, have been found guilty of first-degree murder by a Florida jury.
The guilty verdicts came down Monday in Fort Lauderdale after more than seven days of deliberation, the Associated Press reported. Mandatory life sentences will come at a later date.
Michael Boatwright, 28, Dedrick Williams, 26, and Trayvon Newsome, 24, were all found guilty of armed robbery in addition to the slaying of XXXTentacion at age 20.
The three “showed little emotion,” according to AP, as each stood and was handcuffed.
A fourth suspect in the robbery, Robert Allen, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder and testified against the other three. Allen has not been sentenced yet but could get anything from time served to life.
“As always, I respect the verdict of the jury,” Mauricio Padilla, Williams’ attorney, told The Times via email Monday. “However I do not believe my client was afforded a fair trial. We had a crucial defense witness stricken during trial, motion for protective orders granted prohibiting our ability to depose a key witness and motions to perpetuate the testimony of key defense witnesses denied.
“It is obvious from the days the jury was deliberating that they had questions,” Padilla continued, “and I only wish I would have been able to properly defend my client.”
XXXTentacion, who had become the face of a generation of SoundCloud rappers, was shot to death outside Pompano Beach’s Riva Motorsports on June 18, 2018.
Three months later, his song “Sad!,” released the day before he died, hit the U.S. pop chart’s Top 40 thanks to millions of streams from SoundCloud and Spotify. The rising rapper’s online feud with big-name artist Drake, whom XXXTentacion accused of stealing his rhythm, also put him into the mainstream.
Other songs that scored high on Billboard’s Hot 100 included “F— Love,” “Jocelyn Flores” and “Moonlight.” He had chart success as well working with Kodak Black on “Roll in Peace” and the late Lil Peep on “Falling Down.” (Lil Peep died in November 2017 of a suspected drug overdose.)
XXXTentacion — pronounced “ex-ex-ex-ten-tah-see-ohn” — turned to music in his teens after a traumatic childhood, releasing his first track in 2013. He announced a 26-date nationwide tour in April 2017 but canceled the balance of it two months later after his cousin was shot. His debut solo mixtape, “Revenge,” came out May 16, 2017, and included eight previously released singles.
His second album, “?,” debuted March 16, 2018, at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It featured singles “Sad!” and “Changes,” the former of which hit No. 1 after the rapper’s death.
“I looked at him, and I’m seeing someone who literally got dealt a bad hand in life,” Onfroy’s manager, Solomon Sobande, told The Times in early 2018, recalling the first time he met the artist when XXXTentacion was behind bars in 2016. He had been charged with allegedly beating and strangling his pregnant ex-girlfriend, as well as false imprisonment and witness tampering.
The two were separated by a thick glass partition, Sobande said, and XXXTentacion was facing 30 years behind bars. The rapper pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained his innocence until his death. However, Pitchfork obtained a recording in late 2018 in which XXXTentacion admitted beating the woman and stabbing nine other people.
“Knowing he had all this potential, I was sad for the kid,” Sobande said in 2018. “He’s got his own issues, but it’s safe to say he didn’t get the fairest hand.”
