Despite the fact that dishonored rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine is due to be released from prison on July 31, 2020, he begged a judge for home confinement now out of fear of contracting the coronavirus.
A Manhattan federal judge, however, reluctantly rejected Tekashi’s request, saying he is powerless to reverse the previously rendered decision for Tekashi to serve his shortened sentence at an unknown prison, the New York Daily News reports.
Tekashi, 23, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, had his lawyer petition the court for mercy because his client has asthma. The Brooklyn-born rapper was also hospitalized for bronchitis and sinusitis in October 2019, his lawyer said. Such individuals are considered “heightened health risks” for the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the United States.
“At the time of sentencing, however, the Court did not know and 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,” Judge Paul Engelmayer penned, according to the Daily News.
“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,” the judge added, according to the newspaper.
Besides, the judge noted, such requests are normally handed by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons, and he does not have any authority to intervene and change the sentence.
