NBA YoungBoy Released from Jail in Louisiana
After seven months behind bars, rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again was released from jail in Louisiana Tuesday to serve pre-trial house arrest in Utah, the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed to IndieLand.
The Baton Rouge-bred hip hop prodigy walked out of custody around 3 p.m. local time after federal prosecutors on his pending California gun case agreed to the terms of the $1.5 million bail and home detention ordered in his separate Baton Rouge gun case by a federal judge last week, multiple sources said.
“I’m really, really happy for him,” defense lawyer Drew Findling told IndieLand following a Tuesday hearing. “This is the right result. It’s the fair result.”
YoungBoy, whose legal name is Kentrell Gaulden, was granted the $1.5 million bail with a GPS monitor and strict conditions Friday afternoon after the rapper’s defense team presented a detailed bond proposal with witness testimony during a three-day hearing.
The judge made the ruling from the bench, but Gaulden remained in custody over the weekend because he was still the subject of a hold in California related to the firearm found in the back of a car when he was arrested in Los Angeles in March. When Gaulden appeared before the U.S. Magistrate Judge Tuesday, federal prosecutors said their colleagues in the Central District of California decided not seek further detention, Findling said.
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Gaulden was released after posting the first $500,000 of his bail. “I’m extremely overwhelmed with gratitude at the result of last week’s hearing and think this was the just decision,” Findling said.
The elaborate plan presented in court last week involved Gaulden moving to his residence in Layton, Utah, and paying a private security firm staffed with ex-military to enforce his home detention.
The lawyers brought in a woman named Kyrie Oliver who testified that she met YoungBoy while working at a Baton Rouge school and struck up a mentoring relationship with him. Oliver told the court that if it granted YoungBoy bond, she would assist in keeping an eye on him.
In a motion obtained by IndieLand, prosecutors took aim at Oliver’s testimony, saying Gaulden had paid Oliver nearly $600,000 between January 4th and February 1st for “celebrity assistant” services. They argued the large sum of money “calls into question her suitability to serve as a quasi-custodian” for YoungBoy because challenging him “would risk her and her family losing a substantial financial pipeline.”
Prosecutors posed a similar conflict-of-interest argument related to the proposed security firm Bedrock, saying the company stood to earn $21,000 a week for its services. They also urged the court to discount the sympathetic testimony from Atlantic Records Chairwoman Julie Greenwald, saying her company “has more than a $2 million investment” in YoungBoy and intends to build him a home studio.
The court allowed the defense to respond Friday and ultimately ruled in Gaulden’s favor.
A federal grand jury indicted the “Outside Today” rapper in March, charging him with being a felon in possession of an unregistered Masterpiece Arms 9 mm and a .45 caliber Glock Model 21 pistol when he was arrested September 28th, 2020, by Baton Rouge police before jurisdiction in the case was transferred to federal officials.
YoungBoy’s lawyers claim he was the victim of a targeted “dragnet” involving a disputed 911 call about a group of people gathered outside his grandfather’s house shortly before his arrest. Less than two weeks after he was indicted, YoungBoy was arrested in Los Angeles and returned to Louisiana.
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Findling said Gaulden agreed Tuesday to appear in court for future hearings in his Los Angeles and Baton Rouge cases.
Once out of custody, the 21-year-old streaming sensation is expected to continue making music at his home studio in Utah. His most recent album, Sincerely, Kentrell, became his fourth to hit Number One on the Billboard 200 chart and knocked Drake’s Certified Lover Boy out of the top spot last month with more than 186 million on-demand streams, according to Billboard.
