In December, the defense team for one of the three suspects on trial for the murder of XXXtentacion, Dedrick Williams, listed a number of artistes as potential witnesses; one of those artistes is OVO’s Drake, who has now been ordered to appear in court.
Due to a feud between Drake and the late rapper Jahseh Onfroy aka XXXtentacion, who was shot and killed in 2018, defense attorney Mauricio Padilla believes the Certified Lover Boy superstar is connected to XXX’s death, and he attempted to subpoena the Certified Lover Boy rapper last month in an effort to substantiate this claim. However, according to a court document obtained by Billboard, Drake missed his scheduled deposition on January 27 and is now required to appear via Zoom video on February 24. If he does not reappear, he could be held in contempt.
Drake’s alleged involvement in the murder stems from unsubstantiated rumors that circulated following XXXtentacion’s death and is connected to a 2017 beef over what XXX believed to be a rip-off by Drake of his flows from “Look at Me!” on “KMT.” A year after the incident, XXX’s Instagram page featured a post with the caption, “If anyone tries to kill me, it was @champagnepapi,” tagging Drake’s Instagram handle. Afterwards, XXXtentacion claimed that his account had been hacked, and he was murdered four months later in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
According to a December court filing, “Onfroy relentlessly taunted Graham on social media making statements about his mother and even posting a picture of a Drake look alike with semen on his face,” following frustrations that Drake didn’t lend him a hand during his time behind bars in 2016-17.
Tensions continued to escalate, with XXX allegedly involving DJ Akademiks by asking the media personality to repost the photo. The filing went on to accuse Drake of having ties to “gang related activities” while naming Somali Canadian rapper Hassan Ali, a “suspected member of the Jungle Bloods Street Gang,” as a possible associate (Drake has publicly been connected to Ali via his own Instagram posts). In an interview, Ali also told Akademiks that he’s “Drake’s shooter.”
In the December filing, Padilla also listed Quavo, Offset, late Migos rapper Takeoff, Tekashi 6ix9ine and Joe Budden as potential witnesses, but at a subsequent hearing reported on by the Miami Herald, prosecutors called the move a stunt. “It is apparent from the deliberate, late disclosure of the defendant’s witnesses and comments made between the parties that [the] defendant intended to ‘surprise’ the state and create a trial by ambush,” wrote prosecutor Pascale Achille, as reported by the Herald.
Broward Country Circuit Judge Michael Usan then demanded answers from Padilla in writing as to why the superstars were relevant to the case.
“They are high-profile people. And it’s not easy for me to subpoena,” Padilla answered. “I don’t have numbers, but it doesn’t mean I won’t be able to. Trying to subpoena Drake is not easy — you need a drone.”
Source – Tru News Report
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