YNW Melly’s legal team has launched a new effort to free the rapper on bail while he awaits trial in a long-running double murder case.
Melly (Jamell Demons) has sat in a Florida jail since 2019, when he was charged at the age of 19 with shooting and killing his close friends Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas Jr. The case has been endlessly delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a death penalty appeal, a hung jury mistrial and then an evidentiary appeal – and Melly’s next trial isn’t even scheduled to begin until 2027.
Melly recently hired new lawyers, and these attorneys are now asking a judge to let the now 26-year-old rapper out of Broward County Jail on bond. They argue in a Wednesday (March 25) court motion that Melly has spent seven years of his young adult life in “flagrantly restrictive, dehumanizing conditions,” including solitary confinement since 2021.
“Although he is presumed innocent, his conditions of confinement are more onerous than if he was actually convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison,” write attorneys Drew Findling and Carey Haughwout. “He has not seen or talked to his mother or other family members in years. He is not permitted any human contact with others except the ERT guard and his legal team. It is well-accepted that solitary confinement is psychologically damaging, and can lead to long term mental illness and physical illness”
In technical terms, Findling and Haughwout are asking for a bond hearing to reevaluate the strength of the evidence against Melly. They say the prosecution’s case has been weakened since Melly’s initial detention, citing a 2025 appellate court order that suppressed evidence obtained from an overbroad search warrant.
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Melly’s lawyers say he’ll willingly submit to house arrest and electronic monitoring if let out. They also argue that he’s not a flight risk, since the rapper has never left the United States and doesn’t even have a passport.
Reached for comment on the bail motion on Thursday (March 26), a spokesperson for the Broward State Attorney’s Office told Billboard, “If prosecutors respond, it will be through argument in court or a written court.”
Once a fast-rising hip-hop star, Melly’s career came to a crashing halt when he was hit with capital double murder charges in 2019. Prosecutors allege he and a co-defendant, Cortlen “YNW Bortlen” Henry, killed their friends after a 2018 recording session in Ft. Lauderdale and later staged the scene to look like a drive-by-shooting before taking Sakchaser and Juvy to an emergency room.
Melly maintains his innocence and says he had no motive to kill his friends. Bortlen denied the accusations up until this past September, when he took an eleventh-hour plea deal before trial. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison – far less than the multiple life sentences he was facing if convicted.
