Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘A Lot of Holes’: YNW Melly’s Ex-Lawyer Reacts to Rapper’s Double Murder Trial

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Rapper YNW Melly, born Jamell Demons, stands accused of murdering two of his friends in October 2018 and staging the killings as a drive-by shooting. Melly’s former attorney, Bradford Cohen, sheds light on the “difficult murder case” and discusses the holes in the state’s case with the Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Save 10% on your entire POM Pepper Spray order by using code LAWCRIME10 at http://bit.ly/3IGNFxvLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. That's the first indication that they're just guessing and don't know what they're talking. That, ladies and gentlemen, by itself, is reasonable. No doubt. Y&W, Melly's murder trial is underway and the back and forth between both sides, the competing evidence, and an issue of a mistrial all have taken center stage. Mellie's former attorney Bradford Cohen comes on to give his take on the trial so far.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. I have definitely covered a lot of stories at law and crime. But if there's one thing I can tell you throughout all of them, it is that you have to stay safe. And that's why I want to talk to you right now about palm pepper spray. This is something that can really help. This is a discreet but powerful personal defense tool. Palm pepper spray shoots up to 12 feet using the strongest legal formula of pepper spray. It is super safe. It is easy to use. It is ready to fire. All you got to do is just point and spray. The best part, we got a promo

code for you. You can save 10% by using code law crime 10 at palmpeper spray.com. And always remember, call 911 if you see somebody in trouble. Hey there, everybody. It is good to be back with you all here on Sidebar. I was actually on my honeymoon, believe it or not, but you might not believe me. I couldn't stop thinking about Sidebar. I was listening to Sidebar while I was away. I shouldn't do work while I'm on my honeymoon, but I was still following what was going on

with this new trial that was being covered on the podcast and the Long Crime Network. I felt like I was missing out because it's really incredible. I'm talking about the trial of YNW Melly, and there is a lot going on in this case. This is, of course, the trial of the Florida rapper whose real name is Jemel Demens, who is charged with the murder of two fellow YNW group rappers, Christopher Thomas Jr., or YNW Juv, and Anthony Williams, or YNW Sack Chaser. The men were found shot to death on October 26, 2018, after Melly's co-defendant, Cortland Henry or YNW, Bortland, pulled up to the hospital with the bodies of Thomas and

Williams in the car. He claimed that they were all victims of a drive-by shooting. It just so happened that Mr. Henry had no injuries. Prosecutors say that Melly was the shooter and made sure to get out of the car before it arrived at the hospital and actually attempted to stage this as a drive-by shooting. They've even highlighted how the defendant was a member of a gang called G-shine bloods. The death penalty is on the table if YNW. Melly is convicted. The law changed in Florida. Now all that is needed for a death penalty verdict is an eight to four vote by the jury. It no longer has to be unanimous. This is a big change in Florida law. And as we think about some of the most heated and pivotal moments in the case, I want to bring in a very special guest, Bradford

Cohen, YNW Melly's former attorney. Bradford, thank you so much for coming here on Sidebar. thanks for having me my man what do you think of the trial so far i mean there's a lot that happened yeah there's a lot there's a lot that happened usually trials don't ever disappoint when it comes to witnesses that are not cooperative or do not want to appear and evidence that you expect to see that might not appear or that you don't expect to see and all of a sudden it takes on a different form at trial things that you didn't think were a big deal become a big deal so this is one of those cases that didn't let anybody down in terms of that. And I think when I originally had this case, I thought that there was a lot of holes in the state's case. And I think that it's being

highlighted by the defense counsel now, all those different holes that are in the in the state's case. And I think that that's going to be a very tough thing to overcome. They have a lot of technical evidence. But the the actual evidence of someone saying, hey, he was the guy who pulled the trigger. He was the guy who was in the car. Here's the DNA. Here's the gun. unshot residue. That's all missing. So that's a big problem for the state. Let's talk about that a little bit. These opening statements from the prosecution and the defense kind of gave a roadmap for the jury and all of us about which we're both sides are going to go. This is a little snippet of both.

One individual and specifically sends out and I want to quote the message exactly that you will hear and says right after this. yo homie you good let me know something and so ladies and gentlemen this is where context matters what does that mean if you work at Google and you say my whole floor is coding that's a good thing if you work at our general hospital and you say my whole floor is coding a bad thing. The context around the messages matters. So in the context of this message, this individual is reaching out, asking if Mr. Demons is good after he's been tagged in multiple social media posts about this driver through, this shooting. And Mr. Demons

responds very succinctly, I did that. Shh. Three years after arresting this young man and sticking him in a cell. The state looks at its case and says, oh man, this looks a little incompetent. Miramar Police seems to have botched this investigation, and they call the Browd Sheriff's Office and ask them to come and look at the investigation upon which this entire prosecution rests. and he looks at it and he says he instantly knew he had to start from scratch

I think his words were it was the worst thing I had seen in my life so I actually want to focus a little bit on what you said of the defense they're highlighting a botched investigation they're saying that police rushed to judgment because YNW Melly is famous

and if they you know go after a famous person. They become famous. They highlight no DNA, never found the murder weapon or weapons. Is this how you would have defended the case? Yeah, I think that a lot of a lot of the same things that they're saying were the things that I saw and that I would have argued. You know, the state still has to prove that he was actually in the car during the shooting, that he was the actual one who pulled the trigger, that it wasn't, you know, his co-defendant who they're highlighting the co-defendant to say the co-defendant had gunshot residue on him. The co-defendant was the one who lied to the police when they originally, you know, interviewed him.

And our guy didn't lie to anybody. He didn't get interviewed by the police. And to be quite honest with you, I was hired very early on on the case. And I told the investigators that if there was any interview with my client, Mr. Demons, that, you know, I would have to be present. And they chose, you know, they asked for the interview. And I said, we're going to invoke at that point because we could see where it was going and that they only had really one target in mind, and that was Mr. Demond. I know you can't reveal attorney-client privilege, but from your perspective, what has your client, what's his position with regard to what happened here?

I think his position is the same thing that the defense is putting forward. Obviously, I can't disclose attorney-client privilege or strategy that I would have had during the case, but I think the defense has laid it out very nicely in terms of the burden of proof and what they have to prove at trial and that they have to prove that he was the one who actually either conspired to kill these two young individuals or that he was the one who actually pulled the trigger. And they have another problem. And we always say this. We always say motive is not an element of the crime. You don't have to prove motive, but juries are people. They want to hear why something happened. And if someone says, hey, these are two people that were his best

friends or very good friends, and they can't come to a reason why he would have done this. This is just some machination. All of a sudden, he decided to just shoot two people. Well, let's break that down. Let's break that down because what the prosecution is put forward. I'll give you two parts here. What the prosecution is put forward is that he was part of this gang, like I mentioned, and as a way to show his loyalty and prove his loyalty. I think it was like two days before the shooting is when there was this kind of how do you show

your loyalty to the gang, then these two individuals end up dead. That could be one motive. I'll give you a task to talk about what you think about that. And then two, here on sidebar, my co-host, Anjanette Levy, interviewed the father of one of the victims and he suggested that it could have been about money that it could have been about the fact that all these members were part about the same group and there was an issue about selling the brand and would one person get more of a payout than the other there was a little bit of tension between members of the group so i'll give you an opportunity

to respond to those two potential motives so the first motive i think is idiotic and i think we're going to see something today tomorrow where the defense should bring up this whole gang I think they're going to discuss. And this is interesting because it's going to be interesting how the community, and when I say the community, the entertainment community, takes this position on this defense. But I believe that defense is probably going to bring up that every rapper under the sun has an affiliation to some gang.

And that's going to be their angle, I believe. I don't think that's a strong, I don't think that's a strong path to take. But again, that's they're going to be, I believe that's going to be their path. We'll see when they interview some, some, um, detectives today and tomorrow, when they cross-examine them, if they start asking them about other rappers and other gang affiliations. But I don't believe that's going to be a strong path to a not guilty. But that being said, I don't think showing gang loyalty would be killing your two best friends. I think that's a silly argument by the state. I don't think that's one

that they should be going down the path of. The other argument about the money, I heard the father talk about that they got into a fight and someone knocked someone's tooth out. This is the first time that was ever said on any channel ever to the police to the state there was never any indication that there was any kind of fight between them or that there was a money issue between them there was some other indications of other things that were going on but even those were weak but I think the father listen you're the father of a slain person right I don't make light of any murder I don't care who I'm defending I don't care how how much I'm on the defendant's side there's someone who has died. So that being said, that parent, that loved one is going to come up with

any reason they can to think of why this happened. I just don't think that that is the reason why this happened. I don't think that there was a fight. I just don't, I've never heard that before. This is the first time that has ever came through on any statement, and I just don't think that happened. Now, in terms of money, I think that everybody, I can't believe that any group that's together doesn't discuss money. I've never heard that they got into a fight about it. So I, and I've never heard that they were even discussing a heated discussion about money, but, you know, boys to men, every, every group that's ever been, I think probably Beyonce and her group probably had a big discussion about money, but Beyonce is Beyonce. So I don't think that that would be, that would rise to the level of murdering your two best friends. Okay, well, let's put the motive aside.

Again, I've always said motive is very important in a case, even though the prosecution doesn't have to prove it. It's not an element of the crime, but it helps to tell the story. story and juries like to know why something happened you talked about how do they place melly in the car right so there's this surveillance footage which i think plays a key role here and there's footage of melly exiting the recording studio the night of the shootings and he gets into the driver's backside passenger seat of the jeep in question this jeep compass and the two victims they get in as well and the prosecutors then say that the cell phone data shows that mr demons meli was with them 15 minutes before Mr. Henry pulled up to the hospital.

They also say that the ME report will show the victims were shot from inside the car and that a single 40 caliber shell casing was found in that car as well, possibly near where Mr. Melly was in the car. So that's what I think they're using to say that he was there. He was in that car and they're placing him temporarily where he was at the time of the shootings. What do you think? So a couple things. Number one is that recording studio, it's ironic, but that recording studio is actually right across the street from one of these warehouses that I own. It's in a warehouse district. And so I'm very familiar with the scene. I'm very familiar with that recording studio. In fact, some of my other artists actually recorded that studio. So number one is when you have someone leaving from a scene and them getting into a passenger side of the vehicle or driver's side of the vehicle, you don't know what happens after they leave there, right? You don't know if he changes seats with Cortland Henry. You don't know if he's they pick up someone additional to get into the car. You don't know if they're meeting someone,

someone gets out of the car, someone gets into the car. You don't know any of that that occurred. That's number one. Number two is I think the defense is putting forward that this phone that they said that is attached to Mr. Demens. I think they also said that this phone was kind of a community phone and other individuals in this group were using the same phone and had that phone at some time. I don't know. When I did my investigation, I'm not sure if that's a strong path to not guilty, but I think it's a path. I think it's an interesting argument. I don't know what kind of evidence they have

because I was only on the case for the first six months. We didn't request every single, and we didn't get every single record from that phone. But if there's evidence of that, that's an interesting argument, that other individuals were using that phone, that other individuals had access to the phone, so it doesn't attach that phone to Mr. Demons particularly.

I think the better argument is, like I said, once they leave that recording studio, how do you know what happens? How do you know if they didn't meet up with people? How do you know a car didn't pull up next to them, people got into the car, they had a discussion. Who knows what happened with inside that vehicle. I think there's a lot of holes in the, between the recording studio to where the actual incident happened to actually say, hey, beyond a reasonable doubt,

that was Mr. Demons in that passenger seat. That was Mr. Demons that pulled the trigger. That's the problem that they have. So yes, I think there's a lot of tangential evidence. There's a lot of things going on that suggest Mr. Demons was in that passenger seat. seat. But you have to say beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the one who pulled the trigger in that passenger seat, that he was sitting there when the trigger was pulled. There's just so much there. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying that it's a very difficult case for a murder case to say that Mr. Demons pulled that trigger. And let's talk while I have you last point here about this other potential win for the defense. I say that because at the time of this recording,

there is this issue of a potential mistrial. It was argued by the defense. And it concerned the testimony of Felicia Holmes, who is the mother of Y&W. Melly's ex-girlfriend. This is someone who allegedly initially told police that she and her daughter spoke to Mellie on the night of the shootings and claimed it seemed like he was hiding and waiting to be picked up after what he claims was a drive-by shooting. She even called out the prosecution. Good morning. Good morning. How are you today? Not good. Are you called? No, I'm just, you know, I just did. I just did. I don't feel comfortable.

Are you nervous? I feel threatened. And in a big moment of controversy, there was evidence introduced that Holmes was upset that she wasn't going to be financially taken care of by the defense, and they failed to do so. So maybe she was going to testify for the prosecution. A lot of back and forth between the prosecution defense on this witness. There were objections.

There were sidebars. There was the issue of whether improper evidence was heard by the jury. The judge said that he was going to consider whether or not this was grounds for a mistrial. Again, we don't know at the time of this record. according what the judge is going to decide. And whether he, even if he doesn't grant a mistrial, do you think that there are missteps by the prosecution? And do you think that this was wrong, that this evidence came in?

So I obviously, I think there's a lot of missteps here. That's number one. Number two is they were told that some of that evidence was not to come in. They were told that, you know, what you can't get in through the front door, you can't get in through the back door. And a lot of judges say that to a lot of individuals that try to get evidence. And listen, as attorneys, we all try to get in favorable evidence. either for the prosecution or for the defense.

And when a judge says, hey, that's not coming in because it's hearsay or that's not coming in for this, you know, there's always arguments, oh, well, it's not offered for the truth of the matter asserted, even though we are offering it for the truth of matter asserted. And we make these arguments, oh, it's a, you know, it's a contemporaneous recording, it's all this. Long story short is, I think that they could have taken care of this witness in a different way. I think that this was a very difficult witness to put on the stand to get the kind of information that they wanted. And I think that once the judge ruled that that information's not

coming in, I would have used her for a very limited scope. I would have taken her right off the stand and try to get the evidence in in a different way. Because once you start getting into a battle royale with a witness, no matter if you're a defendant or a state attorney, and it's not a winning battle royale. There is no way to win. And I didn't think there was a path to win for the state with this witness. You got to get rid of the witness. You got to cut your losses and get rid of the witness and take her off the stand. Now, that being said, this is a two-week trial, three-week trial. Sometimes juries forget as things go by. We're very early in the fight. I always compare it to, you know, a boxing match, right? So, you know, first two rounds could go to some guy who looks

great, right? And then all of a sudden, he loses gas. And in the third round, he just gets demolished. You just don't know in a trial. And the first week might be great for the defense. The second week might be horrible for the defense. Again, I don't see how the state's going to overcome a lot of these issues. But you never know, there's individuals that I thought when I watched a trial, I thought were guilty and they got a not guilty. There's individuals that I saw that I thought were innocent that got convicted. So that's the thing about trial. You never know how it's going to go, even though you think it's going great for one side or great or not so great for the other side. It's very difficult to make that call. All right. So Bradford, thank you so much for talking about

this. We really appreciate your insight on this very popular case. Thanks so much. Thank you. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

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