Law&Crime Sidebar - XXXTentacion’s Killer Calls Out Drake in Appeal Brief

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

Dedrick Williams, one of three defendants convicted for his involvement in the murder of rapper XXXTentacion, is filing court documents for an appeal. In his petition, Williams’ attorney, Mauricio Padilla, points to rapper Drake’s alleged feud with the victim as proof that he could be an alternate suspect. Padilla sat down with Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber to talk about the filings.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Watch Prime Crime with Jesse Weber NOW on Spotify! - https://bit.ly/4fRZvCTHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&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 Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You are as guilty as they are because you are an essential part of that crime. When you went to spend that blood money on sneakers and jerseys, you revealed to the court the value you place on the human life that was taken. One of the men convicted in the 2018 murder of rapper XXXTentacion is now appealing his conviction and his legal team is focusing a lot of their attention on a major celebrity. Drake, we are going to explain the connections and the arguments as we sit down with Mauricio Padilla, the attorney for the convicted killer, Diedrich DeVan Williams. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. Didrick Devon Williams, who's behind bars for life for murdering rapper XXX Tentacion, is now appealing his case, his conviction, his sentence, on the grounds that he did not receive a fair trial. And this is in part due to what his attorney say is the exclusion of evidence that pointed the finger or maybe pointed the finger at other people. And one of those people whose name has come up is rapper Drake. So I want to quickly get you up to speed on this case before we get into these new allegations, these new arguments. Maybe they're not necessarily new if you break down this case. So last year, three men, including Williams, were convicted and sentenced the life in prison for the 2018 killing of the Star Rapper. And to be more precise, they were convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the shooting death of the 20-year-old artist whose legal name was Jase-onfroy.

Now, the jury deliberated a lot. They deliberated for a little more than seven days before returning a guilty verdict. This was for Michael Boatwright, Diedrich Williams, and Trayvon Newsom. Now, this murder occurred on June 18, 2018, outside of Riva Motorsports. It's a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach. It's a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. An XXXTentacion had just withdrawn $50,000 in cash from a bank. He was leaving the store with a friend when his BMW was blocked by an S&E.

In fact, surveillance footage from the scene actually captures this shocking moment as two mass gunmen, later identified as Boatwright and Newsom, emerged from the vehicle, confronted the rapper at his driver's side window. There is a brief but very violent exchange with one of the men shooting XXX repeatedly. Afterwards, they snatch a Louis Vuitton bag containing the cash that the rapper had just withdrawn, and they speed away in the SUV. Williams was accused of being the driver of that SUV. And the friend, by the way, who was with XXX, Tentacion during that attack wasn't injured, but he witnessed the murder. And the jury's deliberation was lengthy, but ultimately they concluded that the evidence presented by the prosecution was sufficient. It was beyond a reasonable doubt, enough to convict all three defendants. And that evidence included the surveillance footage.

It included cell phone videos of the defendants flashing cash right after the shooting. It included incriminating text messages from Boatwright, including one right after the shooting saying, tell my brother I got money for the new phone. And then just minutes after that, sending in a separate text message, a news article about XXX getting shot. And I also have to mention the key testimony of the trio's accomplice, Richard Allen, who claimed that he was a part of this robbery, and he implicated the defendants. He pled guilty to second degree murder for his role in this killing.

Hey, so before we jump into this story, I have something I got to tell you about. I host an executive producer's show called Crime Crime with Jesse Weber, and now it is launched on Spotify. Yes, you can listen on the go. And this show puts a spotlight on those really shocking, infamous, controversial crime stories. We go from beginning to end, from the 911 call to the verdict. We go through body cams, police interrogations, interviews with the players in the case. We want you to have a full understanding of the story from all sides. So you can follow Prime Crime on Spotify right now.

Just click the link below and in the description. Now, as I mentioned, Williams is appealing this decision. And a big focus of this is on Drake. It's also other issues that they're bringing up. So I want to get into it right now. And for that, I want to bring on Williams defense attorney, Mauricio Pidea. Thank you so much for coming on. So happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you for coming on right afterwards. So I wanted to talk about this with you. And we're going to get into more specifics of the appeal. But overall, big picture, big theme, what are you and the rest of the defense counsel arguing here? Well, I am not arguing it. I'm not his appellate attorney. I was the trial counsel. So I'm just referencing what Mr. Patanzo, which is his appellate attorney, has stated in the brief. There is so many errors that it's, you know, it takes a while to even break it down. One of the one of the main errors in my opinion in the case, which I had to sit through,

argue and live it, was the fact that in December of 2020, I file a witness list. The state's reaction to that was to file a motion saying, we want the court to strike all of his witnesses, which is, that's not even something that's legal or that you could do. You have to itemize who you want stricken. You just can't shotgun approach and say, I want all of his defense witnesses stricken, but the state attorney did that in a hearing that I had to defend you know myself to that in that motion the court didn't grant that but the court instructed me to file a pleading which was the nexus in my my defense witnesses and what nexus they had to my theory of defense which I argued was inappropriate because at the end of the day you're just you're ordering me to give the state a blueprint of what my

of what my defense is going to be but I was ordered to do it and I did it when Prior to, prior to, Mr. Onfroy, which I'll refer to him as X for this, for this interview, because his stage name was Exx Tentacion, which was the victim in this case, prior to him being murdered, he had posted on Instagram. If anybody kills me, I'm snitching right now, it's Champing Puppie. I'm paraphrasing, but something to that effect, right? So, imagine, the decedent said prior to, to his death, if anybody kills me, it's Champagne Poppy, which is Drake's Instagram name.

I laid out in extreme detail all of my defense witnesses list, which included many rappers, because at the end of the day, the victim in this case was a rapper. He had feuds, ongoing public feuds with not only Drake, but a lot of rappers that are either signed to OVO or related to Drake in some way, including 600 Breezy, which is a Chicago-based rapper and a rapper that's from Toronto by the name of, he goes by top five, which is Hassan Ali. And I had to lay that all out in detail. The court was fully aware of my theory of defense. Prior to that, I found a motion to perpetuate the testimony of Livingston Allen, which goes by the name of DJ Academics, because DJ Academics was friends with X and had posted

long YouTube, you know, content regarding this beef. He actually posted YouTube saying that he was on the phone with X discussing the issue and the beef that he had with Drake. And specifically, X had either said or posted something about Drake's mom, and he had posted a picture of a Drake lookalike with semen on his face. and he wanted DJ Academics to post it on on his own site and he said I'm not going to do that and in that conversation DJ academic says that you better be careful because even though like and I'm paraphrasing again even though he's not a gangster you may be pushing him as a reaction

to that conversation X goes and says that he takes it out off the post off of his website or off of IG and he he says that his Instagram was hacked. I laid that out in my motion to perpetuate the testimony, which a motion to perpetuate testimony is when you have a witness that is relevant to your defense and that lives beyond the jurisdictional limits of the court and that you feel that you're not going to be able to bring them into court. So I'm basically asking the court to allow me to go to California or wherever I have to go, depose this individual. And now with his deposition, if he doesn't show up, I could use it in my defense or in my case in chief, right? So I did that.

that argued it to the court and the court in a reaction basically said I'm not going to grant your motion to perpetuate testimony just take his devil let's just take it so okay I find I set a notice of hearing went and served um served Drake in his castle in Beverly Hills there's something that you mentioned that I want to talk about this so first of all there was this deposition that was taken of uh XXTentacion's mother Cleopatra bernard she testified that Enfroy had this ongoing feud with Mr. Graham, Aubrey Graham, Drake. She said this feud with Graham included throwing shots at Enfroy in lyrics from one of Graham's songs. You mentioned that controversial statement that he made, if anyone tries to kill me, it was champagne poppy.

The question I want to start with as we get into the Drake conversation, are you arguing? Were you arguing? Are his appell attorneys arguing that Drake was a part of this killing, that he was the one who did this? Or are you arguing that it should have just been allowed. You should have been allowed to present evidence to suggest there were other potential leads that law enforcement really didn't look at into this case. So again, what are exactly we're suggesting? Are you suggesting that Drake had a part in it or that just he wasn't looked into and it chose a sloppy investigation and not a fair trial? Well, well, in the brief and in what I was arguing in court is is the latter.

We are, a defendant has every right to defend himself and to show reasonable doubt wherever it may be and to fully investigate and articulate to a jury an alternate shooter defense or an alternate, you know, a defense for someone else, you know, committed this crime. Am I going to sit here and tell you that Drake was holding a gun and or Drake? But the facts, as they are stated by X's own mother, is that she knew about the beef with Drake and with Migos. She knew about the violence between Migos and her son, where there was a violent episode. She knew about 600 Breezy, which is a known, admitted gang member from Chicago going to South Florida and posting on,

on social media, saying that he's blicked up, which means that I have a gun, and she was concerned about it. She testified in the deple that she discussed it with her son. She testified that the reason that she wanted additional security with him, the day he died, was because of this beef with meagles and everything that we're discussing. So it was relevant. And for many months during the trial, you know, January, February, even February 7th of 2023, the judge is agreeing with me.

Okay, now there comes a moment and a hearing, he goes ahead and hires, Drake hires, after the judge enters a rule to show cause, basically saying a purge date. You have to appear for Depo on this day, or I'm going to do a rid of bodily attachment. He then goes and hires Brad Cohen, a friend of the show, a friend of mine as well, an excellent attorney, and Brad files several motions, motion to quiet. the subpoena and he files a motion for protective order we finally we go back and forth and the judge says in the first time that that Brad shows up to court he says you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna quash the rules or cause he's he's

hired counsel you guys can communicate and figure out when this step was gonna happen okay so we go back and forth we can't agree to it for for various reasons and I'm not gonna get into settlement negotiations on the show but we We can't agree. We go into court February 24th, I believe, on his motions. At that time, James Beard, which is the process server that served Drake, appeared as a witness. And I wanted to show video that he took of the actual attempted service where it shows Drake's bodyguards or the people that are in front of his house refusing to cooperate.

It showed one of the Drake's employees kicking the subpoena down the road that leads to his mansion and the judge didn't allow me to show that despite not allowing me to put forth that evidence the judge did a 180 from telling me to figure it out coordinated take the depot did a 180 told me why are you involving him granted the motion for the motion for protective order granted the motion to quash my my subpoena um allowed you know, Mr. Cohen to argue California law without having a California expert there. And basically kind of chastised me about, you know, why are you bringing them into it? And as a matter of fact, he even took, we had taken the deposition of one of X's relatives

regarding this beef and she denied it. And the court said it open court, you know, even, you know, his relative said that it didn't exist. And I said, yeah, well, she's lying because the. whole world knows about this beef. So for her to sit here and say that she didn't know about it is it's it's on her credibility. So despite all of this, he does a 180. He not only grants the motion for protective order, basically saying that I can now serve him again. Okay. And it quashes the subpoena, but the state attorney sensing there's blood in the water says, judge, I'm going to renew my motion to strike all his witnesses. Okay. Or tennis, no notice. And he

says, I'm not going to do that, but I am going to strike Mr. Graham. So he struck in the middle of the trial, he struck Drake from my witness list, which is completely inappropriate, considering the history of the case. Talk to me real quick about why you think the judge did this, because in the appellate brief, and correct me if I'm wrong, there is an accusation that the court might have been biased because of Drake's celebrity status. Correct me if that allegation is wrong. And In your opinion, why do you believe the court ultimately wouldn't allow the deposition of Drake? I'll say that Judge Usong was a complete gentleman to me, and it was a pleasure to try the case in front of him. I do think that he made various reversible errors.

And I think from the beginning, he made a lot of calls that were unconstitutional, not legal. This being one of them. I don't want to speculate as to why. But when you're dealing with someone like Drake, which he's not a celebrity, He's a super celebrity. He's on, he's like in the stratosphere of fame. So when a judge does a 180 like that, I'll all, you know, I'm like, I'll let the viewers or other people figure out why they think that it happened.

But I'm not going to, I'm not going to speculate as to why it happened. But no, no, I get that. I get that. I do want to ask you about this, because this is another part of the appeal. And that is with respect to the testimony of this gang expert, which was excluded in a pretrial hearing. And the defense, my understanding, wanted to call, uh, Jesse De La Cruz, who they had claimed, you had claimed, discovered visual evidence that Drake

could have had ties to the same organization as a co-defendant in this case, Robert Allen. And I believe the brief states, Dr. Cruz's research revealed photos of Mr. Graham throwing the same gang signs as Alan. And Alan is that accomplice, who I mentioned before, who testified against his co-defendants. But Cruz also revealed that people who knew Drake were allegedly seen in XXXTentation's neighborhood threatening him before he died. The brief read social media post showed the same known Graham associates were seen in Enfroy's neighborhood threatening him just prior to the murder.

And then they say even more revealing is this connection that Cruz made to Drake's song lyrics because shortly after XX was killed, the brief writes, Mr. Graham released a song entitled Triple X with suspicious lyrics. SMS triple X, that's the only time I shot below the neck. and Dr. Cruz found another connection between the murder and Drake's lyrics and the song I'm upset. The song I'm upset contains lyrics regarding Louis bags for body bags, the implication there being that Drake was referencing murder. But ultimately, Cruz was completely excluded from the trial and the jury did not hear any of his findings. Maricio, I have that right. And can you emphasize

that a little bit more? Can you explain that a little bit more? Yes. Okay, so Dr. Dela Cruz did profit of the court, everything that you've stated regarding the song lyrics, the fact that Drake was throwing gang signs that were the same gang signs that Alan was throwing up in different social media posts. The court strikes Dr. Dela Cruz, which is a known gang expert and well-known in his field, has testified over 150 times in trials. They allowed the state to put their own gang expert, Detective Polo, which really bolstered a lot of what Dr. Delacruz said regarding the necessity to bring out this testimony. I don't believe that based on Daubert, which is the case that we look at when analyzing whether an expert is, if it's appropriate for an expert

to testify, I don't believe that that was a legal call. I think it was error for him to do that and not allow us to put forth that testimony. And we put up pictures of Drake with Little Wayne, throwing up a Bloods Gang sign, and other evidence that Drake is out there flaunting gang ties. We put forth evidence of Hassan Ali, which is top five out there openly claiming on social media and video that he's Drake shooter. And part of the theory of defense is to show, listen,

Even though these people are entertainers, okay, there's, there's a, you know, a gang-related portion of it. There's a gang-related side to it. And X's own mother testified that she knew about this, that she knew about when 600 Breezy traveled from wherever he was, whether it's Chicago to South Florida. She knew about it. She talked to him about it. So this case had more than ample evidence and ample reason to involve a gang expert. To be clear, though, you were allowed to argue. that someone else could have been responsible for this killing because you questioned cross-examined Alan on cross-examination suggesting that he had this link to Drake. But my understanding is you're

arguing now that the trial court had put limits on your cross-examination of Allen. That violated your client's rights. Am I misunderstanding that? No, you're 100% correct. And they did it not only with Allen, but they did it all throughout the trial. With Alan, Alan admitted that his father, known drug dealer, known firearms dealer as the brief states, produced at least one of the guns that was used in this. When I asked him about his father and ties to Toronto and drug dealing, the state objected and the judge didn't allow that question. So it was a constant battle for me to try and basically do my job and show where reasonable doubt existed. With Allen, with Detective Kersio, the problem here is also that the state attorney on direct of the lead of Detective

Kersio, which was the lead detective in the case, she asked, do you have any information that Drake was involved in this? And that was before the court struck him. So whatever reasons may have existed, the moment that state attorney opens up their mouth and, and says that, now, now he's really at issue. Because now the- You're opening the door. You're opening the door to that coming in. Yes, yes. And not only was it an issue of her mentioning it with Detective Kirchio, but she asked him, you actually were able to verify whether or not Drake was in South Florida at the time. So in cross-examination, I asked, why would you have to verify if he was in South Florida? Why? Because he's a person of interest. And then I had to further ask, well, what did you do to, and I'm paraphrasing, what did you do to, you know, figure out whether he was in South Florida. He says, oh, my partner checked social media. So then I said, okay, so in a homicide case,

the best that Broward Sheriff's Office has for a jury is to peep his Instagram. You know, so it was basically breaking down the poor job that BSO did in their investigation and the tunnel vision that they had. And the fact that none of this was in the report. So you felt it important enough to check and verify whether or not it was in South Florida, but you never memorialized it in your report, and I'm not allowed to ask about it. Well, did he also testify, Detective Kersio,

that he learned that Enfroy XXX had been attacked by members of Migos, right? Migos is the rap group that's associated with Drake. Was that that came in? And again, you weren't able to expand upon that? Not only did that come in, but when I asked him in cross-examination, isn't it true that the first time that the name Migos comes out in this case was a month after the murder in the first conversation

that you yourself had with the cooperating co-defendant Alan. He didn't remember I had to refresh his recollection and right there in the in the in the in the in the in the transcribed uh conversation it basically showed that Alan the the the cooperator said the name megos in the first conversation that they had so it basically showed that I wasn't making this up like I'm not creating it the facts were there before I even ever alleged their involvement or filed a motion in court,

they're checking to see whether or not Drake is in South Florida. That was years before I mentioned it. And Alan is talking about Miggles to the lead detective a month after the murder. This is years before I filed anything regarding my theory of defense. So it was just to show that this is part of the case. Right. And the argument is that your client didn't get a fair shake, didn't get a fair trial, because you couldn't expand upon this and introduce this.

I want to move quickly past Drake and ask you a couple different questions about this appeal. Speaking about Detective Curcio, I understand that there's also an objection that your team has with him providing opinion testimony on cell phone data. Do you talk about that real quick what the issue was with Detective Curcio there?

Okay, well, the issue is that Broward County did not list a forensic expert. Okay, and they tried to put forth expert testimony through someone by the name of Canvani and through Detective Kersio. And the court allowed them to give expert opinion as to locations of cell phones and things that are specifically left to experts because when you list somebody as an expert, then that opens up the doors to discovery that we could take and take depositions of them and put us on notice to the specific. specific details that they're going to testify to as an expert. That didn't happen in this case. And what they allowed was this individual named Camp Vanny, they allowed him to basically put forth expert testimony,

and he put forth like a visual aid that he had prepared a week prior to his testimony. Okay, we were ambushed with it. And there he basically put, you know, little dots where he, where he testified where the cell phones were exactly. And they allowed Detective Curcio to also give that type of testimony. Now, Detective Curseo's extremely experienced. I'm not going to take that away from him. And this individual canvanny as well.

But just because your experience doesn't take away the obligation of Broward County to do things correctly. This is a murder case and a high profile I wanted that. There's a number of different other points that are raised in this appeal. there's things like allowing prior bad acts to come into this trial, allowing an out-of-court statement from defendant Newsom, which you argue was prejudicial, which his Williams defense attorneys are saying was prejudicial. If you can, what's another big area of appeal? Is it any of those two that you really think could be problematic? Why your client, again, again, I guess the idea is he deserves a new trial, right?

yes yeah yes and and those the two things that you mentioned are pretty egregious the one of the newsome is is really shocking like they basically um on redirect of detective cursio asked asked them questions and brought in a hearsay statement regarding a completely separate murder investigation that he that he says that he found without authenticating the cell phone and basically said that newsom had told somebody in some day app or something that he had buried money in his house. And so the judge buried money. He could be catching life and a really incriminating statement.

But Detective Kershiel didn't have to authenticate that. They didn't have to show what self when it came from. Basically, he just said, I saw this in another case. And the problem is is that my client is sitting at the same table with this individual that now the court has allowed this, you know, extremely prejudicial information to come. come in. So that was a humongous reversible error, in my opinion, that affected not only my client's case, but everybody that was sitting there at table, including all the co-defendants. Moving forward,

though, what can we expect in terms of a timeline of appeal? When will this be heard? When will this be decided? If a new trial is granted, how does that work? Because now it's about the timeline of events. What should we expect? You know what? I don't, I don't practice appellate law. And those are that I don't really want to give misleading answers to. So I don't want to give the wrong answers regarding appellate. I don't really do appellate law. But at some point, they're going to file a responsibly brief. And I think that the court could invite, I think the way is nowadays, the court can invite

oral argument. Before, when I first started practicing law, you had the right to give oral argument. I think now it's only by invitation when the appellate court wants to hear your arguments. but yeah I mean listen when I read this what this was an 11 week trial the jury was out eight days it's not like if it's not like if the jury didn't think about it and it came back in 90 minutes and convicted our client the jury struggled they had to have struggled because eight days is I've never had a case that the jury's been out that long and it was clear that they had questions and I really wasn't able to properly defend my client mr. Williams did not get a fair trial

when I read this, I think that there's like some kind of a defense mechanism when you try a case for 11 weeks that you start forgetting things. When I read this, it brought it all back and it, you know, it reminded me of really how unfair, unfair the judge was with Mr. Williams and the detrimental effects that it had for me to be able to properly defend my client. Well, listen, Maricio, I appreciate you coming on here, pleading your case, pleading for these facts that, excuse me, these arguments that your, his appellate, team will be making now to a higher court, breaking it down for us, because it can get a bit complicated in the weeds, but you really made it clear for us. So thank you so much. Maricio Padillo, Mr. Williams' lawyer. Thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Hesse. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple

podcast, 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 law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.