{"id":10651,"date":"2026-05-11T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ynw-melly-denied-bond-again-in-long-delayed-murder-case\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T08:00:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:00:03","slug":"ynw-melly-denied-bond-again-in-long-delayed-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ynw-melly-denied-bond-again-in-long-delayed-murder-case\/","title":{"rendered":"YNW Melly Denied Bond Again in Long-Delayed Murder Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tYNW Melly has been denied release on bond yet again as he awaits trial in Florida in a long-running double murder case \u2014 a decision that his lawyers say deserves \u201cdisbelief and outrage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a ruling on Wednesday (May 6), Judge Martin Fein refused to revisit earlier rulings that the rapper (Jamell Demons) must stay locked up ahead of trial. Melly has already been in jail for more than seven years while awaiting a verdict in the long-delayed case.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cThis court continues to find the proof of guilt is evident and the presumption of guilt is great,\u201d the Broward County judge wrote in the court order, obtained by Billboard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tMelly was arrested in 2019 on accusations that he and another man shot and killed his close friends Anthony \u201cYNW Sakchaser\u201d Williams and Christopher \u201cYNW Juvy\u201d Thomas, Jr. in 2018. But the case has been repeatedly delayed, and the trial is currently not scheduled until January 2027.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rapper recently hired new lawyers, Drew Findling<\/strong> and Carey Haughwout<\/strong>, who quickly moved to revisit the issue of bond. In court filings and at a closely watched hearing last month, they argued he had been subjected to \u201cdehumanizing conditions,\u201d including solitary confinement since 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard<\/em> on Thursday (May 7), Findling and Haughwout sharply criticized the judge for having \u201callowed those conditions to continue without even acknowledging the shocking circumstances under which he has been forced to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the collective decades of experience shared by this defense team, we have never encountered such cruel treatment comparable to what Mr. Demons has endured,\u201d the rapper\u2019s lawyers say. \u201cMr. Demons remains an innocent man in the eyes of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for the Broward State Attorney\u2019s Office declined to comment on a pending case.<\/p>\n

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\n\tIn technical terms, Melly\u2019s lawyers were asking the judge to reevaluate the strength of the evidence. They argued the case had been weakened since Melly\u2019s initial arrest, citing a 2025 appellate court order that suppressed evidence obtained from an overbroad search warrant.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Wednesday\u2019s decision, the judge said he remained unmoved \u2014 even after he \u201creviewed the entire electronic court file in the present case\u201d and considered new witness testimony at a closely-watched hearing last month.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis court continues to find that the state\u2019s evidence is arguably sufficient to convict and is not contradicted in a material respect such that there is a substantial question of fact as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce a fast-rising hip-hop star, Melly was charged in February 2019 with the grisly YNW double murder. Prosecutors say Demons and Cortlen \u201cYNW Bortlen\u201d Henry carried out the killings inside a car after a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., recording session, then staged a drive-by shooting to make it look like the pair of friends had been murdered by others.<\/p>\n

\n\tMelly has long maintained his innocence, but the case has been endlessly delayed \u2014 first by COVID-19, then by a long-running death penalty appeal, then by a hung-jury mistrial, and most recently by another appeal over evidence. Last year, the judge postponed the trial until January 2027 \u2014 a stunning further delay in the slow-moving case.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their statement to Billboard<\/em> on Thursday, Findling and Haughwout said they had been contacted by others in the legal community who had \u201cexpressed disbelief and outrage at the conditions imposed in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe state failed to secure a conviction once, and we remain confident it will fail again,\u201d the lawyers said. \u201cUnfortunately, it now appears that only a jury\u2019s verdict compelling his release will bring an end to the years of unnecessary and unjust punishment he has already suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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YNW Melly has been denied release on bond yet again as he awaits trial in Florida in a long-running double murder case \u2014 a decision that his lawyers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2792,294,2791,7926,6618,2528,6617],"class_list":["post-10651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bond","tag-case","tag-denied","tag-longdelayed","tag-melly","tag-murder","tag-ynw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}