{"id":7749,"date":"2025-09-09T22:21:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T22:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/co-defendant-ynw-bortlen-avoids-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T22:21:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T22:21:57","slug":"co-defendant-ynw-bortlen-avoids-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/co-defendant-ynw-bortlen-avoids-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Co-Defendant YNW Bortlen Avoids Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tYNW Melly\u2019s co-defendant in his double-murder case, YNW Bortlen, has taken a plea deal from Florida prosecutors, avoiding a jury trial a day before it was set to begin.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt a hearing Tuesday (Sept. 9) in Broward County court, Bortlen (Cortlen Henry) agreed to plead no contest to four lesser counts in the case, including accessory after the fact and witness tampering. In exchange, prosecutors dropped two first-degree murder charges.<\/p>\n

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\n\tUnder the deal, the judge sentenced Bortlen to 10 years in prison followed by six years on probation \u2014 far less than the multiple life sentences he was facing if convicted. He will also be credited for time served, which could heavily reduce the sentence after Bortlen spent years waiting for trial.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlong with Melly, Bortlen was charged with murder in February 2019 over accusations that the duo shot and killed Anthony \u201cYNW Sakchaser\u201d Williams and Christopher \u201cYNW Juvy\u201d Thomas, Jr., two of their companions. Prosecutors say Bortlen was driving the car where the shooting happened, then helped Melly make it look like a drive-by shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough Melly\u2019s trial has been delayed until January 2027, Bortlen\u2019s was set to kick off on Wednesday (Sept. 10). At the hearing, after accepting Bortlen\u2019s plea, Judge Martin S. Fein expressed outright surprise at the favorable terms of the deal: \u201cI\u2019m not quite sure how your lawyers managed to do this, but I wish you good luck sir,\u201d Judge Fein told him.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the plea deal, it\u2019s unclear the extent to Bortlen will cooperate against his former friend. Though the agreement does not require him to testify, it does require him to give a sworn statement, known as a proffer, to prosecutors explaining his role in the shooting, the Broward State Attorney\u2019s Office tells Billboard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut at Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Judge Fein seemed to indicate that Bortlen was not required to incriminate Melly with that statement: \u201cYour answers to any of those questions, whatever they may be, have no bearing on me and have no bearing on this negotiated resolution,\u201d Fein said. \u201cIn other words, the deal you negotiated is the deal you negotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tBortlen\u2019s attorney, Fred Haddad<\/strong>, and a spokesperson for prosecutors did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce a fast-rising hip-hop star, Melly has sat in jail in Broward County since 2019, awaiting a verdict on the murder charges. That 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 month, a judge postponed the trial until January 2027 \u2014 nearly eight years after the rapper was first arrested.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors say Demons and Bortlen carried out the killings inside a car after an Oct. 26 recording studio session in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. They then allegedly staged a drive-by shooting to make it look like the pair of friends had been murdered by others, including driving around with the bodies, before Bortlen took them to an emergency room.<\/p>\n

\n\tMelly has long maintained his innocence and has pleaded not guilty. Following the latest delay, he fired his lawyers and replaced them with Drew Findling<\/strong>, a veteran Atlanta criminal attorney with a who\u2019s-who list of powerhouse hip-hop clients including Cardi B, Offset, Lil Nas X, Lil Durk, GloRilla and more.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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YNW Melly\u2019s co-defendant in his double-murder case, YNW Bortlen, has taken a plea deal from Florida prosecutors, avoiding a jury trial a day before it was set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[267,6754,2077,342,6617],"class_list":["post-7749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-avoids","tag-bortlen","tag-codefendant","tag-trial","tag-ynw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749","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=7749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}