| In SDNY Tekashi 6ix 9ine Co-Defendant
Lovick Says He Drew Gun in Self Defense, Then
Recants As Guilty Plea Accepted
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon,
Periscope
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
May 9 – When Fuguan Lovick
appeared in court shackled on
May 9 to plea guilty in the
Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods case
best known for the involvement
of rapper Tekashi 6ix 9ine
a/k/a Daniel Hernandez, it
began as a routine
allocution.
But when Lovick,
also known as Fu Banga,
offered his own description of
what he did on April 21, 2018
at the Barclays Center in
Brooklyn, U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of
New York Judge Paul A.
Engelmayer did not accept
it.
Lovick said that
outside the door of a boxer, a
group ran at him; he drew a
gun and fired it into the air
to make them step
back.
Judge Engelmayer
said this allocution wouldn't
do, with its implication of
self defense and failure to
mention the Nine Trey Gangsta
Blood organization. He urged
Lovick, still in chains, to
spend ten minutes with his
defense lawyer Jeffrey G.
Pittell to discuss a prepared
allocation which would jibe
with counts six and seven of
the superseding indictment to
which he was ostensibly
pleading
guilty.
Pittell, with
whom Inner City Press spoke
just outside the courtroom,
had previously filed a motion
to suppress and to dismiss. He
had an interesting argument
that the New York State crime
of menacing - trying to cause
the fear of bodily harm -
would not fit even the
superseding lesser included
charge to which Lovick was
pleading guilty. Pittell told
Inner City Press this is an
issue of first
impression.
But as Judge
Engelmayer put it when after
two breaks he accepted
Lovick's
guilty plea, lawyers can
always make arguments but it
was his view that there was no
real claim of self-defense in
this case. Pittell referred to
a video of the incident but
Judge Engelmayer said he had
not seen it. Venue was also
questioned; that too was
smoothed over.
As more and more
of the initial defendants in
the overall USA v. Jones
/ Tekashi 6ix 9ine case
plead guilty, to some the
remaining question is the
pleading-out of the
defendant(s) who are NOT
affiliated with the Nine Trey
Gangsta Bloods. Inner City
Press will continue to cover
this case. For now, a bit more
on Patreon, here.
For more on this case, including
the April 30, 2019 multiple defendant discovery
conference before Judge Engelmayer, click here.
***
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