Drug Trafficker Avoids Prison Despite Incriminating Rap Lyrics..
Here's one you don't hear everyday. A Ghanaian college student who was accused of attempting to smuggle over $150,000 in heroin was acquitted yesterday by a Brooklyn jury despite some pretty damning evidence.
Apparently, the accused, Mohammed Amadu, 26, had penned a series of rap lyrics on his iPhone bragging about the exploits and being self-congratulatory about his skills as a courier. Prosecutors were banking that the detail-oriented lyrics would be enough to put Amadu away, but jurors were swayed to believe the defense's argument that he was simply carrying the luggage as a favor to a friend and had no clue that drugs were inside.
"Still on the same mission," wrote Amudu on his phone during a long plane ride from Accra, Ghana with the drugs on his person. "Tryna get that good money and I ain't quittin."
Amadu held strong with the point that he had shown bad judgment by blindly agreeing to bring over the bag for one of his classmates as a favor, but maintained his innocence. Jurors said that the prosecution couldn't simply bank on rap lyrics. "There were too many holes in the government's case," said a female juror to the New York Post.
"We all travel and we take bags for other people." At the court house, Amadu's family members of Ghana broke out into tears and applause when the verdict was announced.
"I'm going to sit him down and give him some elderly wisdom," Amadu's grandmother said. "He has to change his friends and listen to his parents."
Here's one you don't hear everyday. A Ghanaian college student who was accused of attempting to smuggle over $150,000 in heroin was acquitted yesterday by a Brooklyn jury despite some pretty damning evidence.
Apparently, the accused, Mohammed Amadu, 26, had penned a series of rap lyrics on his iPhone bragging about the exploits and being self-congratulatory about his skills as a courier. Prosecutors were banking that the detail-oriented lyrics would be enough to put Amadu away, but jurors were swayed to believe the defense's argument that he was simply carrying the luggage as a favor to a friend and had no clue that drugs were inside.
"Still on the same mission," wrote Amudu on his phone during a long plane ride from Accra, Ghana with the drugs on his person. "Tryna get that good money and I ain't quittin."
Amadu held strong with the point that he had shown bad judgment by blindly agreeing to bring over the bag for one of his classmates as a favor, but maintained his innocence. Jurors said that the prosecution couldn't simply bank on rap lyrics. "There were too many holes in the government's case," said a female juror to the New York Post.
"We all travel and we take bags for other people." At the court house, Amadu's family members of Ghana broke out into tears and applause when the verdict was announced.
"I'm going to sit him down and give him some elderly wisdom," Amadu's grandmother said. "He has to change his friends and listen to his parents."
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