Over the weekend, a Dallas Homicide Detective, Patty Belew, appeared on KDFW Fox 4 and made some serious accusations against SpotemGottem, real name Nehemiah Harden. The allegations, which included that he was involved in murder, soon went viral. The rapper’s lawyer, Raven Liberty, is now making it clear that the accusations and the story surrounding them are simply not true.
Liberty has described the officer’s accusations as libelous and said that he intends to file a lawsuit. According to detective Belew, SpotemGottem was wanted by Dallas police for his alleged involvement in a 2020 homicide. The detective provided a video for the news channel in which she claimed the murder suspects were clearly featured.
The video that was shown appears to be from the rapper’s video for his unreleased track “Again.” It doesn’t really seem to raise any suspicions for rap fans who are well aware of the type of lyrics that feature in hardcore rap videos, but it seems it piqued the interest of the detective. One of the lines states, “Fck the law and all you btches/They don’t even know who did it.”
According to Belew, the video was used to send a statement that murder had been committed and that the perpetrators had gotten away with it. “That is very bold. You know that is like stepping like ‘Hey we did this and the police don’t even know who did it and we’re going to get away with murdering this young man,” she said.
According to the 19-year-old’s lawyer, the Florida rapper is not one of the suspects in the unsolved 2020 homicide. She added that the entire scenario stems from the detective’s lack of due diligence. She used part of a statement on the matter to make her intentions clear for her client.
“The libelous statements made by Det. Belew originated from her misunderstanding about a YouTube’ rap video’ (in fact, a livestream) that Det. Belew claimed was about the death of Reginald Agnew, Jr and taunted the Dallas Police Department,” Liberty wrote in a statement which was given to Complex.
Liberty also confirmed in the statement that police officials had contacted her to let her office know that the rapper had been cleared of any suspicion in the 2020 murder.
“Finally, this morning, the Dallas Police Department made contact with my office confirming that Mr. Harden is cleared in the investigation of the murder of Reginal Agnew,” part of the statement read.
She also chastised Fox4News and the police department for not apologizing for the slanderous debacle.
“Further, Fox4News failed to conduct any fact-checking prior to airing this malicious television interview that named Mr. Harden as a key figure in a murder investigation. To date, neither the Dallas Police Department or Fox4News have issued an apology or retracted the fraudulent and damaging story,” she added.
She further added that the incident has since gone viral, generating interest around the world for all the wrong reasons.
“This story has now gone viral around the world with follow-on press reports in the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and India, in addition to millions of impressions made through social media.”
It is because of this that legal action must be taken, she added.
“Given the irreparable harm to my client’s reputation, the foot-dragging in acknowledging their outright false statements, and the outright negligence by speaking authoritatively on a homicide investigation prior to conducting basic due diligence, I am in the process of filing a lawsuit.”
Complex also indicated that Detective Belew herself has already admitted that SpotemGottem is no longer a person of interest in the 2020 homicide investigation. In spite of this, KDFW Fox 4 has not retracted the video news coverage, which is no doubt still doing damaging to his burgeoning career.
You can check out the clip below.
