YNW Melly was charged with witness tampering on Wednesday as the state arrested his friend and co-accused, Cortlen ‘YNW Bortlen’ Henry, on Tuesday.
There’s a lot of heat being placed on the state attorney’s office and prosecutors, and it seems that the state in turn is putting heat on Melly and his co-accused as the date for YNW Melly’s second first-degree trial looms closer.
According to news reports on Wednesday, the witness tampering reports concern Melly’s ex-girlfriend Mariah Hamilton, who is the daughter of Felicia Holmes, one of the witnesses who appeared for the prosecution during Melly’s first trial.
According to the Sun Sentinel, the charge concerns his first trial, which ended in a hung jury. Miami-Dade police filed the charges against Melly on Wednesday morning just after YNW Bortlen was taken into custody on Tuesday following his being out on bond.
Details about Melly’s charges have not been shared, but they appear to be linked to the same charge YNW Bortlen is facing. The arrest warrant for Bortlen claims that from April 10 to July 22, 2023, he, along with others, “unlawfully and knowingly engage in misleading conduct toward another person with the intent to cause or induce [redacted] to withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document or other object or to cause or induce [redacted] to evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness,” the warrant read.
The document said the witness in question was to appear at the jury trial of YNW Melly, which took place in July.
The charges against Melly and Bortlen come at an interesting as attorneys for both defendants have joined more than a dozen motions alleging that the prosecution has committed several Brady violations and that the main investigating officer, Mark Moretti, offered to fabricate evidence in the trial.
Melly appeared in court to answer to the witness tampering charge on Wednesday. His attorney, Daniel Aaronson, said there was no probable cause in the trial.
“I don’t think there is probable cause here but the document shows in the probable cause affidavit that other people did things but it doesn’t say what Mr. Demons did. There’s one passage in it where somebody overheard him say something while somebody else is on the phone, other than that, this is other people doing things, so I don’t think there’s probable cause,” Counsel said.
The judge, however, disagreed and held that there is probable cause. Melly is currently incarcerated and was sent back to jail as bond is not on the table for him.
In the meantime, Melly’s ex-girlfriend was featured in a Law & Crime interview two weeks ago, where it was said that Mariah Hamilton and her mother, Felicia Holmes, were “threatened and bullied” by Detective Moretti with charges of accessory after the fact. Holmes appeared in court with an ankle monitor.
Her daughter, however, says she is “wanted” by cops. “I’ve been laying low and trying to get the warrant lifted,” she said.
Hamilton also filed a complaint that Moretti had bullied and harassed her.
“When the situation first happened I was threatened. I was 17 about to turn 18. They came to my house, they were telling me that they were gonna arrest me with accessory after the fact. My mom didn’t know what to do. I was trying to go to the military at the time so I had to just tell them what they wanted to hear so they could leave me alone,” Hamilton said.
She claims that cops believed that she knew more than she was telling them, given she was in a relationship with Melly. Melly is accused of being the mastermind and triggerman who executed his two friends, while Bortlen is accused of driving the car the men were killed in and later lying to cops that it was a drive-by shooting.
Hamilton also says that she is not absent because she was paid off by YNW Melly, as hinted by the prosecution in Melly’s first trial.
While Holmes was on the stand, prosecutor Kristine Bradley questioned her about whether Melly spent money on her and her daughter or bought things for them. However, Holmes was at best a hostile witness, which the prosecution moved to the judge, but the defense objected that it would be prejudicial to the defendant rather than probative.
In that interview, Hamilton also denied that she had been in touch with the rapper since before his arrest and said she had never heard of the rapper being part of a gang or committing any type of violence.
