New York prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence rapper Fetty Wap to up to nine years behind bars for his part in a bi-coastal drug ring, labeling him a “large-scale narcotics trafficker.”
The hip hop star — whose real name is Willie Junior Maxwell II — pleaded guilty in August in a Central Islip federal case accusing him of peddling 25 kilograms of cocaine in New Jersey early in the pandemic.
The 31-year-old “Trap Queen” rhymer, a Paterson native, copped to one count of conspiracy to possess and distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine.
He faces a minimum of five years and a maximum 40 years at his Wednesday sentencing.
He’s been locked up since August.
Prosecutors want him behind bars for between seven years and three months and nine years, alleging he was a “large-scale narcotics trafficker” in the early months of the pandemic.
The rapper was accused — along with five others — of driving to Long Island roughly six times and buying cocaine by the kilogram and then reselling it in both the Garden State and in New York in the spring of 2020.
He was arrested on Oct. 29, 2021, and had been free on bail until he was accused of violating conditions of his release by waiving a gun at a person during a Dec. 11, 2021, FaceTime call — calling the person “a rat” and threatening to kill him.
Maxwell took part “in a massive drug trafficking organization that flooded Long Island, as well as the surrounding areas, with a tremendous amount of controlled substances,” prosecutors said in a Thursday letter to the judge.
The feds claim Maxwell has admitted selling crack cocaine before — in 2014 in New Jersey — and that he “continues to use, his fame, sizable platform and influence to glamorize the drug trade,” the court papers say.
Even Maxwell’s 2014 hit “Trap Queen,” which rocketed him to fame, was written about an ex-girlfriend who helped him sell coke in Paterson, prosecutors say.
But in papers filed Wednesday, Maxwell’s lawyer Elizabeth Macedonia asked the judge to sentence her client to the minimum of five years, claiming he’s accepted “full responsibility for his crimes” and that “his conduct here should not define him.”
Macedonia said Maxwell had a hard life — between getting bullied for having only one eye and growing up poor in his crime-plagued hometown — that led to him do drugs and live out of a car before he hit it big.
Macedonia said Maxwell is now a devoted father to his nine children — by seven different women — and that when he became financially successful, he helped to support all of his friends, family and kids.
When the pandemic hit and his income dropped amid a halt in performances, Maxwell turned to selling drugs to maintain his lifestyle and everyone he financially supported, Macedonia wrote.
Around this time, Maxwell was also going through a divorce and his manager was allegedly stealing money from him.
“While the bills kept coming in, the money to pay them was running out,” Macedonia wrote. “Suddenly it felt like life was going in reverse and he became ashamed when he began to struggle to keep up the lifestyle that he created for so many.”
Before Maxwell was arrested, his close friend was fatally shot and his 4-year-old daughter died, Macedonia wrote.
At an August hearing, Macedonia explained Maxwell made the threatening FaceTime call after someone posted a photo of his late daughter with the caption, “I”m happy she’s dead because her father is a rat.”
Since his arrest, he has “worked extremely hard to set money aside for his child support obligations,” Macedonia said, adding he’s taken all the gigs he could to save and prepare for time in jail.
During his incarceration, she wrote, Maxwell has been “subjected to the harshest of conditions brought on as a result of institutional incompetence, corruption and the coronavirus pandemic.”
The prison has refused to put Maxwell with the general population, or provide him with a CPAP machine to help his sleep apnea, Macedonia claims.
“Three years has passed since this crime was committed and Mr. Maxwell realizes the terrible mistake he made,” Macedonia said. “He is truly sorry for the loss and hurt he has caused.”
