Grammy-nominated rapper Kodak Black appeared in court in Orlando, Florida, on a felony drug charge stemming from an incident last November in which gunshots were allegedly fired near a children’s educational building.
The 28-year-old musician, whose legal name is Bill Kahan Kapri, turned himself in to the Orange County jail on Wednesday, multiple media reports said.
An arrest warrant states that Kapri engaged officers who responded to a report of gunfire near Children’s Safety Village in November. Police said they arrived to find a number of people surrounding two SUVs, a Lamborghini, and a BMW.
Officers smelled cannabis and found during a search “a pink pill” weighing about 25 milligrammes that tested positive for methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the synthetic psychoactive drug known as MDMA. The pill was allegedly inside a pink bag with documents bearing Kapri’s name, along with $37,000 in cash.
Kapri is charged with one felony count of trafficking MDMA of less than 200 milligrammes, which carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of three years, a maximum of 30 years, and a fine of up to $50,000.
The rapper’s lawyer, Bradford Cohen, told TMZ that the arrest had a “weak legal basis” and that Kodak was not in possession of any drugs at the time of the search. Cohen asserted that Kapri was not in the car at the time of the search, was not in possession of any bottle found, and that while he may have touched it, it was never in his possession.
Kodak Black has a long history of arrests and was sentenced to a three-year prison term on a firearms charge in 2019 before being pardoned by former President Donald Trump in January 2021, one of the final acts of Trump’s first term.
