A federal judge has sentenced Anthony “Harv” Ellison, the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods member who kidnapped Tekashi 6ix9ine, to 24 years behind bars and five years of supervised release thereafter.
Ellison’s decades-long sentence arrives a little over a year following his three-week-long trial in October of 2019. A New York jury found the 33-year-old guilty of kidnapping in aid of racketeering as well as maiming and assault in aid of racketeering. The former charge refers to his July of 2018 kidnapping of Tekashi 6ix9ine, whose full name is Daniel Hernandez.
Prosecutors showed video (captured with in-vehicle cameras installed by 6ix9ine’s driver, who joined Hernandez in cooperating with authorities) of the late-night episode – including audio of Ellison threatening to shoot the “Gooba” artist – during the trial. The chilling footage is available on the web, and Tekashi stated under oath that he turned over expensive jewelry to the thieves (Ellison and another party) before managing to escape.
The aforementioned maiming and assault charge against Ellison stemmed from his lacerating the face of a victim (not Hernandez) in October of 2018. Prosecutors emphasized during the trial that the victim was left permanently scarred (from his chin to his ear) by the attack, and U.S. District Judge Paul Adam Engelmayer emphasized the brutal nature of the crime when issuing the sentence. Additionally, Judge Engelmayer sentenced Ellison’s co-defendant (and fellow high-ranking Nine Trey member), Geoffrey Berman, to 17 years in prison back in February of this year.
At the time of publishing, Tekashi 6ix9ine hadn’t addressed Ellison’s sentence on social media. About one month back, the Brooklyn native revealed that he’d suffered an overdose of Hydroxycut and caffeine, which resulted in a two-night hospital stay. Moreover, the 24-year-old indicated that he’d started taking the weight-loss supplement after cracking the 200-pound mark, besides attributing his absence from Twitter and Instagram to a desire to continue slimming down.
With the rapper having published just one message since September, featuring a photo taken in Dubai before the pandemic and his post-prison probation, it appears that the dieting process is ongoing – and that a comment on Ellison’s nearly quarter-century sentence could arrive when he resumes posting.
Separately, Tekashi 6ix9ine is facing a trio of multimillion-dollar lawsuits. The first, a $5.3 million complaint, alleges that the rapper violated a performance contract and played a separate gig, leaving the original venue with over 3,000 disappointed (and predictably angry) fans. Fashion Nova is also suing the “Trollz” creator for allegedly accepting a $225,000 advance as part of an Instagram-promotion deal, but failing to hold up his end of the bargain.
Lastly, an unidentified woman alleges in a $150 million suit that she suffered serious injuries after being struck by a stray bullet in a 2018 “revenge shooting” that Tekashi allegedly ordered.