The 10-year prison sentence of Jimmy Carlton Winfrey, the man who shot the tour bus of renowned rapper Lil Wayne in Atlanta, has been overturned.
According to reports, the Cobb County judge in charge of the case overstepped her bounds by forcing the accused of taking a plea deal and threatening him with a harsher sentence if he goes to trial.
Jimmy Carlton Winfrey Gets A Second Chance
The Supreme Court in Georgia handed the decision on Friday, June 29. Winfrey will remain in custody while his case returns to the courts in Cobb County.
"There was a little screaming of joy, but it was a little difficult to tell over the telephone," his lawyer, Steven Sadow, said in a statement to the press.
Winfrey has already admitted to the crime, but the reversal will give him another chance to choose between taking another plea deal or going to trial.
Jimmy Carlton Winfrey, Lil Wayne Feud
Winfrey, better known as Peewee Roscoe, was the tour manager of Birdman (born Bryan Williams) who has a long-running feud with Lil Wayne (born Dwayne Carter). During a performance in Atlanta, Winfrey got into an argument with the "Sucker For Pain" rapper outside a nightclub prior to the shooting.
Hours later, Winfrey allegedly pulled up beside Lil Wayne's tour bus along the Cobb County highway and repeatedly shot at the vehicle. He was indicted with 27 charges including six on the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, which carried a maximum of 10 years in prison plus 10 years in probation, reported The Rolling Stone.
Winfrey was hesitant to plead guilty to the gang-related charges because he was afraid it would affect his chances of parole. However, Winfrey's attorney said that the Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark pressured him into taking the plea deal.
"This opportunity is going away," said the judge. "Go to trial and you get convicted, there's not going to be any of me being concerned about when you parole out. And if you want to look around and see what happens to people in gangs in Cobb County, Georgia, you can look at what happened last week to the guy who went to trial and got convicted."
The man she was referring to was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Birdman denied any involvement to the shooting. In an interview, the Cash Money executive insisted that he did not hear about the incident until after it happened. He also referred to Lil Wayne as his child and said that, despite the feud, he would never have wanted anyone to harm the rapper.
" Any n**** gonna bust a gun at Lil Wayne, I got a problem with that," he said. "I'd rather a n**** pop at me than pop at my child."
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