HARRISBURG, Pa. — (AP) — Rapper Meek Mill, who spent most of his grownup life on probation following a teenage arrest, celebrated the newest twist in his authorized case Friday after he was pardoned by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf.
“I obtained pardoned immediately,” the 35-year-old rapper born Robert Williams tweeted, noting he has come a great distance.
Beneath a photograph of the pardon on Instagram, the Philadelphia rapper-turned-entrepreneur, who has been energetic in felony justice reform for years, vowed to maintain doing extra for his neighborhood.
Wolf signed his closing 369 pardons this week, including to his Pennsylvania document of variety of pardons granted since he took workplace in 2015. Williams was pardoned of gun and drug costs.
At a 2008 trial, a decide discovered Williams responsible of drug and gun costs and sentenced him to about one to 2 years in jail adopted by 10 years of probation.
The case got here to a head in 2017, when the decide sentenced Williams to 2 to 4 years in jail for violating probation, citing a failed drug take a look at, failure to adjust to an order limiting his journey and two unrelated arrests. The decide issued the ruling regardless of a prosecutor and a probation officer recommending that Williams not be incarcerated.
Williams spent months in jail earlier than he was launched, and a Pennsylvania appeals court docket overturned his conviction in 2019 as a result of new proof undermined the credibility of the arresting officer. The following month, he pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor gun cost in a deal that resolved the 2007 arrest.