The incarcerated rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has had a request to finish his prison sentence from home due to the coronavirus denied.
According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, a judge has denied Tekashi's (real name Daniel Hernandez) request to leave prison early and complete the rest of his sentence while under house arrest, after being diagnosed with bronchitis and sinusitis in October. Since the COVID-19 virus is particularly threatening to those with respiratory problems, this could put him at serious risk.
Watch the US Surgeon General's recent speech on the coronavirus:Hernandez's defense attorney Lance Lazarro claims that he had been complaining of shortness of breath, but was not permitted to be taken to a hospital despite recommendations from the authorities at the private prison he is imprisoned in.
However, US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer claimed that he lacked the authority to permit Hernandez's release, but stated that he would issue ‘instructive guidance’ for the Bureau of Prisons to use in his case.
Engelmayer wrote: "Had the Court known that sentencing Mr. Hernandez to serve the final four months of his term in a federal prison would have exposed him to a heightened health risk, the Court would have directed that these four months be served instead in home confinement."
The 23-year-old had a long history of legal issues, pleading guilty to a felony count of the use of a minor in a sexual performance in 2015, before being arrested in 2018 on racketeering, weapons, and drug charges.
Per The New York Times, Hernandez pled guilty to nine separate charges on February 1, 2019, and faced a possible mandatory sentence of 47 years in prison as a result. However, he was later granted a lenient sentence of only two years for testifying against certain members of the Nine Trey Gang which he was affiliated with.
