Michael Boatwright, Dedrick Williams and Trayvon Newsome have been convicted of murdering rapper XXXTentacion.
The three men were found guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery in court on Monday, and will each be handed mandatory life sentences at a later date.
It took the jury just over seven days to reach the verdicts, and all three defendants were reportedly unmoved as they were handcuffed and taken away after learning their fate.
The trial went on for over a month, and during the proceedings prosecutors showed surveillance video taken inside and outside Riva Motorsports in Fort Lauderdale — the murder site.
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Michael Boatwright, 28, Trayvon Newsome, 24 and Dedrick Williams, 26, were all convicted in the murder of up-and-coming star, XXXTentacion. (South Florida Sun Sentinel 2020)
XXXTentacion performs during the Rolling Loud Festival in downtown Miami on May 6, 2017. (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
They also shared cellphone videos the defendants took that showed them showing off large amounts of money just hours after XXXTentacion, real name Jahsah Onfroy, was murdered and robbed of $50,000 on June 18, 2018.
Their case was helped by Robert Allen, a man who was also allegedly involved with the robbery. Allen had already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year, and he testified against his former friends.
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Because Allen hasn’t been sentenced and the harshness of his sentence depended partially on how much help he provided towards a conviction of the other three men on the murder charges, the defense attorneys questioned his story, accusing him of lying to get himself less time in prison.
Michael Boatwright was named as the shooter. (South Florida Sun Sentinel 2020)
The defense also claimed that a proper investigation hadn’t taken place before the defendants were charged. They even cited the fact that Drake hadn’t been looked at as a suspect, even though he and XXXTentacion had been publicly feuding, as an example of the lack of police work that had been done on the case.
As the jury deliberated, they asked two separate times to look at text messages from Boatwright, the man specified as the actual shooter by prosecutors, from the day of the shooting. Those texts showed that he sent several messages to several different people — one notable text was about somehow getting a car, and prosecutors noted that the car the killers used in the act had been rented from an app.
Dedrick Williams was accused of driving the SUV that fled the scene after the murder and robbery. (South Florida Sun Sentinel 2020)
Just an hour after XXXTentacion was robbed and killed, Boatwright texted someone, directing them to “Tell my brother I got the money for the new phone.”
Another text sent soon after contained a screenshot of an article breaking the news of the murder.
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On the day of the murder, XXXTentacion pulled out of Riva Motorsports and was blocked in by another car. As seen in the surveillance video obtained by prosecutors, two masked men got out of that car with guns and went to the driver’s window. One man shot the rapper several times, then they both grabbed a bag full of money from the car and fled the scene.
Trayvon Newsome was accused of robbing XXXTentacion and holding him at gunpoint. (South Florida Sun Sentinel 2020)
While Boatwright was named as the shooter, Newsome was fingered as the other man who accosted XXXTentacion. Williams was allegedly the driver, and Allen was inside the car as well.
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According to Allen’s testimony, the four friends had made the decision to commit a robbery that day, and while they were at Riva Motorsports looking for a mask to aid in their nefarious scheme, they saw the up-and-coming star and decided he would make a good target. They all waited in the car they’d rented, then ambushed him when the opportunity arose.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
