The Baton Rouge Police must give back what isn’t rightfully theirs. Local media outlets reported that a judge in the Louisiana capital ordered authorities in that city to return more than $47,000 in cash and several jewelry pieces they took from rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again after he was arrested during a video shoot earlier this year.
The 21-year-old’s attorney, James Manasseh, argued that the taking of his client’s money was unconstitutional. The Advocate reported, “One of [YoungBoy] ‘s attorneys had argued in a court filing that the seizure and detention of the cash were ‘illegal and unconstitutional’ because the state did not have sufficient evidence to support the confiscation of non-contraband property.”
After a brief hearing on Thursday, Dec. 17, Judge Tiffany Foxworth sided with the rapper’s legal team, claiming that the attainment of the funds was “illegal and unconstitutional.” Judge Foxworth ordered Baton Rouge Police Department to return the seized cash, jewelry, and a cashier’s check back to the “Make No Sense” rapper or his legal team. The East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office did not object to the motion to release seized property.
The rapper’s items were initially confiscated on Sept. 28. YoungBoy, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden, was detained along with 15 after police responded to an anonymous report of a large group of people brandishing firearms and filming a video along the 3800 block of Chippewa Street.
Officers said they found YoungBoy and multiple members of two street gangs, “Never Broke Again” and “Bottom Boy Guerilla,” in an abandoned lot around 4:30 p.m. They obtained a search warrant for several of the cars on the premises and found drugs, digital scales, and 14 guns — one of which was stolen. Police also seized $47,100 in cash, multiple pieces of jewelry, and a cashier’s check worth $300,000 that were in the “No Smoke” rapper’s possession. YoungBoy was arrested that day on three drug charges, including possession and scheduling/manufacturing of drugs, but he has not been indicted in the case at this time.
The rapper has had his fair share of run-ins with the law. In August 2017, YoungBoy was given a three-year probation sentence after State District Judge Bonnie Jackson suspended a 10-year prison term after the rapper pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a firearm during a 2016 nonfatal shooting. He was recently involved in a 2019 shooting in Miami, Florida, that left one person dead. After a gunman opened fire on YoungBoy and his group on Mother’s Day, members of the party returned fire, killing a bystander. No one was charged because they were acting in self-defense.
